Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/556

540 under this head, are necessary; but the Convention could form no one that would have suited each of the United States. It has been a subject of amazement to me to hear gentlemen contend that the verdict of a jury shall be without revision in all cases. Juries are not infallible because they are twelve in number. When the law is so blended with the fact as to be almost inseparable, may not the decision of a jury be erroneous? Yet, notwithstanding this, trial by jury is the best mode that is known. Appellate jurisdiction, sir, is known in the common law, and causes are removed from inferior courts, by writs of error, into some court of appeal. It is said that the lord chancellor, in all cases, sends down to the lower courts when he wants to determine a fact; but that opinion is not well founded, because he determines nineteen out of twenty without the intervention of any jury. The power to try causes between citizens of different states was thought by some gentlemen invidious; but I apprehend they must see the necessity of it, from what has been already said by my honorable colleague.

"That there is no bill or declaration of rights in this Constitution."

To this I answer, Such a thing has not been deemed essential to liberty, excepting in Great Britain, where there is a king and a House of Lords, quite distinct, with respect to power and interest, from the rest of the people; or, in Poland, the pacta conventus, which the king signs before he is crowned; and in six states of the American United States.

Again, because it is unnecessary; for the powers of Congress, being derived from the people in the mode pointed out by this Constitution, and being therein enumerated and positively granted, can be no other than what this positive grant conveys. (Locke on Civil Government, vol. ii, b. 2, chap. 2, sect. 140, and in the 13th chap., sect. 152.)

With respect to executive officers, they have no manner of authority, any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and commission delegated to them.

"That this is a consolidation of the several states, and not a confederation."

To this I answer, the name is immaterial; the thing unites the several states, and makes them like one, in particular instances and for particular purposes—which is what is ardently desired by most of the sensible men in this country