Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/585

.] ; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed." He has said that, when the power of a court is given, all its appendages and concomitants are given. Allowing this to be the case by implication, how is it? Does it apply to counties? No, sir. The idea is, that the states are to the general government as counties are to our state legislatures. What sort of a vicinage is given by Congress? The idea which I call a true vicinage is, that a man shall be tried by his neighbors. But the idea here is, that he may be tried in any part of the state. Were the venue to be established according to the federal districts, it would not come up to the true idea of vicinage. Delaware sends but one member: it would then extend to that whole state. This state sends ten members, and has ten districts; but this is far from the true idea of vicinage. The allusion another gentleman has made to this trial, as practised in England, is improper. It does not justify this regulation. The jury may come from any part of the state. They possess an absolute, uncontrollable power over the venue. The conclusion, then, is, that they can hang any one they please, by having a jury to suit their purpose. They might, on particular, extraordinary occasions, suspend the privilege. The Romans did it on creating a dictator. The British government does it when the habeas corpus is to be suspended—when the salus populi is affected. I never will consent to it unless it be properly defined.

Another gentleman has said that trial by jury has not been so sacred a thing among our ancestors, and that in England it may be destroyed by an act of Parliament. I believe the gentleman is mistaken. I believe it is secured by Magna Charta and the bill of rights. I believe no act of Parliament can affect it, if this principle be true,—that a law is not paramount to the constitution. I believe, whatever may be said of the mutability of the laws, and the defect of a written, fixed constitution, that it is generally thought, by Englishmen, that it is so sacred that no act of Parliament can affect it.

The interference of the federal judiciary and the state courts will involve the most serious and even ludicrous consequences. Both courts are to act on the same persons and things, and cannot possibly avoid interference. As to 72