But if delays and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions.  It was in the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight with which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of business, that the Romans in their civil and social relations were very much on a level with modern times.  It would be difficult to find in the most enlightened of modern codes greater wisdom and foresight than appear in the legacy of Justinian as to all questions pertaining to the nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of property.  Civil obligations are most admirably defined, and all contracts are determined by the wisest application of the natural principles of justice.  Nothing can be more enlightened than the laws which relate to leases, to sales, to partnerships, to damages, to pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi-contracts.  The laws pertaining to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights of wards, to legacies, to bequests in trust, and to the general limitation of testamentary powers were singularly clear.  The regulations in reference to intestate succession, and to the division of property among males and females, were wise and just; we find no laws of entail, no unequal rights, no absurd distinction between brothers, no peculiar privileges given to males over females, or to older sons.  Particularly was everything pertaining to property and contracts and wills guarded with the most jealous care.  A man was sure of possessing his own, and of transmitting it to his children.  In the Institutes of Justinian we see on every page a regard to the principles of natural justice:  but moreover we find that malicious witnesses should be punished; that corrupt judges should be visited with severe penalties; that libels and satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.

No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated.  A citizen was free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed, and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances.  If he was injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily defrauded with the sanction of the laws.  A rigorous police guarded his person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled within his family.  This security to property and life and personal rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants.  Although political liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of the most important departments of life reached perfection.  If injustice was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers; the laws were wise and equal.  The civil jurisprudence of the Romans could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States; indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in France and Germany.