legislature, of a senate and body of representatives, to be annually elected by the freemen in the several wards, in such numbers and in such manner as shall be provided by the laws of the state by which the corporation is to be constituted. There must also be an executive officer usually called the mayor, to be elected annually by the freemen of the city, and clothed with sufficient powers.

The power of appointing to office may be vested generally in the legislature or in one of its branches, and perhaps in some instances more properly in the mayor. Many officers will be necessary, but to point them out with their several duties would be tedious and uninteresting. I shall content myself with mentioning a few of them generally. There must be eity magistrates for various purposes; an efficient police, with its officers always vigilent, always on the alert; and a police court to be almost constantly in session. Other courts will be necessary, but one will be indispensably so, in a large and populous city-a city court of common law, for the trial and decision of all such causes, civil and criminal, as shall be submitted to their jurisdiction. The court ought to be of great respectability, and the judges to be appointed, not by the city powers, but by the appointing power of the state, to hold their offices during good behavior, with fixed and adequate salaries, and subordinate to the Supreme Court of the state.

It has not been my design to enter into minute details on the subject, but to exhibit a brief view of these institutions, their organization, and the powers with which they ought to be entrusted. Enough has been said to evince their general utility, and even necessity; and that they may be better adapted to the management of the several local interests and concerns, frequently varying with situation and circumstances, than can be effected by any provisions of law under the general administration; and that they may be so ordered and directed as to render important services, and give efficient aid to the general government of the state, of which they are always to be considered constituent, though subordinate parts.

But there is another view, perhaps not less important, to be taken of these institutions. In the several districts of their establishment, which, taken together, are supposed to cover the

whole surface of the state, and to embrace all the inhabitants, the exercise of political power is brought down to the people, themselves. Here are held the primary assemblies of the people, severally empowered to manage the affairs of their little communities. These assemblies are, in fact, the primary schools, in which the people practically learn what may, in a political sense, be called the science of self-government. Here the future statesman learns to exercise his powers of deliberation and discussion-and here the people acquire the habit of submitting private to public opinion, to acquiesce in the decisions of the majority, so necessary to the well being of a free government, without which all turns to faction, rushes into anarchy and finally into despotism, the last desperate remedy for more intolerable evils.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Institution of Juries.

In the institution of juries, I comprehend both the grand and petit jury as known in the laws of England and in the UnitedStates.

The trial by jury is certainly of considerable antiquity in the English laws, from which we in this country have derived the institution. It has been often asserted that it made a part of the Saxon jurisprudence before the Norman conquest. On this subject, Mr. Crabb, in his History of the English law, observes,"Whether the trial by jury existed among the Saxons, has, like many other matters connected with those remote periods, been a subject of controversy. From all the records that have been preserved from those times, it is clear that there was no such thing as a jury of twelve men sworn to give their verdict on the evidence offered to them." He further tells us," In criminal matters it is clear from a law of Ethelred, that a grand jury existed among the Saxons; for the law directs, that twelve Thanes, with the sheriff at their head, shall go, and on their oath enquire into all offences, not charging any one falsely nor wilfully, nor suffering any offender to escape. From the condition of the parties and the office required of them, namely, accusare, that is to make presentment of offenders, it is beyond all question that they had only to determine what offenders should be put upon their trial and what not."*

*History of English Law, p. 35.

It appears probable that the trial by jury was introduced after the Norman conquest, and was extended and improved by slow degrees. In the reign of Henry I. about the beginning of the twelfth century, the trial by jury was recognised in criminal suits; but in civil suits it seems not to have approached very near to its present form until about the middle of the thirteenth century in the reign of Henry III.* In this reign we find that the office of the grand jury and their oath was nearly the same as at the present day. The jury system has since received many and great improvements, till it has been brought to its present state of perfection, in which it is justly considered the great palladium of liberty, and worthy of a special provison in the constitution of every free government.†

In a mixed government like that of Great Britain, the intervention of juries, both in the prosecution of crimes, and in the decision of private rights, is a principal security to the subject against any dangerous power and influence of the monarchical and aristocratic branches. It is equally necessary in a republic, but for reasons somewhat different. In a republic the powers of government are supported, not by force, but by the sentiments of the people. It is necessary, therefore, to cultivate a sentiment of attachment to the government. The powers of government are visible in the exercise only. The mode in which they are exercised, either invigorates or weakens the sentiment. The exercise of power is not in general agreeable to those who are the subjects of it.-The administration of justice without a view to the consequences, is austere and forbidding, rather than amiable and attractive. As more men are capable of feeling than reasoning, the first view is. generally of something unamiable. The ministers of justice,

*History of English Law, p. 164. Those who are desirous of further information on this subject will do well to consult this work here quoted, and Reeves' History of the Common Law.

Justice when considered as a private virtue, that is, the rendition to every one of his honest due, is directly amiable; when considered in the distribution of punishments it is not so; the mind is reconciled to it from a view of the consequences merely, unless when the passion of revenge excites a desire of retaliation.

are the objects of these feelings;-the ideas of una miable severity daily impressed on the minds of the people are not easily corrected by reasoning on the consequences.*

Justice is administered for the redress of some evil, either public or private. The evil is past, and sometimes uncertain, or at least, of difficult investigation. The evil which is inflicted by the ministers of the law, is present and certain. The people cannot, consistent with an impartial administration of the law, have a direct control over them. These considerations have, more or less, a tendency to diminish that sentiment of attachment, which is so necessary in a republic. The institution of juries, in which is to be comprehended both the grand jury, who are to pass on the accusation and find it supported before the person accused can be put on trial, and the petit jury, who pass on the final trial, furnishes an adequate remedy.

In the administration of criminal law, the institution of a grand jury has a very leading influence in a free government.† To guard the innocent against the infamy and oppression of a public accusation, and without favor to bring forward the guilty to trial for their crimes, constitutes the principal duty of the grand jury. Taken from the body of the people, and having, in the prosecution of offences, no interest but the peace and welfare of the community, as far as they are secured by the prevention of crimes, they are placed as a shield between the accused and the interested passions, or malicious attempts of private prosecutors; and their intervention between the people and the officers of the law, who, from the nature of their employment, may, sometimes, be suspected of interested views,

* Hangmen and public executioners, are universally detested. The first impressions which their actions make on the mind,-impressions of inhumanity and cruelty,- -are never effaced by reasoning on the justice of their actions or necessity to the community.

+I do not recollect any institution among the ancients similar to that of a grand jury; nor do I recollect to have met with any in any of the modern governments, that of the English excepted. It was as we have seen established among them before the Norman conquest. Crabb, ubi supra. Blackstone, Comm. 4. 302.