When two men meet one upon the highway, or in the wilderness, have they a right to dispose of his life, liberty, or property at their pleasure, simply because they are the more numerous party?
He questions whether two men have the right to impose their will on a single individual simply due to their numbers.
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Proud from victory, and with their swords in their hands, would they surrender their liberties to a private man?
There is no more absurdity in giving a jury a veto upon the laws, than there is in giving a veto to each of these other tribunals.
Therefore all their laws, as they call them,--that is, all the laws of their own making,--have no color of authority or obligation.
The people are no more arrayed against themselves, when a jury puts its veto upon a statute, which the other tribunals have sanctioned, than they are when the same veto is exercised by the representatives, the senate, the executive, or the…