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The nucleus of the so-called -leges regiae- was probably not much more recent. These were certain precepts chiefly of a ritual nature, which rested upon traditional usage, and were probably promulgated to the general public under the form of royal enactments by the college of pontifices, which was entitled not to legislate but to point out the law.
Unfortunately our Supreme Court have not always put this sound and wise limitation upon their own power. In the case of Post v. Lord Bacon says of retrospective laws: "Cujus generis leges raro et magna cum cautione sunt adhibenda: neque enim placet Janus in legibus." Without any saving clause may the epithet and denunciation be applied to judicial laws.
The proposal was rejected in the famous formula, "Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare," a formula which merely stood for an unreasonable and inhumane obstinacy. The appearance of Luther and the Reformation involved the decay of the Canon law system so far as Europe as a whole was concerned.
Thus the simple-minded colored man, taught to meditate by the solitude which his affliction enforced upon him, speculated in regard to the leges non scripta which control the action of the human mind and condition its progress. "What has put you in this strange mood, Eliab?" asked the teacher wonderingly.
As the Barons of England, once, with unanimous voice, exclaimed, "Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare!" so do all good Masons respond to every attempt at innovation, "We are unwilling to alter the customs of Freemasonry." In relation to the election of officers, a subordinate lodge is allowed to exercise no discretion.
The most penetrating German criticism has recently been directed to these leges Barbarorum, the great object of investigation being to detach those portions of each system which formed the customs of the tribe in its original home from the adventitious ingredients which were borrowed from the laws of the Romans.
Sir John Davies himself is forced to admit it: "When the civil government grew so weak and so loose that the English lords would not suffer the English laws to be executed within their territories and seigniories, but in place thereof both they and their people embraced the Irish customs, then the state of things, like a game at Irish, was so turned about, that the English, who hoped to make a perfect conquest of the Irish, were by them perfectly and absolutely conquered, because Victi victoribus leges dedere."
"How could he fight with one of the clergy?" interrupted Zych. At this the abbot became angry, struck the table with his fist, and exclaimed: "When I wear armor, then I am not a priest, but a nobleman! He did not come because he preferred to have his servants attack me in Tulcza. That is why I wear a sword: Omnes leges, omniaque iura vim vi repellere cunctisque sese defensare permittunt!
The clubs and caucuses, the bribery of the tribes, the intimidation, the organized bands of voters formed out of the clients of the aristocracy, were all at an end. The courts of law were purified. No more judges were to be bought with money or by fouler temptations. The Leges Julias became a practical reality.
Ben Jonson wrote Leges Convivales that were 'engraven in marble over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that being his Club Room. Jonson's Works, ed. 1756, vii. 291. 'To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench In mirth, which after no repenting draws. MILTON. 'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty.
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