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10 The common-law vicinage right, both as a jury requirement and as a proxy for venue, remained prominent during debates over the ratification of the Constitution. As originally proposed, the Constitution contained only the Venue Clause, which, as noted, says nothing about jury composition. Appealing to “ancient common law,” Anti-Federalists objected to this omission. Federalists responded that Congress could secure the vicinage right by statute, analogizing to common law, where “the preservation of this right [was] in the hands of Parliament.”

After the ratification of the Constitution, Congress yielded in part to the Anti-Federalists’ argument and included a vicinage right in the Sixth Amendment. James Madison’s initial draft of the Amendment required a jury “of the vicinage,” 1 Annals of Cong. 435 (1789), but Congress amended that language so that it guaranteed a jury from the State of the crime and from any smaller judicial districts that Congress chose to create.

This history tells us two important things about the way in which the Constitution dealt with the common-law vicinage right. First, the right was highly prized by the founding generation, and this right undoubtedly inspired the Venue and Vicinage Clauses. Second, although the Clauses depart in some respects from the common law—most notably by providing new specifications about the place where a