ng, which might come
before him. But the principle of these statutes (fixing the
qualifications of jurors) is, that nobody is to sit in judgment upon the
acts or legislation of the king, or the government, except those whom
the government itself shall select for that purpose. A more complete
subversion of the essential principles of the English constitution could
not be devised.

The juries of England are illegal for another reason, viz., that the
statutes cited require the jurors (except in London and a few other
places) to be _freeholders_. All the other free British subjects are
excluded; whereas, at common law, all such subjects are eligible to sit
in juries, whether they be freeholders or not.

It is true, the ancient common law required the jurors to be
freeholders; but the term _freeholder_ no longer expresses the same idea
that it did in the ancient common law; because no land is now holden in
England on the same principle, or by the same tenure, as that on which
all the land was held in the early times of the common law.

As has heretofore been mentioned, in the early times of the common law
the land was considered the property of the state; and was all holden by
the _tenants_, so called, (that is, _holders_,) on the condition of
their rendering certain military and civil services to the state, (or to
the king as the representative of the state,) under the name of _rents_.
Those who held lands on these terms were called free _tenants_, that is,
_free holders_--meaning free persons, or members of the state, holding
lands--to distinguish them from villeins, or serfs, who were not members
of the state, but held their lands by a more servile tenure, and also to
distinguish them from persons of foreign birth, outlaws, and all other
persons, who were not members of the state.

Every freeborn adult male Englishman (who had not lost his civil rights
by crime or otherwise) was entitled to land of _right_; that is, by
virtue of his civil freedom, or membership of the body politic. Every
member of the state was therefore a freeholder; and every freeholder was
a member of the state. And the members of the state were therefore
called freeholders. But what is material to be observed, is, that a
man's right to land was an incident to his _civil freedom_; not his
civil freedom an incident to his right to land. He was a freeholder
because he was a _freeborn_ member of the state; and not a freeborn
member of the state becaus