To enforce any other law,
to the extent of taking a man's goods, rights, or person, would be
making some of the parties to the association accomplices in what
they regard as acts of injustice. It would also be making them
consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own
rights. These are things which no legitimate system or theory of
government can require of any of the parties to it.
The mode adopted, by the trial by jury, for ascertaining whether
all the parties to the government do approve of a particular law,
is to take twelve men at random from the whole people, and accept
their unanimous decision as representing the opinions of the
whole. Even this mode is not theoretically accurate; for
theoretical accuracy would require that every man, who was a
party to the government, should individually give his consent to the
enforcement of every law in every separate case. But such a thing
would be impossible in practice. The consent of twelve men is
therefore taken instead; with-the privilege of appeal, and (in
case of error found by the appeal court) a new trial, to guard
against possible mistakes.
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