Reform
The system of law, its mechanisms of enforcement and the forms of punishment used in the 18th century were primitive and inconsistent. Judges were not professionally trained so many of their decisions were unsatisfactory being the product of incompetence, capriciousness, corruption or political manipulation. The use of torture to extract confessions and a wide range of cruel punishments such as whipping, mutilation and public executions were commonplace. A need for legal rationality and fairness was identified and found an audience among the emerging middle classes whose economic interests lay in providing better systems for supporting national and international trade.
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Famous quotes containing the word reform:
“One point in my public life: I did all I could for the reform of the civil service, for the building up of the South, for a sound currency, etc., etc., but I never forgot my party.... I knew that all good measures would suffer if my Administration was followed by the defeat of my party. Result, a great victory in 1880. Executive and legislature both completely Republican.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“We must reform society before we can reform ourselves.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)