transacted their business in a manner
unintelligible to the jury, and the effects would be confined to
the individual or individuals interested in the particular suits.
No permanent law would be established thereby destructive of the
rights of the people in other like cases. And the people at large
would continue to enjoy all their natural rights as before. But
under the other system, whenever an unjust law is enacted by the
legislature, and the judge imposes it upon the jury as
authoritative, and they give a judgment in accordance therewith,
the authority of the law is thereby established, and the whole
people are thus brought under the yoke of that law; because they
then understand that the law will be enforced against them in
future, if they presume to exercise their rights, or refuse to
comply with the exactions of the law. In this manner all unjust
laws are established, and made operative against the rights of the
people.
The difference, then, between the two systems is this: Under the
one system, a jury, at distant intervals, would (not enforce any
positive injustice, but only) fail of enforcing justice, in a dark
and difficult case, or in consequence of the parties not having
transacted their business in a manner intelligible to a jury; and
the plaintiff would thus fail of obtaining what was rightfully due
him.
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