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THE objection to the plan of the convention, which has met with most 
        success in this State, and perhaps in several of the other States, is 
        THAT RELATIVE TO THE WANT OF A CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION for the trial 
        by jury in civil cases. The disingenuous form in which this objection 
        is usually stated has been repeatedly adverted to and exposed, but continues 
        to be pursued in all the conversations and writings of the opponents of 
        the plan. The mere silence of the Constitution in regard to CIVIL CAUSES, 
        is represented as an abolition of the trial by jury, and the declamations 
        to which it has afforded a pretext are artfully calculated to induce a 
        persuasion that this pretended abolition is complete and universal, extending 
        not only to every species of civil, but even to CRIMINAL CAUSES. To argue 
        with respect to the latter would, however, be as vain and fruitless as 
        to attempt the serious proof of the EXISTENCE of MATTER, or to demonstrate 
        any of those propositions which, by their own internal evidence, force 
        conviction, when expressed in language adapted to convey their meaning. With regard to civil causes, subtleties almost too contemptible for refutation 
        have been employed to countenance the surmise that a thing which is only 
        NOT PROVIDED FOR, is entirely ABOLISHED. Every man of discernment must 
        at once perceive the wide difference between SILENCE and ABOLITION. But 
        as the inventors of this fallacy have attempted to support it by certain 
        LEGAL MAXIMS of interpretation, which they have perverted from their true 
        meaning, it may not be wholly useless to explore the ground they have 
        taken. The maxims on which they rely are of this nature: "A specification of 
        particulars is an exclusion of generals"; or, "The expression of one 
        thing is the exclusion of another." Hence, say they, as the Constitution 
        has established the trial by jury in criminal cases, and is silent in 
        respect to civil, this silence is an implied prohibition of trial by jury 
        in regard to the latter. The rules of legal interpretation are rules of COMMONSENSE, adopted by 
        the courts in the construction of the laws. The true test, therefore, 
        of a just application of them is its conformity to the source from which 
        they are derived. This being the case, let me ask if it is consistent 
        with common-sense to suppose that a provision obliging the legislative 
        power to commit the trial of criminal causes to juries, is a privation 
        of its right to authorize or permit that mode of trial in other cases? 
        Is it natural to suppose, that a command to do one thing is a prohibition 
        to the doing of another, which there was a previous power to do, and which 
        is not incompatible with the thing commanded to be done? If such a supposition 
        would be unnatural and unreasonable, it cannot be rational to maintain 
        that an injunction of the trial by jury in certain cases is an interdiction 
        of it in others. A power to constitute courts is a power to prescribe the mode of trial; 
        and consequently, if nothing was said in the Constitution on the subject 
        of juries, the legislature would be at liberty either to adopt that institution 
        or to let it alone. This discretion, in regard to criminal causes, is 
        abridged by the express injunction of trial by jury in all such cases; 
        but it is, of course, left at large in relation to civil causes, there 
        being a total silence on this head. The specification of an obligation 
        to try all criminal causes in a particular mode, excludes indeed the obligation 
        or necessity of employing the same mode in civil causes, but does not 
        abridge THE POWER of the legislature to exercise that mode if it should 
        be thought proper. The pretense, therefore, that the national legislature 
        would not be at full liberty to submit all the civil causes of federal 
        cognizance to the determination of juries, is a pretense destitute of 
        all just foundation. From these observations this conclusion results: that the trial by jury 
        in civil cases would not be abolished; and that the use attempted to be 
        made of the maxims which have been quoted, is contrary to reason and common-sense, 
        and therefore not admissible. Even if these maxims had a precise technical 
        sense, corresponding with the idea of those who employ them upon the present 
        occasion, which, however, is not the case, they would still be inapplicable 
        to a constitution of government. In relation to such a subject, the natural 
        and obvious sense of its provisions, apart from any technical rules, is 
        the true criterion of construction. Having now seen that the maxims relied upon will not bear the use made 
        of them, let us endeavor to ascertain their proper use and true meaning. 
        This will be best done by examples. The plan of the convention declares 
        that the power of Congress, or, in other words, of the NATIONAL LEGISLATURE, 
        shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars 
        evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, 
        because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd, as well 
        as useless, if a general authority was intended. In like manner the judicial authority of the federal judicatures is declared 
        by the Constitution to comprehend certain cases particularly specified. 
        The expression of those cases marks the precise limits, beyond which the 
        federal courts cannot extend their jurisdiction, because the objects of 
        their cognizance being enumerated, the specification would be nugatory 
        if it did not exclude all ideas of more extensive authority. These examples are sufficient to elucidate the maxims which have been 
        mentioned, and to designate the manner in which they should be used. But 
        that there may be no misapprehensions upon this subject, I shall add one 
        case more, to demonstrate the proper use of these maxims, and the abuse 
        which has been made of them. Let us suppose that by the laws of this State a married woman was incapable 
        of conveying her estate, and that the legislature, considering this as 
        an evil, should enact that she might dispose of her property by deed executed 
        in the presence of a magistrate. In such a case there can be no doubt 
        but the specification would amount to an exclusion of any other mode of 
        conveyance, because the woman having no previous power to alienate her 
        property, the specification determines the particular mode which she is, 
        for that purpose, to avail herself of. But let us further suppose that 
        in a subsequent part of the same act it should be declared that no woman 
        should dispose of any estate of a determinate value without the consent 
        of three of her nearest relations, signified by their signing the deed; 
        could it be inferred from this regulation that a married woman might not 
        procure the approbation of her relations to a deed for conveying property 
        of inferior value? The position is too absurd to merit a refutation, and 
        yet this is precisely the position which those must establish who contend 
        that the trial by juries in civil cases is abolished, because it is expressly 
        provided for in cases of a criminal nature. From these observations it must appear unquestionably true, that trial 
        by jury is in no case abolished by the proposed Constitution, and it is 
        equally true, that in those controversies between individuals in which 
        the great body of the people are likely to be interested, that institution 
        will remain precisely in the same situation in which it is placed by the 
        State constitutions, and will be in no degree altered or influenced by 
        the adoption of the plan under consideration. The foundation of this assertion 
        is, that the national judiciary will have no cognizance of them, and of 
        course they will remain determinable as heretofore by the State courts 
        only, and in the manner which the State constitutions and laws prescribe. 
        All land causes, except where claims under the grants of different States 
        come into question, and all other controversies between the citizens of 
        the same State, unless where they depend upon positive violations of the 
        articles of union, by acts of the State legislatures, will belong exclusively 
        to the jurisdiction of the State tribunals. Add to this, that admiralty 
        causes, and almost all those which are of equity jurisdiction, are determinable 
        under our own government without the intervention of a jury, and the inference 
        from the whole will be, that this institution, as it exists with us at 
        present, cannot possibly be affected to any great extent by the proposed 
        alteration in our system of government. The friends and adversaries of the plan of the convention, if they agree 
        in nothing else, concur at least in the value they set upon the trial 
        by jury; or if there is any difference between them it consists in this: 
        the former regard it as a valuable safeguard to liberty; the latter represent 
        it as the very palladium of free government. For my own part, the more 
        the operation of the institution has fallen under my observation, the 
        more reason I have discovered for holding it in high estimation; and it 
        would be altogether superfluous to examine to what extent it deserves 
        to be esteemed useful or essential in a representative republic, or how 
        much more merit it may be entitled to, as a defense against the oppressions 
        of an hereditary monarch, than as a barrier to the tyranny of popular 
        magistrates in a popular government. Discussions of this kind would be 
        more curious than beneficial, as all are satisfied of the utility of the 
        institution, and of its friendly aspect to liberty. But I must acknowledge 
        that I cannot readily discern the inseparable connection between the existence 
        of liberty, and the trial by jury in civil cases. Arbitrary impeachments, 
        arbitrary methods of prosecuting pretended offenses, and arbitrary punishments 
        upon arbitrary convictions, have ever appeared to me to be the great engines 
        of judicial despotism; and these have all relation to criminal proceedings. 
        The trial by jury in criminal cases, aided by the habeas-corpus act, seems 
        therefore to be alone concerned in the question. And both of these are 
        provided for, in the most ample manner, in the plan of the convention. It has been observed, that trial by jury is a safeguard against an oppressive 
        exercise of the power of taxation. This observation deserves to be canvassed. It is evident that it can have no influence upon the legislature, in 
        regard to the AMOUNT of taxes to be laid, to the OBJECTS upon which they 
        are to be imposed, or to the RULE by which they are to be apportioned. 
        If it can have any influence, therefore, it must be upon the mode of collection, 
        and the conduct of the officers intrusted with the execution of the revenue 
        laws. As to the mode of collection in this State, under our own Constitution, 
        the trial by jury is in most cases out of use. The taxes are usually levied 
        by the more summary proceeding of distress and sale, as in cases of rent. 
        And it is acknowledged on all hands, that this is essential to the efficacy 
        of the revenue laws. The dilatory course of a trial at law to recover 
        the taxes imposed on individuals, would neither suit the exigencies of 
        the public nor promote the convenience of the citizens. It would often 
        occasion an accumulation of costs, more burdensome than the original sum 
        of the tax to be levied. And as to the conduct of the officers of the revenue, the provision in 
        favor of trial by jury in criminal cases, will afford the security aimed 
        at. Wilful abuses of a public authority, to the oppression of the subject, 
        and every species of official extortion, are offenses against the government, 
        for which the persons who commit them may be indicted and punished according 
        to the circumstances of the case. The excellence of the trial by jury in civil cases appears to depend 
        on circumstances foreign to the preservation of liberty. The strongest 
        argument in its favor is, that it is a security against corruption. As 
        there is always more time and better opportunity to tamper with a standing 
        body of magistrates than with a jury summoned for the occasion, there 
        is room to suppose that a corrupt influence would more easily find its 
        way to the former than to the latter. The force of this consideration 
        is, however, diminished by others. The sheriff, who is the summoner of 
        ordinary juries, and the clerks of courts, who have the nomination of 
        special juries, are themselves standing officers, and, acting individually, 
        may be supposed more accessible to the touch of corruption than the judges, 
        who are a collective body. It is not difficult to see, that it would be 
        in the power of those officers to select jurors who would serve the purpose 
        of the party as well as a corrupted bench. In the next place, it may fairly 
        be supposed, that there would be less difficulty in gaining some of the 
        jurors promiscuously taken from the public mass, than in gaining men who 
        had been chosen by the government for their probity and good character. 
        But making every deduction for these considerations, the trial by jury 
        must still be a valuable check upon corruption. It greatly multiplies 
        the impediments to its success. As matters now stand, it would be necessary 
        to corrupt both court and jury; for where the jury have gone evidently 
        wrong, the court will generally grant a new trial, and it would be in 
        most cases of little use to practice upon the jury, unless the court could 
        be likewise gained. Here then is a double security; and it will readily 
        be perceived that this complicated agency tends to preserve the purity 
        of both institutions. By increasing the obstacles to success, it discourages 
        attempts to seduce the integrity of either. The temptations to prostitution 
        which the judges might have to surmount, must certainly be much fewer, 
        while the co-operation of a jury is necessary, than they might be, if 
        they had themselves the exclusive determination of all causes. Notwithstanding, therefore, the doubts I have expressed, as to the essentiality 
        of trial by jury in civil cases to liberty, I admit that it is in most 
        cases, under proper regulations, an excellent method of determining questions 
        of property; and that on this account alone it would be entitled to a 
        constitutional provision in its favor if it were possible to fix the limits 
        within which it ought to be comprehended. There is, however, in all cases, 
        great difficulty in this; and men not blinded by enthusiasm must be sensible 
        that in a federal government, which is a composition of societies whose 
        ideas and institutions in relation to the matter materially vary from 
        each other, that difficulty must be not a little augmented. For my own 
        part, at every new view I take of the subject, I become more convinced 
        of the reality of the obstacles which, we are authoritatively informed, 
        prevented the insertion of a provision on this head in the plan of the 
        convention. The great difference between the limits of the jury trial in different 
        States is not generally understood; and as it must have considerable influence 
        on the sentence we ought to pass upon the omission complained of in regard 
        to this point, an explanation of it is necessary. In this State, our judicial 
        establishments resemble, more nearly than in any other, those of Great 
        Britain. We have courts of common law, courts of probates (analogous in 
        certain matters to the spiritual courts in England), a court of admiralty 
        and a court of chancery. In the courts of common law only, the trial by 
        jury prevails, and this with some exceptions. In all the others a single 
        judge presides, and proceeds in general either according to the course 
        of the canon or civil law, without the aid of a jury. [1] 
        In New Jersey, there is a court of chancery which proceeds like ours, 
        but neither courts of admiralty nor of probates, in the sense in which 
        these last are established with us. In that State the courts of common 
        law have the cognizance of those causes which with us are determinable 
        in the courts of admiralty and of probates, and of course the jury trial 
        is more extensive in New Jersey than in New York. In Pennsylvania, this 
        is perhaps still more the case, for there is no court of chancery in that 
        State, and its common-law courts have equity jurisdiction. It has a court 
        of admiralty, but none of probates, at least on the plan of ours. Delaware 
        has in these respects imitated Pennsylvania. Maryland approaches more 
        nearly to New York, as does also Virginia, except that the latter has 
        a plurality of chancellors. North Carolina bears most affinity to Pennsylvania; 
        South Carolina to Virginia. I believe, however, that in some of those 
        States which have distinct courts of admiralty, the causes depending in 
        them are triable by juries. In Georgia there are none but common-law courts, 
        and an appeal of course lies from the verdict of one jury to another, 
        which is called a special jury, and for which a particular mode of appointment 
        is marked out. In Connecticut, they have no distinct courts either of 
        chancery or of admiralty, and their courts of probates have no jurisdiction 
        of causes. Their common-law courts have admiralty and, to a certain extent, 
        equity jurisdiction. In cases of importance, their General Assembly is 
        the only court of chancery. In Connecticut, therefore, the trial by jury 
        extends in PRACTICE further than in any other State yet mentioned. Rhode 
        Island is, I believe, in this particular, pretty much in the situation 
        of Connecticut. Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in regard to the blending 
        of law, equity, and admiralty jurisdictions, are in a similar predicament. 
        In the four Eastern States, the trial by jury not only stands upon a broader 
        foundation than in the other States, but it is attended with a peculiarity 
        unknown, in its full extent, to any of them. There is an appeal OF COURSE 
        from one jury to another, till there have been two verdicts out of three 
        on one side. From this sketch it appears that there is a material diversity, as well 
        in the modification as in the extent of the institution of trial by jury 
        in civil cases, in the several States; and from this fact these obvious 
        reflections flow: first, that no general rule could have been fixed upon 
        by the convention which would have corresponded with the circumstances 
        of all the States; and secondly, that more or at least as much might have 
        been hazarded by taking the system of any one State for a standard, as 
        by omitting a provision altogether and leaving the matter, as has been 
        done, to legislative regulation. The propositions which have been made for supplying the omission have 
        rather served to illustrate than to obviate the difficulty of the thing. 
        The minority of Pennsylvania have proposed this mode of expression for 
        the purpose "Trial by jury shall be as heretofore" and this I maintain 
        would be senseless and nugatory. The United States, in their united or 
        collective capacity, are the OBJECT to which all general provisions in 
        the Constitution must necessarily be construed to refer. Now it is evident 
        that though trial by jury, with various limitations, is known in each 
        State individually, yet in the United States, AS SUCH, it is at this time 
        altogether unknown, because the present federal government has no judiciary 
        power whatever; and consequently there is no proper antecedent or previous 
        establishment to which the term HERETOFORE could relate. It would therefore 
        be destitute of a precise meaning, and inoperative from its uncertainty. As, on the one hand, the form of the provision would not fulfil the intent 
        of its proposers, so, on the other, if I apprehend that intent rightly, 
        it would be in itself inexpedient. I presume it to be, that causes in 
        the federal courts should be tried by jury, if, in the State where the 
        courts sat, that mode of trial would obtain in a similar case in the State 
        courts; that is to say, admiralty causes should be tried in Connecticut 
        by a jury, in New York without one. The capricious operation of so dissimilar 
        a method of trial in the same cases, under the same government, is of 
        itself sufficient to indispose every well regulated judgment towards it. 
        Whether the cause should be tried with or without a jury, would depend, 
        in a great number of cases, on the accidental situation of the court and 
        parties. But this is not, in my estimation, the greatest objection. I feel a deep 
        and deliberate conviction that there are many cases in which the trial 
        by jury is an ineligible one. I think it so particularly in cases which 
        concern the public peace with foreign nations that is, in most cases where 
        the question turns wholly on the laws of nations. Of this nature, among 
        others, are all prize causes. Juries cannot be supposed competent to investigations 
        that require a thorough knowledge of the laws and usages of nations; and 
        they will sometimes be under the influence of impressions which will not 
        suffer them to pay sufficient regard to those considerations of public 
        policy which ought to guide their inquiries. There would of course be 
        always danger that the rights of other nations might be infringed by their 
        decisions, so as to afford occasions of reprisal and war. Though the proper 
        province of juries be to determine matters of fact, yet in most cases 
        legal consequences are complicated with fact in such a manner as to render 
        a separation impracticable. It will add great weight to this remark, in relation to prize causes, 
        to mention that the method of determining them has been thought worthy 
        of particular regulation in various treaties between different powers 
        of Europe, and that, pursuant to such treaties, they are determinable 
        in Great Britain, in the last resort, before the king himself, in his 
        privy council, where the fact, as well as the law, undergoes a re-examination. 
        This alone demonstrates the impolicy of inserting a fundamental provision 
        in the Constitution which would make the State systems a standard for 
        the national government in the article under consideration, and the danger 
        of encumbering the government with any constitutional provisions the propriety 
        of which is not indisputable. My convictions are equally strong that great advantages result from the 
        separation of the equity from the law jurisdiction, and that the causes 
        which belong to the former would be improperly committed to juries. The 
        great and primary use of a court of equity is to give relief IN EXTRAORDINARY 
        CASES, which are EXCEPTIONS [2] to general rules. To 
        unite the jurisdiction of such cases with the ordinary jurisdiction, must 
        have a tendency to unsettle the general rules, and to subject every case 
        that arises to a SPECIAL determination; while a separation of the one 
        from the other has the contrary effect of rendering one a sentinel over 
        the other, and of keeping each within the expedient limits. Besides this, 
        the circumstances that constitute cases proper for courts of equity are 
        in many instances so nice and intricate, that they are incompatible with 
        the genius of trials by jury. They require often such long, deliberate, 
        and critical investigation as would be impracticable to men called from 
        their occupations, and obliged to decide before they were permitted to 
        return to them. The simplicity and expedition which form the distinguishing 
        characters of this mode of trial require that the matter to be decided 
        should be reduced to some single and obvious point; while the litigations 
        usual in chancery frequently comprehend a long train of minute and independent 
        particulars. It is true that the separation of the equity from the legal jurisdiction 
        is peculiar to the English system of jurisprudence: which is the model 
        that has been followed in several of the States. But it is equally true 
        that the trial by jury has been unknown in every case in which they have 
        been united. And the separation is essential to the preservation of that 
        institution in its pristine purity. The nature of a court of equity will 
        readily permit the extension of its jurisdiction to matters of law; but 
        it is not a little to be suspected, that the attempt to extend the jurisdiction 
        of the courts of law to matters of equity will not only be unproductive 
        of the advantages which may be derived from courts of chancery, on the 
        plan upon which they are established in this State, but will tend gradually 
        to change the nature of the courts of law, and to undermine the trial 
        by jury, by introducing questions too complicated for a decision in that 
        mode. These appeared to be conclusive reasons against incorporating the systems 
        of all the States, in the formation of the national judiciary, according 
        to what may be conjectured to have been the attempt of the Pennsylvania 
        minority. Let us now examine how far the proposition of Massachusetts 
        is calculated to remedy the supposed defect. It is in this form: "In civil actions between citizens of different 
        States, every issue of fact, arising in ACTIONS AT COMMON LAW, may be 
        tried by a jury if the parties, or either of them request it." This, at best, is a proposition confined to one description of causes; 
        and the inference is fair, either that the Massachusetts convention considered 
        that as the only class of federal causes, in which the trial by jury would 
        be proper; or that if desirous of a more extensive provision, they found 
        it impracticable to devise one which would properly answer the end. If 
        the first, the omission of a regulation respecting so partial an object 
        can never be considered as a material imperfection in the system. If the 
        last, it affords a strong corroboration of the extreme difficulty of the 
        thing. But this is not all: if we advert to the observations already made respecting 
        the courts that subsist in the several States of the Union, and the different 
        powers exercised by them, it will appear that there are no expressions 
        more vague and indeterminate than those which have been employed to characterize 
        THAT species of causes which it is intended shall be entitled to a trial 
        by jury. In this State, the boundaries between actions at common law and 
        actions of equitable jurisdiction, are ascertained in conformity to the 
        rules which prevail in England upon that subject. In many of the other 
        States the boundaries are less precise. In some of them every cause is 
        to be tried in a court of common law, and upon that foundation every action 
        may be considered as an action at common law, to be determined by a jury, 
        if the parties, or either of them, choose it. Hence the same irregularity 
        and confusion would be introduced by a compliance with this proposition, 
        that I have already noticed as resulting from the regulation proposed 
        by the Pennsylvania minority. In one State a cause would receive its determination 
        from a jury, if the parties, or either of them, requested it; but in another 
        State, a cause exactly similar to the other, must be decided without the 
        intervention of a jury, because the State judicatories varied as to common-law 
        jurisdiction. It is obvious, therefore, that the Massachusetts proposition, upon this 
        subject cannot operate as a general regulation, until some uniform plan, 
        with respect to the limits of common-law and equitable jurisdictions, 
        shall be adopted by the different States. To devise a plan of that kind 
        is a task arduous in itself, and which it would require much time and 
        reflection to mature. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, 
        to suggest any general regulation that would be acceptable to all the 
        States in the Union, or that would perfectly quadrate with the several 
        State institutions. It may be asked, Why could not a reference have been made to the constitution 
        of this State, taking that, which is allowed by me to be a good one, as 
        a standard for the United States? I answer that it is not very probable 
        the other States would entertain the same opinion of our institutions 
        as we do ourselves. It is natural to suppose that they are hitherto more 
        attached to their own, and that each would struggle for the preference. 
        If the plan of taking one State as a model for the whole had been thought 
        of in the convention, it is to be presumed that the adoption of it in 
        that body would have been rendered difficult by the predilection of each 
        representation in favor of its own government; and it must be uncertain 
        which of the States would have been taken as the model. It has been shown 
        that many of them would be improper ones. And I leave it to conjecture, 
        whether, under all circumstances, it is most likely that New York, or 
        some other State, would have been preferred. But admit that a judicious 
        selection could have been effected in the convention, still there would 
        have been great danger of jealousy and disgust in the other States, at 
        the partiality which had been shown to the institutions of one. The enemies 
        of the plan would have been furnished with a fine pretext for raising 
        a host of local prejudices against it, which perhaps might have hazarded, 
        in no inconsiderable degree, its final establishment. To avoid the embarrassments of a definition of the cases which the trial 
        by jury ought to embrace, it is sometimes suggested by men of enthusiastic 
        tempers, that a provision might have been inserted for establishing it 
        in all cases whatsoever. For this I believe, no precedent is to be found 
        in any member of the Union; and the considerations which have been stated 
        in discussing the proposition of the minority of Pennsylvania, must satisfy 
        every sober mind that the establishment of the trial by jury in ALL cases 
        would have been an unpardonable error in the plan. In short, the more it is considered the more arduous will appear the 
        task of fashioning a provision in such a form as not to express too little 
        to answer the purpose, or too much to be advisable; or which might not 
        have opened other sources of opposition to the great and essential object 
        of introducing a firm national government. I cannot but persuade myself, on the other hand, that the different lights 
        in which the subject has been placed in the course of these observations, 
        will go far towards removing in candid minds the apprehensions they may 
        have entertained on the point. They have tended to show that the security 
        of liberty is materially concerned only in the trial by jury in criminal 
        cases, which is provided for in the most ample manner in the plan of the 
        convention; that even in far the greatest proportion of civil cases, and 
        those in which the great body of the community is interested, that mode 
        of trial will remain in its full force, as established in the State constitutions, 
        untouched and unaffected by the plan of the convention; that it is in 
        no case abolished [3] by that plan; and that there are 
        great if not insurmountable difficulties in the way of making any precise 
        and proper provision for it in a Constitution for the United States. The best judges of the matter will be the least anxious for a constitutional 
        establishment of the trial by jury in civil cases, and will be the most 
        ready to admit that the changes which are continually happening in the 
        affairs of society may render a different mode of determining questions 
        of property preferable in many cases in which that mode of trial now prevails. 
        For my part, I acknowledge myself to be convinced that even in this State 
        it might be advantageously extended to some cases to which it does not 
        at present apply, and might as advantageously be abridged in others. It 
        is conceded by all reasonable men that it ought not to obtain in all cases. 
        The examples of innovations which contract its ancient limits, as well 
        in these States as in Great Britain, afford a strong presumption that 
        its former extent has been found inconvenient, and give room to suppose 
        that future experience may discover the propriety and utility of other 
        exceptions. I suspect it to be impossible in the nature of the thing to 
        fix the salutary point at which the operation of the institution ought 
        to stop, and this is with me a strong argument for leaving the matter 
        to the discretion of the legislature. This is now clearly understood to be the case in Great Britain, and it 
        is equally so in the State of Connecticut; and yet it may be safely affirmed 
        that more numerous encroachments have been made upon the trial by jury 
        in this State since the Revolution, though provided for by a positive 
        article of our constitution, than has happened in the same time either 
        in Connecticut or Great Britain. It may be added that these encroachments 
        have generally originated with the men who endeavor to persuade the people 
        they are the warmest defenders of popular liberty, but who have rarely 
        suffered constitutional obstacles to arrest them in a favorite career. 
        The truth is that the general GENIUS of a government is all that can be 
        substantially relied upon for permanent effects. Particular provisions, 
        though not altogether useless, have far less virtue and efficacy than 
        are commonly ascribed to them; and the want of them will never be, with 
        men of sound discernment, a decisive objection to any plan which exhibits 
        the leading characters of a good government. It certainly sounds not a little harsh and extraordinary to affirm that 
        there is no security for liberty in a Constitution which expressly establishes 
        the trial by jury in criminal cases, because it does not do it in civil 
        also; while it is a notorious fact that Connecticut, which has been always 
        regarded as the most popular State in the Union, can boast of no constitutional 
        provision for either.