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'''[[w:Law|Law]]''' is a term referring to sociological or scientific norms, or established systems of expression based upon them. In social or political terms, the [[rule of law]] refers to a [[system]] of [[rules]] created and [[w:Law enforcement|enforced]] through [[Social institutions|social]] or {{w|governmental institutions}} to regulate [[Human behavior|behavior]].
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{{TOCalpha|[[#Anonymous|Anonymous]] · ''[[#Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations|Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations]]'' · ''[[#The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904)|Dictionary of Legal Quotations]]'' ·
''[[#Respectfully Quoted (1989)|Respectfully Quoted]]''}} == A==
[[File:Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne.jpg|thumb|'''An unjust law is no law at all.''' ~ [[Augustine of Hippo]] ]]
[[File:Aung_San_Suu_Kyi_December_2011_(cropped).jpg|thumb|The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression', human rights should be protected by the rule of law. ~ [[Aung San Suu Kyi]] ]]
[[File:Nice look AA.jpg|thumb|
* Law is a system of rules and regulations established by a society or government to maintain order and ensure justice. It governs behavior, resolves disputes, and imposes penalties for violations. ~
[[Akhtar Aly Kureshy]]]]
* The more [[corrupt]] a [[society]], the more numerous its laws.
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[[File:Brandeis office 1916.jpg|thumb|If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become [[Individualism|a law unto himself]]. It invites [[anarchism|anarchy]]. ~ [[Louis Brandeis]] ]]
[[File:JoshuaReynoldsParty.jpg|thumb|Laws, like houses, lean on one another. ~ [[Edmund Burke]] ]]
* All those which have written of laws, have written either as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths; and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high. For the lawyers, they write according to the states where they live what is received law, and not what ought to be law: for the wisdom of a lawmaker is one, and of a lawyer is another.
** [[Francis Bacon]], ''Advancement of Learning'' (1605), Works, III, p. 475
* It was a thing not to be done suddenly nor at one Parliament; nor scarce a whole year would suffice, to purge the statute-book nor lessen the volume of laws;-being so many in number that neither common people can half practise them, nor the lawyer sufficiently understand them.
** [[Francis Bacon]], recommending "an abridgment of the laws and statutes of the realm," Speech to Parliament, 1593, in ''The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon'', p. 214
* ''La loi est bonne, elle est nécessaire, l'exécution en est mauvaise, et les mœurs jugent les lois d'après la manière dont elles s'exécutent.''
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** [[Henry Ward Beecher]], ''Life Thoughts'' (1858), p. 34.
* The Invariability of Law. That we live in a realm of law, that we arc surrounded by laws that we cannot break, this is a truism. Yet when the fact is recognised in a real and vital way, and when it is seen to be a fact in the mental and moral world as much as in the physical, a certain sense of helplessness is apt to overpower us, as though we felt ourselves in the grip of some mighty Power, that, seizing us, whirls us away whither it will. The very reverse of this is in reality the case, for the mighty Power, when it is understood, will obediently carry us whither we will; all forces in Nature can be used in proportion as they are understood “Nature is conquered by obedience ” — and her resistless energies are at our bidding as soon as we, by knowledge, work with them and not against them. We can choose out of her boundless stores the forces that serve our purpose in momentum, in direction, and so on, and their very invariability becomes the guarantee of our success. p. 6
** [[Annie Besant]], [https://archive.org/details/TheosophicalManualsNoIVKarma Theosophical Manuals No IV: ''Karma'', by Annie Besant] (1895)
* On the invariability of law depend the security of scientific experiment, and all power of planning a result and of predicting the future. On this the chemist rests, sure that Nature will ever respond in the same way, if he be precise in putting his questions. A variation in his results is taken by him as implying a change in his procedure, not a change in Nature. And so with all human action; the more it is based on knowledge, the more secure is it in its forecastings, for all “accident" is the result of ignorance, and is due to the working of laws whose presence was unknown or overlooked. In the mental and moral worlds, as much as in the physical, results can be foreseen, planned for, calculated on. Nature never betrays us; we are betrayed by our own blindness. p. 7
** [[Annie Besant]], [https://archive.org/details/TheosophicalManualsNoIVKarma Theosophical Manuals No IV: ''Karma'', by Annie Besant] (1895)
* That law should be as invariable in the mental and moral worlds as in the physical is to be expected, since the universe is the emanation of the One, and what we call Law is but the expression of the Divine Nature. As there is one Lite emanating all, so there is one Law sustaining all ; the worlds rest on this rock of the Divine Nature as on a secure, immutable foundation. p.7
** [[Annie Besant]], [https://archive.org/details/TheosophicalManualsNoIVKarma Theosophical Manuals No IV: ''Karma'', by Annie Besant] (1895)
* This assurance that '''perfect Justice rules the world''' finds support from the increasing knowledge of the evolving Soul; for as it advances and begins to see on higher planes and to transmit its knowledge to the waking consciousness, we learn with ever-growing certainty, and therefore with ever-increasing joy, that the Good Law is working with undeviating accuracy, that its Agents apply it everywhere with unerring insight, with unfailing strength, and that all is therefore very well with the world and with its struggling Souls.
** [[Annie Besant]], Theosophical Manuals No IV: ''Karma'', by Annie Besant (1895)
* Such is an outline of the great Law of [[Karma]] and of its workings, by a knowledge of which a man may accelerate his evolution, by the utilization of which a man may free himself from bondage, and become, long ere his race has trodden its course, one of the Helpers and Saviours of the World. A deep and steady conviction of the truth of this Law gives to life an immovable serenity and a perfect fearlessness: nothing can touch us that we have not wrought, nothing can injure us that we have not merited. And as everything that we have sown must ripen into harvest in due season, and must be reaped, it is idle to lament over the reaping when it is painful; it may as well be done now as at any future time, since it cannot be evaded, and, once done, it cannot return to trouble us again.
** [[Annie Besant]], ''Karma'', (1895) Ch. XIII, Conclusion
* Ere man could know what was right, he had to learn the existence of the law, and this he could only learn by following all that attracted him in the outer world, by grasping every desirable object, and then by learning from experience, sweet or bitter, whether his delight was in harmony or in conflict with the law. Let us take an obvious example, the taking of pleasant food, and see how infant man might learn there from the presence of a natural law. At the first taking, his hunger was appeased, his taste was gratified, and only pleasure resulted from the experience, for his action was in harmony with law. On another occasion, desiring to increase pleasure, he ate overmuch and suffered in consequence, for he transgressed against the law. A confusing experience to the dawning intelligence, how the pleasurable became painful by excess.
** [[Annie Besant]], [[Annie_Besant#The_Ancient_Wisdom_(1897)|''The Ancient Wisdom'']], Chapter VII, Reincanation, (1897)
* Over and over again he would be led by desire into excess, and each time he would experience the painful consequences, until at last he learned moderation, i.e., he learned to conform his bodily acts in this respect to physical law; for he found that there were conditions which affected him and which he could not control, and that only by observing them could physical happiness be insured. Similar experiences flowed in upon him through all the bodily organs, with undeviating regularity; his outrushing desires brought him pleasure or pain just as they worked with the laws of Nature or against them, and, as experience increased, it began to guide his steps, to influence his choice. It was not as though he had to begin his experience anew with every life, for on each [[Reincarnation|new birth]] he brought with him mental faculties a little increased, and ever-accumulating store.
** [[Annie Besant]], [[Annie_Besant#The_Ancient_Wisdom_(1897)|''The Ancient Wisdom'']], Chapter VII, Reincanation, (1897)
* A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
** [[Ambrose Bierce]]. 'Industrial Discontent', ''The Shadow on the Dial and other Essays'' (1909).
* [L]aw neither reflects nor distorts a social world of subjects that exists independent of it. Instead, law helps compose the social world.
** Guyora Binder and Robert Weisberg, “Cultural Criticism of Law”, “Stanford Law Review 49 (1997): 1152; as quoted in Thomas R. Kearns (August 2002). [https://books.google.com/books?id=J_9YVh0QmUQC “History, Memory, and the Law”]. University of Michigan Press. Footnote 8, p.3
* The law is not a "light" for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which so long as he keeps to it a citizen may walk safely.
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* It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.
** [[Calvin Coolidge]], "[[s:Calvin Coolidge's Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence|Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence]]", 5 July 1926.
* Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imagined necessities... are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretenses to break known rules by.
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**Laws are created to be followed<br>by the poor.<br>Laws are made by the rich<br>to bring some order to exploitation.<br>The poor are the only law abiders in history.<br>When the poor make laws<br>the rich will be no more.
*** [[Roque Dalton]], ''Poema de Amor''
* The law of [[Jehovah]] is perfect, restoring strength. The reminder of Jehovah is trustworthy, making the inexperienced one wise.▼
** [[David]], [http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/19/19#h=331:0-333:0 Psalm 19:7], [[New World Translation]].▼
* Make every private Sentinel, every Musquetier, both Judge, Jury, and Executioner.
** [[Daniel Defoe]], "Memoirs of the Church of Scotland" (1717).
* Even if laws are neutrally applied to all, they are still unjust when they are applied to seek immoral ends. It is unacceptable and dangerous when laws undermine [[marriage]], destroy [[life]], or promote false understandings of life and the human person. It doesn’t matter if 51 percent of the population supports it — majority support does not make a law good, tolerable, or legitimate.
▲* The law of [[Jehovah]] is perfect, restoring strength. The reminder of Jehovah is trustworthy, making the inexperienced one wise.
** Frank DeVito, [https://thefederalist.com/2023/12/13/powerful-pro-abortion-democrats-single-out-life-giving-religious-groups-for-legal-persecution/ "Powerful Pro-Abortion Democrats Single Out Life-Giving Religious Groups For Legal Persecution"], ''The Federalist'' (December 13, 2023)
▲** [[David]], [http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/19/19#h=331:0-333:0 Psalm 19:7], [[New World Translation]].
* Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
** ''Declaration of the Rights of Man'', France 1789, Fourth
* "If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is a ass, a idiot." If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience".
** [[Charles Dickens]], ''Oliver Twist'' (first published serially 1837–1839; 1970 edition), chapter 51, p. 489.
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==F==
[[File:American law digests.jpg|thumb|If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. ~ [[Felix Frankfurter]] ]]
* Let me make the ballads of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.
** Variant from [[Andrew Fletcher]], ''An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind'', 1703
* ''La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.''
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<!--[[File:Kropotkin PA.jpg|thumb|If you analyze the law and strip off those cloudy fictions with which it has been draped in order to conceal its real origin, which is the right of the stronger, and its substance, which has ever been the consecration of all the tyrannies handed down to mankind through its long and bloody history; when you have comprehended this, your contempt for the law will be profound indeed. ~ [[Peter Kropotkin]]]]-->
<!--[[File:Ancient version of the Taijitu by Lai Zhi-De, sideways.svg|thumb|All of our punishment institutions, including jails, laws, church confessionals, and so forth, are systems of illusion. The order of the universe, the infinite justice of yin and yang, naturally takes care of all motion and compensation. We don't need to invent arbitrary ways to make balance with punishments. ~ [[Michio Kushi]] ]]-->
* Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth Amendment]] or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of [[liberty]] in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew '''times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress.''' As the [[Constitution of the United States|Constitution]] endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.
** [[Anthony Kennedy]], ''[[w:Lawrence v. Texas|Lawrence v. Texas]]'', [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=02-102 539 U.S. 558] (26 June 2003).
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==L==
<!--[[File:Tinker Bell Levitation.jpg|thumb|The law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity. ~ [[R. A. Lafferty]] ]]-->
[[File:Abraham Lincoln at Home 1865.jpg |thumb|Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. ~ [[Abraham Lincoln]] ]]
[[File:Statue of Liberty in front of setting sun, 22 December 2002.jpg|thumb|The [[end]] of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge [[freedom]]. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. ~ [[John Locke]] ]]
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*Certain broad facts are always put before men in some form or other. They are explained even to savage tribes by their medicine-men, and to the rest of mankind by various religious teachers and in all kinds of scriptures. It is very true that scriptures and religions differ, but the points in which they all agree have to be accepted by a man before he can understand life sufficiently to live happily. One of these facts is '''the eternal Law of Cause and Effect'''. If a man lives under the delusion that he can do anything that he likes, and that the effect of his actions will never recoil upon himself, he will most certainly find that some of these actions eventually involve him in unhappiness and suffering. **[[C.W. Leadbeater]], (Speaking about the [[Four Noble Truths]] in [[The Masters and the Path|''The Masters and the Path'']] (1925) p. 306
* '''[T]o violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed... When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, or that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible.. There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.'''
**[[Abraham Lincoln]], [[:Wikisource:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln/Volume 3/The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions|An Address Delivered Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Ill. January 27, 1837]]
* The [[end]] of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge [[freedom]]. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.
** [[John Locke]], ''Second Treatise of Government'', Ch. VI, sec. 57.
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[[File:Nelson Mandela, 2000 (5).jpg|thumb|right|Equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed. ~ [[Nelson Mandela]]]]
[[File:Law place du Palais-Bourbon Paris.jpg|thumb|Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things. ~ [[Montesquieu]] ]]
[[File:Charles Montesquieu.jpg|thumb|right|Useless laws weaken the [[necessary]] laws. ~ [[Montesquieu]] ]]
* The reason of a commandment, whether positive or negative, is clear, and its usefulness evident, if it directly tends to remove injustice, or to teach good conduct that furthers the well-being of society, or to impart a truth which ought to be believed either on its own merit or as being indispensable for facilitating the removal of injustice or the teaching of good morals. There is no occasion to ask for the object of such commandments; for no one can, ''e.g.'', be in doubt as to the reason why we have been commanded to believe that God is one; why we are forbidden to murder, steal, and to take vengeance, or to retaliate, or why we are commanded to love one another. But there are precepts concerning which people are in doubt, and of divided opinions, some believing they are mere commands, and serve no purpose whatever, whilst others believe that they serve a certain purpose, which, however is unknown to man. Such are those precepts which in their literal meaning do not seem to further any of the three above-named results: to impart some truth, to teach some moral, or to remove injustice. They do not seem to have any influence upon the well-being of the soul by imparting any truth, or upon the well-being of the body by suggesting such ways and rules as are useful in the government of a state, or in the management of a household. ... I will show that all these and similar laws must have some bearing upon one of the following three things, viz., the regulation of our opinions, or the improvement of our social relations, which implies two things, the removal of injustice, and the teaching of good morals.
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**[[C. Wright Mills]], ''Power, Politics, and People'', "A Diagnosis of Our Moral Uneasiness."
* '''Useless laws weaken the [[necessary]] laws.'''
* Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.▼
** [[Montesquieu]], ''The Spirit of the Laws'' (1748), Book XXIX: Of the Manner of Composing Laws, Chapter 16: Things to be Observed in the Composing of Laws
▲* '''Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.'''
** [[Montesquieu]], reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, ''Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers'' (1895), p. 375.
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* '''The first essential of civilization is law. Anarchy is simply the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny and despotism. Law and order enforced with justice and by strength lie at the foundations of civilization. Law must be based upon justice, else it cannot stand, and it must be enforced with resolute firmness, because weakness in enforcing it means in the end that there is no justice and no law, nothing but the rule of disorderly and unscrupulous strength. Without the habit of orderly obedience to the law, without the stern enforcement of the laws at the expense of those who defiantly resist them, there can be no possible progress, moral or material, in civilization. There can be no weakening of the law-abiding spirit here at home, if we are permanently to succeed; and just as little can we afford to show weakness abroad.'''
** [[Theodore Roosevelt]], The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses, Chapter ''National Duties'', [http://www.jonesmansion.com/history/speechon.htm Address at the Minnesota State Fair, St. Paul, 2 September 1901]
*For my part, I never knew a social evil to be removed by force of law...The prevention of that social evil must commence in the nursery. If you will bring up woman as you ought to bring up men—not as you do bring up men—acknowledging her right to live the same as men, giving her the same advantages and the same rights that men have, there will be no need to enact laws against a "social evil…I say to the Legislature that, if you enact laws against social evils, whatever those laws are, let them be alike for man and for woman.
**[[Ernestine Rose]] [https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/address-to-the-first-anniversary-of-the-american-equal-rights-association-may-9-1867-2/ Address] to the First Anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association (May 9, 1867)
*'''Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void - is, in fact, not a law. '''
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* No man e'er felt the halter draw,<br>With good opinion of the law.
** [[John Trumbull (poet)|John Trumbull]], ''[[w:McFingal|McFingal]]'', Canto iii (1782), line 489.
* Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define [[right and wrong]] and to have that definition legitimized by “law.” This is not to say that “might makes right,” but it is to say that Might makes Law.
** [[Kwame Ture]] and [[Charles V. Hamilton]], {{cite book |title={{w|Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America}} |date=1967 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-394-70033-5 |page=95}}
==U==
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* '''He it was that first gave to the law the air of a science. He found it a skeleton, and clothed it with life, colour, and complexion; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch it grew into youth, health, and beauty.'''
** [[w:Barry Yelverton|Barry Yelverton]] (Lord Avonmore), on Blackstone.
=="History, Memory, and the Law" (August 2002)==
<small> Thomas R. Kearns (August 2002). [https://books.google.com/books?id=J_9YVh0QmUQC “History, Memory, and the Law”]. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-08899-7. </small>
* Generally when [[scholars]] talk about the relationship between [[history]], [[memory]], and law, the latter is thought of solely as a passive object of historical change. Legal history is regarded as the study of the forces that have shaped law. It is the history of the evolution of law with law perpetually lagging behind society and being pushed and pulled from the outside. This view, as rich and productive as it is, ignores what might be called an “internal” perspective, one that would examine law for the way it uses and writes history as well as for the ways in which it also become a site of memory and [[commemoration]].
** Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns, “Writing History and Registering Memory in Legal Decisions and Legal Practices: An Introduction”, pp.1-2
* While law responds to [[historical]] [[change]], it also makes history. Law [[writes]] the [[past]], not just its own past, but the past for those over whom law seeks to exercise its [[dominion]]. Law constructs a that it wants to present as [[authoritative]], when, as Laura Kalman argues, no historian “considers the past authoritative.” And law uses history to tell us who we are.
** Laura Kalman, “Strange Career”, 180; quoted in as quoted in p.3
* Law [[looks]] to the [[past]] as it [[speaks]] to [[present]] [[needs]]. In the adjudication of every dispute, law traffics in the slippery terrain of [[memory]], as different versions of past events are presented for [[authoritative]] [[judgment]]. Moreover, in the production of supposedly definitive statements of what the law is in the form of [[w:Judicial opinion|judicial opinions]], law reconstructs its own past, tracing out lines of [[precedent]] to their “compelling” conclusion. The relationship of law to [[history]] is thus complex and multidirectional.
** pp.3-4
* While there is contest about the meaning of the [[past]], of the precise relevance of law’s [[history]], to its [[present]], there is little dispute about the place of an historical sensibility in legal decision making.
** p.9
* To talk about law and collective memory is almost immediately to conjure images of the show trial where individual rights and truth were sacrificed in the service of political goals. Mark Osiel notes that <br> acts asserting legal rights or officially stigmatizing their violation have often become a focal point for the collective memory of whole [[nations]]. These acts often become [[secular]] [[rites]] of [[commemoration]]. As such, they consolidate shared memories with increasing deliberateness and sophistication. These events are both “real” and “staged.” In this regard, they seem to problematize the very distinction between [[true]] and [[false]] representations of [[reality]].
** Mark Osiel, Mass Atrocity, Collective Memory, and the Law (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1997), p.6; as quoted on p.11
* In the classic, liberal conception, [[justice]] requires [[impartial]] adjudication of [[claims]] and [[accusations]]. The sole [[question]] with which law should concern itself is whether, according to the [[evidence]] presented and the rules of [[proof]], someone “did” what they were accused of doing or some event did or did not happen. How the result serves particular collective memories is an illegitimate consideration, the introduction of which may distort those values. Playing our larger issues in [[culture]] and [[politics]] through the [[trial]] seems, if we take the liberal view seriously, a misuse of the judicial process. <br> But the relationship of law and collective [[memory]] need not simply be discussed in terms of these normative concerns, namely whether it is right intentionally to use legal processes in the effort to create or vindicate collective memory. We might also approach the relationship between law and collective memory in a more descriptive vein and ask how and where law [[remembers]] as well as how and where it helps us remember.
** pp.11-12
* In the [[present]] moment, as Nora reminds us, [[memory] is “above all archival. It relies on the materiality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image. . . . Even as traditional memory disappears, we feel obliged assiduously to collect remains, testimonies, documents, images, speeches, any visible signs of what has been.” Museums, monuments, and so on are today, Nora argues, the locations of memory, the sites to which collective memory is attached. If that is indeed the case, one might ask whether law itself might be one of what Nora calls “les lieux de memoire.” <br> Here our interest is directed to the temporal dimension of legality, the way law stands in relation to the past, the present, and the future. Law in the modern era is, we believe, one of the most important of ur society’s technologies for preserving memory. Just as the use of precedent to legitimate legal decisions fixes law in a aprticular relation to the past, memory may be attached, or attach itself, to law and be preserved in and through law. Where this is the case, it serves as one way of orienting ourselves to the future. As Drucilla Cornell puts it: “Legal interpretation demands that we remember the future.” In that phrase, Cornell reminds us that there are, in fact, two [[audiences]] for every legal act, the audience of the present and the audience of the future. Law materializes memory in documents, transcripts, written opinions; it reenacts the past, both intentionally and unconsciously, and it is one place where the present speaks to the future through acts of commemoration.
** pp.12-13
* “Legal documents . . . are written to be preserved and consulted . . . . The form and syntax of a legal document, whether from the twelfth century or the twentieth, reflect the form and syntax of other written documents” (Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, 9). Footnote 61, p.12
** p.12
* Law [[memorializes]] not just in its archival activities, but in acts that give particular [[meanings]] to our past. In every legal act there is an invitation to [[remember]]; in the [[testimony]] of the [[witnesses]] at the [[trial]], in the [[instructions]] a [[judge]] gives to a [[jury]], in particular [[interpretive]] [[theories]], and in the [[monumental]] [[buildings]] that house our [[courts]] as well as our [[prisons]], there is an insistent call to remember.
** p.13
* The essays in “History, Memory and the Law” address this subject, each in its own distinctive voice. They present grounded examinations of particular problems, places, and practices rather than grand theories. In so doing they address the ways in which memory works in and through law, the sites of [[remembrance]] that law provides, the [[battles]] against [[forgetting]] that are [[fought]] in and around those sites. Here we attend to what Lucie White has labeled both the “[[epic]]” style of remembering the past, the “grand, monumental, Manichean style . . . that splits the world, morally, along temporal lines,” as well as to what she calls the “[[tragic]]” style of remembering. This style, White claims, “teases out the multiple, tangled, always partial threads that comprise the space where ‘[[civility]]’ has been enacted and resisted and reshaped.” This kind of remembering spurns “grand gestures.” It remembers in “grounded, gradual ways.” It makes the accomplishments of the past more hard fought, more tentative, more elusive, and more deeply intertwined with the [[moral]] [[horrors]] to which it insists we attend. <br> The essays in this book also inquire about the way history is mobilized in legal decision making, the rhetorical techniques for marshaling and for overcoming precedent, and the different histories that are written in and through the legal process. Among the questions that they address are, How are the histories and memories created by law different by virtue of the site of their creation? Through what representational practices are the seeming continuities between past and present that are necessary to legitimize legal decisions constructed and preserved? Whose histories and memories “count” in law? What does history do to and for, law, and what does law do to history? Under what conditions do legal institutions, such as courts or prisons, becomes sites of memory?
** p.14 quoting Lucie White, “Why Do You Treat Us So Badly?’ On Loss, Remembrance, and Responsibility,” Cumberland Law Review 26 (1996): 812; Id., 813
* The essays in “History, Memory, and the Law” deploy a wide range of [[theories]] in diverse [[contexts]] to show law’s role in [[commemoration]] and the ways it constructs its own history. Yet each illuminates the limits of law as a site of [[memory]] and as a reader and interpreter of history. Each also highlights it flexibility, responsiveness, and adaptability. No memory, no matter how important or powerful it would seem to be, reliably can be preserved in and through legal decisions and institutions. No memory, no matter how powerful or important it would seem to be, reliably can make its presence felt to open up, to correct, or to control law. And similarly, the history that law constructs, as well as the techniques used to construct, cannot ensure a certain outcome. Law’s history and its hermeneutics are neither linear nor immune to [[improvisations]], [[inventions]], and ingeniously [[artful]] readings. To study history and memory in law, then, is to be reminded of law’s almost inexhaustible capacity to be, and do, many [[complex]] and [[contradictory]] things, all the while denying the contradictions and plausibly proclaiming its “formal existence.”
** p.24 quoting Fish, “Law Wishes to Have"
==''The Dictionary of Legal Quotations'' (1904)==
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