American jurisprudence and of American jurisprudence itself.
Occasionally some case arises which involves large political
questions, or one of especial local interest. The opinion is
then read more widely. The newspapers seize it: reviews take it
up. It is not always easy to anticipate what decision will
become a matter of public notoriety; what opinion will be quoted
as an authority in other States; and what drop unnoticed except
by the lawyers in the cause. A judge, therefore, though he have
no better motive than personal ambition, is apt to do his best in
every case to state the grounds of his conclusions clearly and in
order. A certain style of American judicial opinion has thus
grown up. It is dogmatic. It offers no apologies. There is
neither time nor need for them. The writer speaks "as one having
authority." He does not argue out conclusions previously settled
by former precedents, but contents himself with a reference to
the case in the reports in which the precedent is to be found.
He is as brief as he dares to be without risking obscurity.

It is undoubtedly true that many reported opinions are of a very
different type. Some of Marshall's assume a tone of apology; but
in his day it was needed. He struck at cherished rights of
States, upheld by their highest courts, and struck them down, at
a time when the country was unfamiliar with the conception of the
United States as a national force. Many of those of judges of
inferior ability do not rise above their source. They are
verbose, repetitious, slovenly, inaccurate in statement, loose in
form; perhaps sinking into a humor or sarcasm always out of place
in the reports;[Footnote: See, for instance, Mincey _v._
Bradburn, 103 Tennessee Reports, 407; Terry _v._ McDaniel,
_ibid_., 415; Hall-Moody Institute _v._ Copass, 108