Every freeborn adult male Englishman (who had not lost his civil right" by crime or otherwise) was entitled to land of right; that is, by virtue of his civil freedom, or membership of the body politic. Every member of the state was therefore a freeholder; and every freeholder was a member of the state. And the members of the state were therefore called freeholders. But what is material to be observed, is, that a man's right to land was an incident to his civil freedom; not his civil freedom an incident to his right to land. He was a freeholder because he was a freeborn member of the state; and not a freeborn member of the state because he was a freeholder; for this last would be an absurdity. As the tenures of lands changed, the term freeholder lost its original significance, and no longer described a man who held land of the state by virtue of his civil freedom, but only one who held it in fee-simple that is, free of any liability to military or civil services. But the government, in fixing the qualifications of jurors, has adhered to the term freeholder after that term has ceased to express the thing originally designated by it. The principle, then, of the common law, was, that every freeman, or freeborn male Englishman, of adult age, &c;., was eligible to sit in juries, by virtue of his civil freedom, or his being a member of the state, or body politic. Rut the principle of the present English statutes is, that a man shall have a right to sit in juries because he owns lands in fee-simple. At the common law a man was born to the right to sit in juries. By the present statutes he buys that right when he buys his land. And thus this, the greatest of all the political rights of an Englishman, has become a mere article of merchandise; a thing that is bought and sold in the market for what it will bring. Of course, there can be no legality in such juries as these; but only in juries to which every free or natural born adult male Englishman is eligible. The second essential principle of the common law, controlling the selection of jurors, is, that when the selection of the actual jurors comes to be made, (from the whole body of male adults,) that selection shall be made in some mode that excludes the possibility of choice on the part of the government. Of course, this principle forbids the selection to be made by any officer of the government. There seem to have been at least three modes of selecting the jurors, at the common law. 1. By lot. [7] 2. Two knights, or other freeholders, were appointed, (probably by the sheriff,) to select the jurors. 3. By the sheriff, bailiff, or other person, who held the court, or rather acted as its ministerial officer. Probably the latter mode may have been the most common, although there may be some doubt on this point.