“Dr. John W. Webster” “had entrusted his defines to those who had already prejudged his guilt” (202-3).
“Vere has been accused, as Shaw was, of manufacturing law for the occasion and of swerving from the path of judicial integrity” (205).
Quoting James Kent, ““Judicial exercise of power is imposed upon the courts. They must decide and act according to their judgement; and therefore, the law will protect them.” It would not do to have a judge liable for his judgement, so long as it was, in the words of another authority, “an honest and zealous intention.”” (209).
- Webster trial
- Somers trial and Sumner’s defence of Mackenzie 3. Boston Massacre trial: “The court ruled that to justify their actions the soldiers needed to prove only that their lives were apparently, not actually, threatened” (210).
Vere believes “social order can be maintained only by submitting to the immutable principles embodied in law” but “the forms of the law we submit to are not immutable” (211).
“the technicalities of legal procedure allow some of the most subtle ideological control. But the emphasis on procedural technicalities often diverts people from questioning the assumptions of the entire legal system” (212).
“To base criticism of the legal order on procedural errors is to risk explaining injustice as the acts of corrupt, or even just well-intentioned but confused individuals in positions of authority. It avoids questioning the order to which the legal system is intricately related” (212).
Billy Budd “offers an account of how such behaviour [“Captain Vere’s procedural errors”] is accepted by a culture even when it would seem to contradict the culture’s definition of legitimacy” (212).
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“What [is it] about the logic of the legal order . . . that causes three well-intentioned men seemingly to contradict their own most sacred principles [?]” (212).
“judges claim strict adherence to established forms and usages in controversial cases . . . to reassure the public and themselves that a case is decided by the law, not by political and social pressure” (212).
Attorney General Clifford: “Somebody must answer!” (213).
“the logic of the law is often political” (214).
“the formalist belief”: “the function of law is to guarantee social order”; therefore, “it is all too easy to conclude that any action preserving the social order is legitimate. . . . Although [Mackenzie] violates the letter of the law, he conforms to principles contained within the law itself” (214).
“There are, it seems, times when strict adherence to the established forms of the law might not be enough to preserve social order. At those times, the law of the land is likely to undergo a rapid metamorphosis as, protean, it takes on whatever forms are necessary to preserve order. Far from stable, the forms of the law are constantly shifting” (214).
“Billy Budd suggests the madness involved when man-made institutions themselves become indomitable and limit human possibility. . . . when society succumbs to the belief that all alternatives to the existing order are mad” (215).
“If Vere uses his rhetoric to manipulate opinion, he does not consciously use it to serve his own ends. Instead, he sincerely believes that it is based on an authority outside of himself, an authority that he submits to as much as the crew. . . . Emanating from a set of impersonal laws outside the self, rather than from a single, powerful individual, ideology so pervades each person’s consciousness that no one seems capable of escaping its constraints” (218).
Peter Gabel, “reification” of “rule by law”: - offers reassurance “by appearing to demonstrate that seemingly unjust actions are actually just because human society follows a legal, rational system of laws” - is repressive “because its demonstration depends on the assumption that the legal, rational system of laws governing society is just” (218).
“The effect of this circular reasoning is to exclude the possibility for radical social transformation by defining alternatives to the present system as outside the law, and therefore illegitimate and irrational” (218).
“the effectiveness of ideological control depends on its appearance of fairness” (219).
“Billy Budd raises the possibility that the triumph of rule by law is an ambiguous achievement not because innocent individuals must be sacrificed to socially necessary laws but because, in appearing fair, rule by law can make people accept as lawful even judgements that violate established criteria of legitimacy” (219).
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“the notion of pre social innocence can help perpetuate justice” (220).
“Rather than offer a narrative that sentimentalizes Billy’s innocence, Melville places Billy’s innocence on trial. From that trial we learn not how innocence must be sacrificed in a world of innocence but how the desire of people like Billy to appear innocent allows them to be controlled” (220).
“Billy’s desire to avoid the judgement meted out to sailors who disobey the accepted forms and usages of the navy makes him easy to control because it renders him silent. Silence . . . signals consent to the existing system of authority. . . . Billy’s weakness is his juvenile “good nature” that wants to please” (221).
“Instead of speaking out against Captain Vere, Billy lets the fatherlike captain speak for him. . . . he entrusts his life to a man who sacrifices him in the name of the law” (221).