A man thoroughly in earnest in any direction is more or less a
partisan. Histories are commonly uninfluential or worthless, unless
written with views so earnest and decided as to show bias. As the
greater interests of truth are best subserved by those whose zeal is
commensurate to their scope of mind, so it is a part of the scheme of
jury-trials, that, within the limits we have named, counsel shall
throw their whole force into their cases, that thus they may be
presented fully in all lights, and the right results more surely
reached. The scheme of jury-trials itself thus providing for a
lawyer's standing in the place of his client and deriving from him
his partisan opinions, and for urging his case in its full force
within the limits of sound rules of law, it almost invariably
follows, that, the greater the talent and zeal of the advocate, and
the more he believes in the views of his client, the more liable he
is to be charged with overstating or misstating testimony. Mr. Choate
never conceived that his duty to his client should carry him up to
the line of self-surrender drawn by Lord Brougham; but, recognizing
his client's full and just claims upon him, entering into his
opinions and nature with the sympathetic and dramatic realization we
have described, he could not faithfully perform the prescribed and
admitted duty of the advocate,--necessarily, with him, involving his
throwing the whole force of his physical and intellectual vitality
into every case he tried,--without being a vehement partisan, or
without being sometimes charged with misstating evidence or going too
far for his client.
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