ordinary cases, to set up our mere notions above the principles
which the country has been acting upon as settled and
established, is to make ourselves not the ministers and agents
of the law, but the masters of the law and the tyrants of the
people.[Footnote: McDowell _v._ Oyer, 9 Harris' Reports,
423.]

Generally, overruling a former decision is due to a change of
circumstances, which has given the court a new view-point. A
marked instance of this occurred in 1851, in proceedings before
the Supreme Court of the United States. More than a quarter of a
century before, a suit in admiralty for seamen's wages on an
inland river had been dismissed by the District Court of Kentucky
for want of jurisdiction, and on appeal this action had been
affirmed. Mr. Justice Story gave the opinion of the court, and
said that a court of admiralty could only take cognizance of such
a claim when the services were rendered at sea or upon waters
within the ebb and flow of the tide.[Footnote: The Thomas
Jefferson, 10 Wheaton's Reports, 428.] This was undoubtedly a
true statement of what had always been the doctrine of both
English and American courts. But out of what did this doctrine
spring? From the fact that in England there were no navigable
waters except those in which the tide ebbed and flowed, and that
in the United States, up to that time, there were none of a
different kind which had been largely used for commercial
purposes. Twenty years passed. Steam navigation had opened the
great lakes and the great rivers of the country to a profitable
carrying trade. The day was dawning when the bulk of American
shipping was to be employed upon them. A suit in admiralty was
brought against a ship for sinking another on Lake Ontario. The