The Prospet of Liberty or the View from Saint-Remy

This celebration of the first century of the Michigan Law School recalls the vain endeavor of the Holy Roman Empire to keep the craft of the law out of the Americas. Que no passasen abogados ni procuradores a las Indias was a clause inserted by the Emperor Charles V into the capitulation of 1540 with Alvar Nunez which sanctioned the exploration of the River Plate. Perhaps it was the futility of lawyers which prompted the Imperial veto. Twenty years before, when the Governor of Cuba sought to halt Cortez with decrees of outlawry from Spain, his cunning captain Sandoval evaded them by refusing audience to the notary, and all the notarial party were by Cortez’s Indians “snatched up in net hammocks like sinful souls” and carried a four days’ journey to Mexico.