Addresses by the Hon Chauncey M Depew, LL D Detroit Chamber of Commerce, May 2, 1895 New York Chamber of Commerce, May 23, 1895 Dinner Tendered Bar Association, Albany, January 21, 1896

Excerpt from Addresses by the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, LL. D: Detroit Chamber of Commerce, May 2, 1895; New York Chamber of Commerce, May 23, 1895; Dinner Tendered by the City of Buffalo, November 8, 1895; New York State Bar Association, Albany, January 21, 1896

Ours is a lawyer's government. It was the agitation by the patriotic members of the pro fession which brought on the Revolutionary War. It was the conservative wisdom of the lawyers which framed the Constitution of the United States. Twenty of our twenty-four presidents have been lawyers, as were twenty four of the fifty-four signers of the Declaration of Independence, and thirty of the fifty-five members of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. A large majority of the members of both houses of Congress, and of both houses of the legisla tures of the several states have always been, and still are, members of the profession.

The checks and safeguards against revolu tionary action which distinguish the institutions of the United States from those of all other democracies are the fruits of the wisdom and foresight of great minds trained to the law. Therefore the sentiment contained in Cicero'sfamous maxim, Silent leges inter arma, is specially pregnant for the hour. Cicero was the greatest lawyer of his time, and of the whole Roman period. Like most of the emi nent members of the bar in our days, he was also an orator and a statesman of the foremost rank. In the forum and in the senate he had fearlessly defended the right and assailed the wrong, and maintained justice and liberty. A craze for conquest had created armies. Won derful victories had made famous generals, and triumphal processions had inflamed and intoxi cated the people. He saw what no other states man of his period did, that beside the captive chained to the chariot of the conqueror as it proudly rolled along the Appian Way with the acclaim of the multitude, stalked also in chains the figure of Roman Liberty. This wrung from him the sentence which has become one of our legal maxims. Caesar crossed the Rubicon. The army and the people gave him dictatorial power. The patriots assassinated him. The army ex ecuted the patriots. The successful general and dictator instructed his soldiers to pursue and kill the great lawyer, not for any crime, but for words spoken in debate in the Senate of Rome for the republic and against its arch enemy.

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