There is, alas! no such thing as a government of laws and not of men.

You may have a government more of laws and less of men, or vice versa, but you cannot have an auto-administration of the Golden Rule.

Sooner or later you come to a man--in the White House, or on a wool sack, or at a desk in an office, or in a blue coat and brass buttons--and then, to a very considerable extent, the question of how far ours is to be a government of laws or of men depends upon him.

Generally, so far as he is concerned, it is going to be of man, for every official finds that the letter of the law works an injustice many times out of a hundred.

If he is worth his salary he will try to temper justice with mercy.