1863.] 223 [Price. 



encomiums, as a power resistant to tyranny. Our Judge Addison 

 said : " Jury trials may be disused, from disuse may be forgotten, 

 and this pillar of our liberties being removed, we may forget that we 

 were free." (57.) Judge Blackstone explained the antiquity and 

 praised the excellence of this trial for settling questions of property, 

 and then proceeds to say, as to its value to liberty and security, " It 

 will hold much stronger in criminal cases ; since in times of difficulty 

 and danger, more is to be apprehended from the violence and par- 

 tiality of judges appointed by the Crown, in suits between the king 

 and the subject, than in suits between one individual and another, 

 to settle the metes and bounds of private property. Our law has, 

 therefore, wisely placed this strong and twofold barrier, of a pre- 

 sentment and a trial by jury, between the liberties of the people and 

 the prerogative of the Crown." "The founders of the English law 

 have with excellent forecast contrived that no man should be called 

 to answer to the King for any capital crime, unless upon the prepara- 

 tory accusation of twelve or more of his fellow-subjects, the grand 

 jury; and that the truth of every accusation, whether preferred in 

 the shape of an indictment, information, or appeal, should afterwards 

 be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and 

 neighbors, indifferently chosen and superior to all suspicion. So 

 that the liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palla- 

 dium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, 

 which none will be so hardy as to make, but also from all secret ma- 

 chinations which may sap and undermine it, by introducing new and 

 arbitrary methods of trial, by justices of the peace, commissioners of 

 the revenue, and courts of conscience." (4 Com. 349.) 



Judge Story, in his Commentaries upon the Constitution, quotes 

 with high approval these sentiments of Blackstone upon trial by jury, 

 and proceeds to say, "Mr. Justice Blackstone, with the warmth and 

 pride of an Englishman living under its blessed protection, has said : 

 * A celebrated French writer, who concludes that because Rome, 

 Sparta, and Carthage have lost their liberties, therefore those of Eng- 

 land in time must perish, should have recollected that Rome, Sparta, 

 and Carthage, at a time when their liberties were lost, were strangers 

 to the trial by jury.' " (2 Story on Con. § 1780.) The writer thus 

 referred to was Montesquieu, who after dwelling upon the English 

 Constitution with an enthusiastic admiration, pauses in sadness to 

 make this solemn reflection : " As all human things have an end, 

 the state we are speaking of will lose its liberty ; it will perish. 

 Have not Rome, Sparta, and Carthage perished? It will perish 



