Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 247 of the American jurist James Coolidge Carter’s profound, yet unfortunately neglected, (posthumous) 1907 book, Law: Its Origin, Growth and Function:

When a law is made declaring conduct widely practised and widely regarded as innocent to be a crime, the evil consequences which arise upon attempts to enforce it are apt to be viewed as the consequences of the forbidden practice, and not of the attempt to suppress it; and it is believed that the true method of avoiding, or doing away with, these consequences is to press the efforts of enforcement with increased energy. But when a mistake has been made, its consequences cannot be avoided by a more vigorous persistence in it.