This last is the moral rule universally recognized to be binding
upon single individuals. And in the forum of conscience the same
rule is equally binding upon governments, for governments are
mere associations of individuals. This is the rule on which the
trial by jury is based. And it is plainly the only rule that
ought to induce a man to submit his rights to the adjudication of
his fellow-men, or dissuade him from a forcible defence of them.
Another answer is, that if two opposing parties could be supposed
to have no personal interests or passions involved, to warp their
judgments, or corrupt their motives, the fact that one of the
parties was more numerous than the other, (a fact that leaves the
comparative intellectual competency of the two parties entirely
out of consideration,) might, perhaps, furnish a slight, but at
best only a very slight, probability that such party was on the
side of justice. But when it is considered that the parties are
liable to differ in their intellectual capacities, and that one,
or the other, or both, are undoubtedly under the influence of
such passions as rivalry, hatred, avarice, and ambition.
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