William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield: Difference between revisions
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* Tut, man, decide promptly, but never give any reasons for your decisions. Your decisions may be right, but your reasons are sure to be wrong.
** When asked by an army officer, appointed governor of a west Indies island and who had no experience in law, how to apply the law. Quoted by [[w:John Cordy Jeaffreson|John Cordy Jeaffreson]] in ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=lUpqPJSlBS8C&q="tut+man+decide+promptly+but+never+give+any+reasons+for+your+decisions+your+decisions+may+be+right+but+your+reasons+are+sure+to+be+wrong"&pg=PA85#v=onepage A Book About Lawyers]'', Volume 1 (1867).
==Quotes about Lord Mansfield==
*I see through your whole life, one uniform plan to enlarge the power of the crown, at the expense of the liberty of the subject. To this object, your thoughts, words and actions have been constantly directed. In contempt or ignorance of the common law of England, you have made it your study to introduce into the court, where you preside, maxims of jurisprudence unknown to Englishmen. The Roman code, the law of nations, and the opinion of foreign civilians, are your perpetual theme;—but whoever heard you mention [[Magna Carta|Magna Charta]] or the [[w:Bill of Rights 1689|Bill of Rights]] with approbation or respect? By such treacherous arts, the noble simplicity and free spirit of our Saxon laws were first corrupted. The Norman conquest was not compleat, until Norman lawyers had introduced their laws, and reduced slavery to a system.—This one leading principle directs your interpretation of the laws, and accounts for your treatment of juries.
**[[Junius]], Letter XLI (14 November 1770), quoted in ''The Letters of Junius'', ed. John Cannon (1978), pp. 208–209
*"The great Lord Mansfield"...is more worthy of honour and reverence than most of those who are his neighbours among the monuments in Westminster Abbey. What glory to have found the law of evidence of brick and left it of marble! I pulled down the volume of [[Edmund Burke|Burke]] for his encomium on Mansfield, as one whose ideas went to the growing melioration of the law by making its liberality keep pace with justice and the actual concerns of the world—not restricting the infinitely diversified occasions of man, and the rules of natural justice, within artificial circumscriptions, but conforming our jurisprudence to the growth of our commerce and our empire.
**[[John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn|John Morley]], statement (26 October 1893), quoted in John Morley, ''Recollections, Volume I'' (1917), p. 375
==External links==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mansfield, William Murray, 1st Earl Of}}
[[Category:1705 births]]
[[Category:1793 deaths]]
[[Category:Judges from Scotland]]
[[Category:Politicians from Scotland]]
[[Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain]]
[[Category:University of Oxford alumni]]
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