Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/724

 that the Legislature, considering this as an evil, should enact that she might dispose of her property by deed executed in the presence of a magistrate. In such a case there can be no doubt but the specification would amount to an exclusion of any other mode of conveyance; because the woman having no previous power to alienate her property, the specification determines the particular mode which she is, for that purpose, to avail herself of. But let us further suppose that in a subsequent part of the same Act it should be declared that no woman should dispose of any estate of a determinate value without the consent of three of her nearest relations, signified by their signing the deed; could it be inferred from this regulation that a married woman might not procure the approbation of her relations to a deed for conveying property of inferior value? The position is too absurd to merit a refutation, and yet this is precisely the position which those must establish who contend that the trial by juries, in civil cases, is abolished, because it is expressly provided for in cases of a criminal nature.

From these observations, it must appear unquestionably true, that trial by jury is in no case abolished by the proposed Constitution; and it is equally true, that in those controversies between individuals in which the great body of the People are likely to be interested, that institution will remain precisely in the same situation in which it is placed by the State Constitutions, and will be in no degree altered or influenced by the adoption of the plan under consideration. The foundation of this assertion is, that the National Judiciary will have no cognizance of them, and of course they will remain determinable as heretofore by the State Courts only, and in the manner which the State Constitutions and laws prescribe. All land causes, except where claims under the grants of different States come into question, and all