When the pilgrim from Kansas arrives at an ancient English inn he feels that he must be on his good behavior.  Boots in his green apron is a lesson to him.  He is not like a Western hotel bell-boy on the way to becoming something else.  He knows his place.  Everybody, he imagines, in this country knows his place, and there is no unseemly crowding and pushing.  And what stronger proof can there be that this is a land where law is reverenced than the demeanor of a London policeman.  There is no truculence about him, no show of physical force.  He is so mild-eyed and soft of speech that one feels that he has been shielded from rude contact with the world.  He represents the Law in a land where law is sacred.  He is instinctively obeyed.  He has but to wave his hand and traffic stops.

When the traveler is told that in the vicinity of the House of Commons traffic is stopped to allow a Member to cross the street, his admiration increases.  Fancy a Congressman being treated with such respect!  But the argument which, on the whole, makes the deepest impression is the deferential manners of the tradesmen with their habit of saying, “Thank you,” apropos of nothing at all.  It seems an indication of perpetual gratitude over the fact that things are as they are.

But when one comes to listen to the talk of the day one is surprised to find a surprising lack of docility.  I doubt whether the Englishman has the veneration for the abstract idea of Law which is common among Americans.  Indeed, he is accustomed to treat most abstractions with scant courtesy.  There is nothing quite corresponding to the average American’s feeling about a decision of the Supreme Court.  The Law has spoken, let all the land keep silent.  It seems like treason to criticize it, like anarchy to defy it.

Tennyson’s words about “reverence for the laws ourselves have made” needs to be interpreted by English history.  It is a peculiar kind of reverence and has many limitations.  A good deal depends on what is meant by “ourselves.”  An act of Parliament does not at once become an object of reverence by the members of the opposition party.  It was not, they feel, made by them, it was made by a Government which was violently opposed to them and which was bent on ruining the country.

It is only after a sufficient time has elapsed to allow for the partisan origin to be forgotten, and for it to become assimilated to the habits of thought and manner of life of the people that it is deeply respected.  The English reverence is not for statute law, but for the common law which is the slow accretion of ages.  A new enactment is treated like the new boy at school.  He must submit to a period of severe hazing before he is given a place of any honor.

To the American when an act of Congress has been declared constitutional, a decent respect for the opinion of mankind seems to suggest that verbal criticism should cease.  The council of perfection is that the law should be obeyed till such time as it can be repealed or explained away.  If it should become a dead letter, propriety would demand that no evil should be spoken of it.  Since the days of Andrew Jackson the word “nullification” has had an ugly and dangerous sound.