THE JURY SYSTEM. 683 



suggest, that the jury, with the modifications I have pointed out, is 

 well adapted for its special work the finding of facts. 



But even stronger are the reasons for retaining the jury as a po- 

 litical institution. Some one has tersely said that it is not so neces- 

 sary that the people get justice as that they should think they do. 

 While this is, perhaps, putting it a little too strongly, yet there is 

 much truth in it. Judges are usually chosen from a rank far above 

 the mass of litigants, and the latter doubtless often feel that they are 

 appealing for justice to one who has but little in common with the 

 class to which they belong. And at this time, when there is a strong 

 tendency to lengthen the tenure of judicial offices, it would be dan- 

 gerous to cut off the popular branch of our judicature. The question 

 that most threatens this country at present is the question of capital 

 and labor. The tyranny that menaces us is not the tyranny of kings, 

 but that of corporate capital. Whether the bench is really corrupted 

 by the vast moneyed interests of the country is not material to the 

 issue, if there is a deep-rooted suspicion of it in the minds of the 

 people. Most men would feel safer, in a contest with one of these 

 modern leviathans, to submit the facts in dispute to twelve men called 

 from the vicinage, but what twelve no one could point out until the 

 litigants had made the last challenge and the jury is in the custody of 

 a sworn officer and beyond the reach of corrupting influences. Juries 

 are doubtless sometimes corrupt, and sometimes go wrong by mistake, 

 but the verdict of a jury, however erroneous, affects only one case, 

 and neither establishes a bad precedent nor materially lessens our con- 

 fidence in the system. The verdict deciding only the facts of the par- 

 ticular case has no influence upon the rights of any but the parties to 

 that suit, and it is altogether improbable that the same twelve men 

 will ever be called upon to sit together to try another case. So, how- 

 ever erroneous may be the verdict, and although every one may con- 

 cede that it is wrong, no serious consequences follow, and the litigants 

 in the next case proceed with the usual confidence in the justice of 

 their fellow-men. It is only those who have a bad cause, or have lost 

 confidence in mankind, that fear the jury. But how is it with the 

 judges ? Instead of their power ending with a single case, in the Fed- 

 eral courts and in seven States of the Union they hold their offices 

 during life, and in the others for a term ranging from six to twenty- 

 one years ; and our present cumbrous method of impeachment, which 

 can be effectual for nothing less than a " high crime or misdemeanor," 

 affords but slight protection against ignorance, tyranny, or even cor- 

 ruption on the bench. If through ignorance or prejudice a judge has 

 arrived at a wrong conclusion in one case, and from that conclusion 

 there is no appeal, how can he be trusted in the next. And, still more, 

 if he has yielded to the corrupting influences of power, or, what is 

 practically the same thing, if the people believe he has so yielded, in 

 one case, who but the powerful can trust him afterward ? Ignorance 



