They were engaged in no such senseless work
as that. On the contrary, when they required him to renounce
forever the power to punish any freeman, unless by the consent of
his peers, they intended those powers should judge of, and try, the
whole case on its merits, independently of all arbitrary legislation,
or judicial authority, on the part of the king. In this way they took
the liberties of each individual and thus the liberties of the whole
people entirely out of the hands of the king, and out of the power
of his laws, and placed them in the keeping of the people
themselves. And this itwas that made the trial b jury the palladium
of their liberties.
The trial by jury, be it observed, was the only real barrier
interposed by them against absolute despotism. Could this trial,
then, have been such an entire farce as it necessarily must have
been, if the jury had had no power to judge of the justice of the
laws the people were required to obey? Did it not rather imply that
the jury were to judge independently and fearlessly as to
everything involved in the charge, and especially as to its intrinsic
justice, and thereon give their decision, (unbiased by any
legislation of the king,) whether the accused might be punished?
The reason of the thing, no less than the historical celebrity of the
events, as securing the liberties of the people, and the veneration
with which the trial by jury has continued to be regarded,
notwithstanding its essence and vitality have been almost entirely
extracted from it in practice, would settle the question, if other
evidences had left the matter in doubt.
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