Disregard of these intended restrictions in the statutes and in judicial practice had led to most serious evils. The reasons assigned in the preamble to the amendment of 1835, Justice Nisbet urges, were not the true reasons which actuated its authors. That amendment arose "in a conviction upon the minds of prudent and discerning men, that divorces under the constitution of 1798 were alarmingly frequent;" and this was due to the fact that responsibility was divided between the courts and the legislature. "Under the old system, the courts but rarely seem to have felt, that they had anything to do with the trial of the divorce cause, other than to subserve the double purpose of an automaton agent in the hands of lawyers to present their cases to the juries. Believing that the legislature, whether for good or evil, had made the juries the sole arbiters of the law and facts, they could of course feel no responsibility about the matter, and the consequence was, as all men know who know anything of our courts of justice, that divorces were had with flagrant facility; that some were refused which ought to have been allowed, and hundreds were granted which ought to have been refused; and that the event of a divorce cause depended more upon the fact whether it was defended or not, and if defended, upon the zeal and ability of counsel, than upon anything else. Nor was the case essentially different when it came before the legislature. The legislature, taking it for granted that the courts had settled all the _legal principles_ involved, in the majority of cases, with ready acquiescence affirmed the judgment of the court and divorced the parties. The wealth and standing of the parties, their political and social relations, or, perhaps, the personal beauty and address of a female libellant, controlled in many cases the action of the legislature." Referring to the statistics of legislative divorce, above quoted, the court continues: "How fearful was the ratio of increase! Well might the patriot, the Christian, and the moralist look about him for some device to stay this swelling tide of demoralization." But "it is said that the new mode of granting divorces has not remedied the evil; that divorces are as frequent under the new as under the old constitution. This is, we admit, to a great extent true, and the reason is obvious. It is owing to the wrong construction of the constitution"--the submission to the jury of the whole question of law as well as of fact. The Georgia legislature was not checked, as in England, by the record of two preceding trials;[176] "and although in France, divorces by the Napoleonic Code[177] may be granted without cause, upon mutual consent merely, yet the application must be made to a judicial tribunal, and the consent is subjected to constraints, which create great and serious checks upon its abuse."