Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/194

156 In accuations of a deep or criminal nature, it is proper the peron accued hould have the privilege of chuing, in ome meaure, his judges, in concurrence with the law? or, at leat, he hould have a right to except againt o great a number, that the remaining part may be deemed his own choice. The other two powers may be given rather to magitrates or permanent bodies, becaue they are not exercied on any private ubject; one being no more than the general will of the tate, and the other the execution of that general will.

But though the tribunals ought not to be fixed, yet the judgments ought, and to uch a degree as to be always conformable to the exact letter of the law. Were they to be the private opinion of the judge, people would then live in ociety without knowing exactly the obligations it lays them under.

The judges ought likewie to be in the ame tation as the accued, or, in other words, his peers, to the end that he may not imagine he is fallen into the hands of perons inclined to treat him with rigour.

If the legilative leaves the executive power in poeion of a right to imprion thoe ubjects who can give ecurity for their good behaviour, there is an end of liberty; unles they are taken up, in order to anwer, without delay, to a capital crime; in this cae they are really free, being ubject only to the power of the law.

But hould the legilature think itelf in danger, by ome ecret conpiracy againt the tate, or by a correpondence with a foreign enemy, it might authorie the executive power, for a hort and limited time, to imprion upected perons; who, in that cae, would loe their liberty only for a while, to preerve it for ever. And this is the only