".... The negative and overwhelming force that
has condemned our nation to decay, that has ultimately broken and defeated
the men of initiative and drive whom our fecund nation has in no period
failed to produce, is the law that has hitherto been in your hands,
the law and its faithful followers....
Think of the Turkish victory of 1453 the capture of
Istanbul, and its place in the course of world history. That same might
and power, which in defiance of a whole world made Istanbul for ever
the property of the Turkish community, was too weak to overcome the
ill-omened resistance of the men of law and to receive in Turkey the
printing press, which had been invented at about the same time. Three
centuries of observation and hesitation were needed, of effort and energy
expended for and against, before the old laws and their exponents would
permit the entry of printing into our country. Do not think that I have
chosen a remote and ancient period, incapable of resuscitation, to illustrate
the old law and the old lawyers. If I were to start giving you examples
of the difficulties caused during our new revolutionary era, to me personally,
by the old law and its exponents, I would run the risk of overburdening
you.... All these events show that the greatest and at the same time
the moat insidious enemies of the revolutionaries are decayed laws and
their decrepit upholders....
It is our purpose to create completely new laws and
thus to tear up the very foundations of the old legal system..."