rom it, would
suffice to form a book, and a book upon a very useful and curious
subject. The State of Louisiana would in particular afford the curious
phenomenon of a French and English legislation, as well as a French and
English population, which are gradually combining with each other. See
the "Digeste des Lois de la Louisiane," in two volumes; and the "Traite
sur les Regles des Actions civiles," printed in French and English at
New Orleans in 1830.]

My present object is to consider the jury as a political institution,
and any other course would divert me from my subject. Of trial by jury,
considered as a judicial institution, I shall here say but very few
words. When the English adopted trial by jury they were a semi-barbarous
people; they are become, in course of time, one of the most enlightened
nations of the earth; and their attachment to this institution seems
to have increased with their increasing cultivation. They soon spread
beyond their insular boundaries to every corner of the habitable globe;
some have formed colonies, others independent states; the mother-country
has maintained its monarchical constitution; many of its offspring have
founded powerful republics; but wherever the English have been they have
boasted of the privilege of trial by jury. *c They have established it,
or hastened to re-establish it, in all their settlements. A judicial
institution which obtains the suffrages of a great people for so long
a series of ages, which is zealously renewed at every epoch of
civilization, in all the climates of the earth and under every form of
human government, cannot be contrary to the spirit of justice. *d

[Footnote c: All the English and American jurists are unanimous upon
this head. Mr. Story, judge of the Supreme Court of the United States,
speaks, in his "Treatise on the Federal Constitution," of the advantages
of trial by jury in civil cases:--"The inestimable privilege of a
trial by jury in civil cases--a privilege scarcely inferior to that
in criminal cases, which is counted by all persons to be essential to
political and civil liberty. . . ." (Story, book iii., chap. xxxviii.)]

[Footnote d: If it were our province to point out the utility of the
jury as a judicial institution in this place, much might be said, and
the following arguments might be brought forward amongst others:--

By introducing the jury into the business of the courts you are enabled
to diminish the number of judges, wh