Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/229

Rh ephemeral tenure, and the culling of an adininislration parly spirit for each particular ease.

It is evidently of equal or superior importance to life, liberty and property, that juries should be independent of kings, presidents, factious, and demagogues, as that Judges should be so. The verdicts under the sedition law were the ground work of the judgements. Judges were made independent of the crown in England, because judgements were made instruments of tyranny. Verdicts of juries may become such instruments. A president can select juries of his own faction, by his officer, the marshal, and infallibly mould political verdicts.

The king of Englaud often influences verdicts by means of a sheriff, less dependent on him, than a marshal on the president. The office of sheriff is both less lucrative than the Office of marshal; one is rotary, and the other capable of continuance by the will of the president. I'he continuance of a great income tempts; and the certainty of returning speedily into private life, does not deter, in the case of the marshal. Accordingly we meet with man acquittals in England, and with few or none in the United States, in prosecutions under sedition laws.

The dependence of one judicial branch on the sovereignty of the country, is some security against the dependence of the other en the crown; for in England we find Judges sometimes deciding contrary to the will of executive power, since their dependence on the sovereignty of the, country.

Here, a security against executive influence over juries, is rendered more necessary, by the irresponsibility of the judges to the sovereignty, and none is provided. The dependence of judges on the sovereignty (the security against packed juries, and the source of all those acts for which English judges have been celebrated) is both relinquished in the United States, and a provision is also made for corrupting or influencing them by an additional office from executive power, in lieu of the parliamentary vote-