Since the classical period of Roman law there has never been a constitution of affairs more apt to foster the free and intelligent criticism of legal authorities, the untrammelled play of legal speculation and analysis, than now exists in the States of the American Union, where law is developed under many technically independent jurisdictions, but in deference and conformity to a common ideal.
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'English Opportunities in Historical and Comparative Jurisprudence', an inaugural lecture delivered at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (20 October 1883), quoted in Frederick Pollock, Oxford Lectures and Other Discourses (1890), pp. 48-49