In a footnote in the Works of John Adams, it makes the comment that the eight lawyers mentioned by Adams as being in his circle did not side with the Americans during the Revolution. In his words,
“It is a curious fact, that, of eight persons here named as actively engaged at the bar at this period, only one, the writer himself, liveed through the Revolution as an advocate of American Independence.” p. 143I don’t have any way of knowing how many lawyers, judges, and government officials fled the colonies as the revolution began and stayed gone after the victory was won. I know massive numbers of people fled to Canada. There are others that moved back to Great Britain. My feeling is that a large percentage of these were members of what we would call the justice system. I’m thinking that if that’s the case, it was like purging yourself of food poisoning.
It’s very possible that one of the reasons that we survived as a new nation and developed a unique form of government was because all of the number who deserted what they considered a sinking ship. The lawyers and the judges were a vital part of the control of the people. When they left new people had to be appointed, and these were chosen more by the citizens than by the king.
It might be a good time to have another purge. We talked about deporting illegals. Might now be a good idea to also deport the “legals”.
Adams, John. The Works of John Adams, Volume 1. Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 1992.
homo unius libri
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.