The trial by jury authorizes all this, or it is a sham and a hoax, utterly worthless for protecting the people against oppression.
Lysander Spooner: “The trial by jury authorizes all this, or it is a sham and a hoax, utterly worthless for protecting the people against…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner argues that the trial by jury must protect against oppression or it is ineffective.
Share
More from Lysander Spooner
They do not attempt to deceive us, or mislead us, or reconcile us to their doings, by any such pretences, impostures, or insults as these.
They acknowledge it to be our unquestioned right and duty to kill them, if we can; that they expect nothing else, than that we will kill them, if we can; and that we are only fools and cowards, if we do not kill them, by any and every…
They do not tell us that all liberty and order would be destroyed, that society itself would go to pieces, and man go back to barbarism, if it were not for the care, and supervision, and protection, they lavish upon us.
For all these reasons, they are not only modest and sensible, but really frank, honest, and honorable villains, contrasted with these courts of injustice, and the lawmakers by whom these courts are established.