k of justices
of the peace, as officers having authority to decide causes alone. And,
it must be recollected, that in the days of which I am writing, resort
was very seldom had to this cumbersome and uncertain mode of
adjudication. In civil causes, juries were seldom empanelled, because
they were attended by very considerable expense and delay. The chief
object, in going to law, moreover, was, in most cases, to have _a
decision_ of the matter in dispute; and juries were as prone to "hang"
then as now. Suitors generally, therefore, would rather submit to the
arbitration of the justice, than take the risk of delay and uncertainty,
with a jury. In criminal causes, the case was very similar: the accused
would as lief be judged by one prejudiced man as by twelve; for the same
rigorous spirit which actuated the justice, pervaded also the juries;
and (besides the chance of timidity or favor in the justice) in the
latter he must take the additional risks of personal enmity and
relationship to the party injured. Thus, juries were often discarded in
criminal causes also, and we think their disuse was no great sacrifice.
Such a system can derive its utility, in this country, only from an
enlightened public sentiment: if that sentiment be capricious and
oppressive, as it too often is, juries are quite as likely to partake
its vices as legal officers: if the sentiment be just and healthy, no
judicial officer dare be guilty of oppression. So that our fathers lost
nothing in seldom resorting to this "palladium of our liberties," and,
without doubt, gained something by avoiding delay, uncertainty, and
expense.

The reader will also observe, that I say nothing of higher courts. But
the lines between the upper and lower tribunals were not so strictly
drawn then as they now are, and the limits of jurisdiction were,
consequently, very indefinite. Most of the characteristics, moreover,
here ascribed to the justice of the peace, belonged, in almost an equal
degree, to the judges of the circuit courts; and, though some of the
latter were men of respectable legal requirements, the same off-hand
mode of administering the law which distinguished the inferior
magistrates, marked the proceedings of their courts also. Both
occasionally assumed powers which they did not legally possess; both
were guided more by their own notions of justice, than by the rules of
law; and both were remarkable for their severity upon all transgressors.
Neither cared m