SECTION XVII. On Lawsuits.

In every situation in life, avoid the law. Man's nature must be changed, perhaps, before lawsuits will entirely cease; and yet it is in the power of most men to avoid them, in a considerable degree.

One excellent rule is, to have as little as possible to do with those who are fond of litigation; and who, upon every slight occasion, talk of an appeal to the law. This may be called a disease; and, like many other diseases, it is contagious. Besides, these persons, from their frequent litigations, contract a habit of using the technical terms of the courts, in which they take a pride, and are therefore, as companions, peculiarly disgusting to men of sense. To such beings a lawsuit is a luxury, instead of being regarded as a source of anxiety, and a real scourge. Such men are always of a quarrelsome disposition, and avail themselves of every opportunity to indulge in that which is mischievous to their neighbors.

In thousands of instances, men go to law for the indulgence of mere anger. The Germans are said to bring spite-actions against one another, and to harass their poorer neighbors from motives of pure revenge. But I hope this is a mistake; for I am unwilling to think so ill of that intelligent nation.

Before you decide to go to law, consider well the cost, for if you win your suit and are poorer than you were before, what do you gain by it? You only imbibe a little additional anger against your opponent; you injure him, but at the same time, injure yourself more. Better to put up with the loss of one dollar than of two; to which is to be added, all the loss of time, all the trouble, and all the mortification and anxiety attending a lawsuit. To set an attorney at work to worry and torment another man, and alarm his family as well as himself, while you are sitting quietly at home, is baseness. If a man owe you money which he cannot pay, why add to his distress, without even the chance of benefiting yourself? Thousands have injured themselves by resorting to the law, while very few, indeed, ever bettered their condition by it.

Nearly a million of dollars was once expended in England, during the progress of a single lawsuit. Those who brought the suit expended $444,000 to carry it through; and the opposite party was acquitted, and only sentenced to pay the cost of prosecution, amounting to $318,754. Another was sustained in court fifty years, at an enormous expense. In Meadville, in Pennsylvania, a petty law case occurred in which the damages recovered were only ten dollars, while the costs of court were one hundred. In one of the New England States, a lawsuit occurred, which could not have cost the parties less than $1,000 each; and yet after all this expense, they mutually agreed to take the matter out of court, and suffer it to end where it was. Probably it was the wisest course they could possibly have taken. It is also stated that a quarrel occurred between two persons in Middlebury, Vermont, a few years since, about six eggs, which was carried from one court to another, till it cost the parties $4,000.

I am well acquainted with a gentleman who was once engaged in a lawsuit, (than which none perhaps, was ever more just) where his claim was one to two thousand dollars; but it fell into such a train that a final decision could not have been expected in many months;—perhaps not in years. The gentleman was unwilling to be detained and perplexed with waiting for a trial, and he accordingly paid the whole amount of costs to that time, amounting to $150, went about his business, and believes, to this hour, that it was the wisest course he could have pursued.

A spirit of litigation often disturbs the peace of a whole neighborhood, perpetually, for several generations; and the hostile feeling thus engendered seems to be transmitted, like the color of the eyes or the hair, from father to son. Indeed it not unfrequently happens, that a lawsuit in a neighborhood, a society, or even a church, awakens feelings of discord, which never terminate, but at the death of the parties concerned.

How ought young men, then, to avoid, as they would a pestilence, this fiend-like spirit! How ought they to labor to settle all disputes—should disputes unfortunately arise,—without this tremendous resort! On the strength of much observation,—not experience, for I have been saved the pain of learning in that painful school, on this subject,—I do not hesitate to recommend the settlement of such difficulties by arbitration.

One thing however should be remembered. Would you dry up the river of discord, you must first exhaust the fountains and rills which form it. The moment you indulge one impassioned or angry feeling against your fellow being, you have taken a step in the high road which leads to litigation, war and murder. Thus it is, as I have already told you, that 'He that hateth his brother is a murderer.'

I have heard a father—for he hath the name of parent, though he little deserved it—gravely contend that there was no such thing as avoiding quarrels and lawsuits. He thought there was one thing, however, which might prevent them, which was to take the litigious individual and 'tar and feather' him without ceremony. How often is it true that mankind little know 'what manner of spirit they are of;' and to how many of us will this striking reproof of the Saviour apply!

Multitudes of men have been in active business during a long life, and yet avoided every thing in the shape of a lawsuit. 'What man has done, man may do;' in this respect, at the least.