om all
doubts and criticisms upon its meaning."--_Kent_, 460.

The following extract from a speech of Lord Brougham, in the House of
Lords, confesses the same difficulty:

"There was another subject, well worthy of the consideration of
government during the recess,--the expediency, _or rather the absolute
necessity_, of some arrangement for the preparation of bills, not merely
private, but public bills, _in order that legislation might be
consistent and systematic, and that the courts might not have so large a
portion of their time occupied in endeavoring to construe acts of
Parliament, in many cases unconstruable, and in most cases difficult to
be construed_."--_Law Reporter_, 1848, p. 525.]

[Footnote 78: This condemnation of written laws must, of course, be
understood as applying only to cases where principles and rights are
involved, and not as condemning any governmental arrangements, or
instrumentalities, that are consistent with natural right, and which
must be agreed upon for the purpose of carrying natural law into effect.
These things may be varied, as expediency may dictate, so only that they
be allowed to infringe no principle of justice. And they must, of
course, be written, because they do not exist as fixed principles, or
laws in nature.]

CHAPTER VI.

JURIES OF THE PRESENT DAY ILLEGAL.

It may probably be safely asserted that there are, at this day, no legal
juries, either in England or America. And if there are no legal juries,
there is, of course, no legal trial, nor "judgment," by jury.

In saying that there are probably no legal juries, I mean that there are
probably no juries appointed in conformity with the principles of the
_common law_.

The term _jury_ is a technical one, derived from the common law; and
when the American constitutions provide for the trial by jury, they
provide for the _common law_ trial by jury; and not merely for any trial
by jury that the government itself may chance to invent, and call by
that name. It is the _thing_, and not merely the _name_, that is
guarantied. Any legislation, therefore, that infringes any _essential
principle_ of the _common law_, in the selection of jurors, is
unconstitutional; and the juries selected in accordance with such
legislation are, of course, illegal, and their judgments void.

It will also be shown, in a subsequent chapter,[79] that since Magna
Carta, the legislative power in England (whether king or parliament) has
neve