William Hepworth Dixon, an English barrister, visited the United States in 1867 and wrote a book, New America, about his experiences. In Can a People Have Too Much Respect for the Law?, Lee Harris explains that Dixon found Americans agreeable — except for one flaw:
Yet there was one aspect of our national character that disagreed with him. Our ‘deference to the Law, and to every one who wears the semblance of lawful authority, is so complete…as to occasion a traveler some annoyance and more surprise,’ Dixon wrote. ‘Every dog in office is obeyed with such unquestioning meekness, that every dog in office is tempted to become a cur.’Dixon singled out the Justices of the Supreme Court, noting with apparent dismay that they are ‘treated with a degree of respect akin to that which is paid to an archbishop in Madrid and to a cardinal in Rome.’ Then he concludes with an admonition:
‘More than once I have ventured to tell my friends, that this habit of deferring to law and lawful authority, good in itself, has gone with them into extremes, and would lead them, should they let it, into the frame of mind for yielding to the usurpation of any bold despot who may assail their liberties, like Caesar, in the name of law and order.’