Lysander Spooner: “It was simply, that they would neither convict the innocent, nor acquit the guilty.”

They cannot claim or expect that the whole people shall practise the folly of taking on trust their pretended superior knowledge, and of committing blindly into their hands all their own interests, liberties, and rights, to be disposed of…

In that case the trial is really a trial by the government, and not by the jury.

But there is no reason why a judge should have the power of punishing, for contempt, any more than for any other offence.

Proud from victory, and with their swords in their hands, would they surrender their liberties to a private man?