Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LAW AND REASONABLENESS The Annual Address before the American Bar Association at Hot Springs, Virginia, on August 27, 1903. Mr. President And Gentlemen Of The American Bar Association: first and most pleasant duty which falls upon me at this time is the acknowledgment of my deep appreciation of the very high honor of the invitation to address you at your annual meeting. I understand it is a law of this Association, established by its founders, that these invitations are not under any circumstances to be declined; and that it has been decreed that this particular law is a command proceeding from a sovereign power, and that ignorance of the law is no excuse. At the same time it must be confessed that obedience to your mandate is not an easy task. Our professional duties are laborious and exacting. Judges, as well as lawyers, are busy men, and time for preparation is limited. Another difficulty, which increases from year to year, is the choice of a subject. We are told that Augustus dealt the final blow to the Responsa Pru- dentum, the "answers of the learned in the law.''The probable cause was that the subjects were exhausted. I need hardly remind you that the answers of the learned in the law during the quarter of a century since this Association began its invaluable work, in the addresses of its presidents, the annual addresses, and the papers read, have so far covered the whole field of jurisprudence that the last three annual responses of the jurisconsults were devoted to the elucidation of a single important topic of national concern. It is, therefore, with much hesitancy that I shall invite your attention to some observations on Law and Reasonableness. The essence and end of law are no doubt truthfully expressed in the maxims: " Law is the perfection of... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.