[I venture to remind the reader, lest this note should appear somewhat redundant to an English eye, that the jury is an institution which has only been naturalized in France within the present century; that it is even now exclusively applied to those criminal causes which come before the courts of assize, or to the prosecutions of the public press; and that the judges and counsellors of the numerous local tribunals of France--forming a body of many thousand judicial functionaries--try all civil causes, appeals from criminal causes, and minor offences, without the jury.--_Translator's Note_.] [194] An important remark must however be made. Trial by jury does unquestionably invest the people with a general control over the actions of citizens, but it does not furnish means of exercising this control in all cases, or with an absolute authority. When an absolute monarch has the right of trying offences by his representatives, the fate of the prisoner is, as it were, decided beforehand. But even if the people were predisposed to convict, the composition and the non-responsibility of the jury would still afford some chances favorable to the protection of innocence. [195] In France, the qualification of the jurors is the same as the electoral qualification, namely, the payment of 200 francs per annum in direct taxes: they are chosen by lot. In England they are returned by the sheriff; the qualifications of jurors were raised to 10_l_ per annum in England, and 6_l_ in Wales, of freehold land or copyhold, by the statute W. and M., c. 24: leaseholders for a time determinable upon life or lives, of the clear yearly value of 20_l_ per annum over and above the rent reserved, are qualified to serve on juries; and jurors in the courts of Westminster and city of London must be householders, and possessed of real and personal estates of the value of 100_l_. The qualifications, however, prescribed in different statutes, vary according to the object for which the jury is impannelled. See Blackstone's Commentaries, b. iii., c. 23.--_Translator's Note_. [196] See Appendix Q. [197] See Appendix R. [198] The federal judges decide upon their own authority almost all the questions most important to the country. CHAPTER XVII. PRINCIPAL CAUSES WHICH TEND TO MAINTAIN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES. A democratic republic subsists in the United States; and the principal object of this book has been to account for the fact of its existence. Several of the causes which contribute to maintain the institutions of America have been voluntarily passed by, or only hinted at, as I was borne along by my subject. Others I have been unable to discuss and those on which I have dwelt most, are, as it were, buried in the details of the former part of this work.