for half a century; that is all I wish for.  No Constitution that you can make will last the one-half of half a century.  Sir, I will stake anything, short of my salvation, that those who are malcontent now, will be more malcontent, three years hence, than they are at this day.  I have no favor for this Constitution.  I shall vote against its adoption, and I shall advise all the people of my district to set their faces, aye, and their shoulders, too, against it.

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From “Letters to a young Relative.”

=_75._= THE ERROR OF DECAYED FAMILIES.

One of the best and wisest men I ever knew has often said to me that a decayed family could never recover its loss of rank in the world, until the members of it left off talking and dwelling upon its former opulence.  This remark, founded in a long and clear observation of mankind, I have seen verified in numerous instances in my own connections, who, to use the words of my oracle, will never thrive until they can become poor folks.  He added, they may make some struggles, and with apparent success, to recover lost ground; they may, and sometimes do, get half way up again; but they are sure to fall back, unless, reconciling themselves to circumstances, they become in form, as well as in fact, poor folks.

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=_James Kent, 1763-1847._= (Manual, pp. 488, 504.)

From “Commentaries on American Law.”

=_76._= LAW OF THE STATES.

The judicial power of the United States is necessarily limited to national objects.  The vast field of the law of property, the very extensive head of equity jurisdiction, and the principal rights and duties which flow from our civil and domestic relations, fall within the control, and we might almost say the exclusive cognizance, of the state governments.  We look essentially to the state courts for protection to all these momentous interests.  They touch, in their operation, every chord of human sympathy, and control our best destinies.  It is their province to reward and to punish.  Their blessings and their terrors will accompany us to the fireside, and “be in constant activity before the public eye.”  The elementary principles of the common law are the same in every state, and equally enlighten and invigorate every part of our country.  Our municipal codes can be made to advance with equal steps with that of the nation, in discipline, in wisdom, and in lustre, if the state governments (as they ought in all honest policy) will only render equal patronage and security to the administration of justice.  The true interests and the permanent freedom of this country require that the jurisprudence of the individual states should be cultivated, cherished, and exalted, and the dignity and reputation of the state authorities sustained, with becoming pride.  In their subordinate relation to the United States, they should endeavor to discharge the duty which they owe to the latter, without forgetting the respect which they owe to themselves.  In the appropriate language of Sir William Blackstone, and which he applies to the people of his own country, they should be “loyal, yet free; obedient, yet independent.”