_id_., 582.] possibly unfair in describing the claims that
are overruled. But, as a whole, Americans need not fear to
compare the reports of their courts with those of foreign
tribunals. No judicial opinions, viewed from the point of style
and argument, rank higher than some of those written by American
judges.

Those of appellate courts are generally composed and delivered by
a single one of their members, but he speaks not only for the
court but for every other member of it who does not expressly
dissent. Nevertheless, as their conclusions depend on one man
for their proper expression, the responsibility for the
particular manner in which the opinion may set them forth is
properly deemed in a peculiar sense to rest upon him.

Nor, if the opinion is afterwards relied on as establishing a
precedent, is the court bound by anything except the statement of
the conclusions necessary to support the judgment. If unsound
reasons for those conclusions are given, defective illustrations
used, or unguarded assertions made, it is chargeable with no
inconsistency in subsequently treating them as merely the
individual expressions of the judge who wrote the
opinion.[Footnote: Exchange Bank of St. Louis _v._ Rice, 107
Mass. Reports, 37, 41. This position is not, universally
accepted. See Merriman _v._ Social Manufacturing Co., 12
R. I. Reports, 175, 184.]

When Marshall became Chief Justice of the United States he
introduced the practice of writing all the opinions himself, and
with a few exceptions maintained it for ten years, and until, by