«No civilized society can do without lawyers.»
Quoted in David G. McCullough, JOHN ADAMS at 591 (Simon & Schuster 2001) (citing family letters).
John Adams (1735-1826) — the second president of the United States of America, diplomat, statesman, prime-mover of the Declaration of Independence, and author of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — was first a lawyer. Without reading too much into Adams’s statement, it might be argued that Adams knew that the freedoms and rights we enjoy under our democratic, constitutional system of government can best be preserved by those skilled in the law giving assistance to those who need it most.
Adams might have been thinking of his own travails as a trial lawyer. Adams famously took on the defense of the British officer and eight soldiers who had been charged with killing five civilians in the infamous “Boston Massacre” of March 5, 1770. The jury trial resulted in seven acquittals and two manslaughter convictions, and popular sentiment widely condemned the results. Adams knew that being a lawyer did not always involve being on the popular side.
«‘Facts are stubborn things,’ [Adams] told the jury, ‘and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.’» Id. at 68.
