And this statute is only one example of the numberless contrivances and usurpations which have been resorted to, for the purpose of destroying the original and genuine trial by jury.
Lysander Spooner
The Public Record
Lysander Spooner was an American abolitionist, entrepreneur, lawyer, essayist, natural rights legal theorist, pamphleteer, political philosopher, and writer often associated with the Boston anarchist tradition.
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But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of the law, and were abandoned to the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers.
Besides many other indignities, to which they were continually exposed, it appears that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of 66,000 marks exacted for their liberty.
Taking the judgment of the peers in the matter, would have been only a ridiculous and useless formality, if they were to exercise no discretion or conscience of their own, independently of the laws of the king.
Now all these things were very unnecessary and foolish, if his laws were binding upon juries; because, in that ease, he could have procured the conviction of these men in a legal manner, and thus have saved the necessity of such usurpation.
In short, if the laws of the king had been binding upon juries, there is no robbery, vengeance, or oppression, which he could not have accomplished through the judgments of juries.
This consideration is sufficient, of itself, to prove that the laws of the king were of no authority over a jury, in either civil or criminal cases, unless the juries regarded the laws as just in themselves.
That it is a maxim of the law, that the judges respond to the question of law, and juries only to the question of fact.
The answer to this objection is, that, since Magna Carta, judges have had more than six centuries in which to invent and promulgate pretended maxims to suit themselves; and this is one of them.
It is said that it would be absurd that twelve ignorant men should have power to judge of the law, while justices learned in the law should be compelledto sit by and see the law decided erroneously.
And it is only since all the real power of juries has been destroyed, and they have become mere tools in the hands of legislators and judges, that they have become favorites with them.
If the authority be vested in the government, the governmnt is absolute, and the people have no liberties except such as the government sees fit to indulge them with.