vulnerability, is a demagogue, and he insults the intelligence of the American people. This great reservoir of force for all purposes the American Republic this mightiest engine of war and most beneficent power for peace on the face of the globe, can extend the right hand of fellowship to warring brethren across the Atlantic and promulgate with honor and dignity a scheme for an international tribunal, and lead in the movement.

The first crisis in our national history came soon after the machinery of our government was put in motion by the first president, General Washington. The people demanded a war with England, to help France, when we had neither arms nor credit nor money, and France was powerless and almost bankrupt in her revolutions and her internal and international complications. The United States needed commerce and trade; needed the freedom of the seas; needed the control and improvenment of its rivers and inland lakes for the development of its resources. It required peace, rest, and opportunity to attract immigration, to build its States, to utilize its vast water power, and to bring out its exhaustless treasures from field, forest and mine. The task for peaceful settlement was entrusted to the head of the bar of the United States, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay. With infinite tact, with marvelous wisdom, with judicial candor and legal acumen he performed his immeasurably great duty. For the first time in treaties between nations was inserted, through his influence, a declaration for the adjustment of all disputes between the United States and Great Britain by arbitration. Under the beneficent working of this principle, nearly one international

case a year has been settled during the past eighty years. These cases have excited no comment, because it is only war which illumines the sky, and, in the baleful conflagration which consumes peoples and properties, attracts the attention of the world. General Grant held it to be a crown as glorious as that of Appomattox that he brought about the Genevan arbitration under this clause of the treaty of Chief Justice Jay. The people of the English-speaking nations must get beyond the narrow idea of accidental arbitration for each case as it may occur, with its semipartisan organization, and agree in constituting a permanent international court.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island had a difficulty which in other cases would have led to war or intestinal feuds. It was settled by the Supreme Court of the United States. Missouri and Iowa would be at each other's throats, but the Supreme Court of the United States calmly considered the questions at issue between them, and its judgment was accepted. The question of the liberty of Dred Scott went to this tribunal in the midst of the most passionate political discussions of the century. The decision of the court was against the dominant sentiment of the hour, but it was accepted until legislation and constitutional provisions remedied the difficulty. The great debate over the income tax divided sections and parties, and in the arena of politics the matter was pregnant with political revolutions. The Supreme Court decided the question one way, and one judge of the nine, changing his opinion upon reflection, reversed the judgment. The country at once accepted the decision as the verdict of justice and of right.

Had there been an international Court of Arbitra

tion in the Venezuelan matter, Lord Salisbury could not have pleaded that there was a boundary line embracing territory so long and unquestionably held by the British that they could not in honor submit the question of their title to the court. Both the English

and the Americans have been educated to believe that though anybody may make a claim upon any property, the court can be relied upon to dismiss the complaint, if it is unworthy of being entertained, or disavow jurisdiction, should there be any doubt, or if it considers the matter, to adjust it upon the eternal principles of justice and right. The idea of securing at any early date an international court representing and embracing all the nations of Europe and of North and South America is probably at present Utopian. The tremendous war spirit existing among the peoples of continental Europe, the office holding and patronage of their armies, the problems of race, balance of power and dynasty involved, would deter any of those nations from an immediate acceptance of the international court. But the United States and Great Britain have no reason to be guided by the standards of the continent. They have the same common law. Their legislation has been for the past fifty years along similar lines of progress and liberty. Their courts and methods of procedure are alike in most of their characteristics. The cases reported and principles settled in each country are quoted as authority in the courts of the other. American lawyers have found it not difficult to become great in the English forum, and English, Scotch and Irish lawyers have been successful at the American bar. We speak the same language, we read the same bible and the interests over which we clash are always susceptible of

judicial construction and adjudication upon principles which we mutually understand. It is possible for these two great countries, out of this present difficulty to evolve a tribunal of international law and justice, which shall be in perpetual session, whose members shall be selected with such care, whose dignity shall receive such recognition and whose reputation shall be so great that each nation can submit to it any question in dispute and bow to its decision with safety and honor.

We, the lawyers of the United States, and our brethren, the lawyers of Great Britain, faithful to the traditions of our profession and the high calling of our order, can agitate and educate for the creation of this great court. We recall that even in the days of almost universal assent to the divine authority of kings, Justice Coke could boldly challenge and check the autocratic Charles, with the judgment that the law was superior to the will of the sovereign. Christian teachings and evolution of two thousand years, and the slow and laborious development of the principles of justice, and judgment by proof demand this crowning triumph of ages of sacrifice and struggle. The closing of the nineteenth, the most beneficent and progressive of centuries, would be made glorious by giving to the twentieth this rich lesson and guide for the growth of its humanities and the preservation and perpetuity of civilization and liberty.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23d, 1896.

The Association met, pursuant to adjournment, in the Supervisor's Room, at Albany, N. Y.

The President called the meeting to order and delivered the following address:

ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, HON. WM. H. ROBERTSON.

Gentlemen of the New York State Bar Association:

It

The New York State Bar Association was incorporated by an act of the Legislature in 1877. It has accomplished much. Its usefulness is recognized throughout the State and beyond its limits. stands high in other States. Ralph Stone, the distinguished secretary of the Michigan State Bar Association, who is familiar with the standing of the various State Bar Associations in this country, in an interesting and instructive paper read at our last annual meeting, said: "Your Association stands easily at the head of such organizations in the character of its membership, in its services to the law, and in utility to the profession. You are known everywhere throughout the United States as the leading State Bar Association in the country in every respect, and that the lawyers of other States look up to you as a pattern worthy of imitation." Hon. Henry B. Brown, a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, recently said: "The Bar Association of the State of New York, if it had no other title to fame, the stand it has taken with regard to two or three questions of public interest, and with regard to the appointment of two or three men, at different times, would have vin