"That jurors to serve in the courts of the United States, in each
state respectively, shall have the like qualifications and be
entitled to the like exemptions, as jurors of the highest court of
law of such state now have and are entitled to, and shall
hereafter, from time to time, have and be entitled to, and shall
be designated by ballot, lot, or otherwise, according to the mode
of forming such juries now practised and hereafter to be practised
therein, in so far as such mode may be practicable by the courts
of the United States, or the officers thereof; and for this
purpose, the said courts shall have power to make all necessary
rules and regulations for conforming the designation and
empanelling of jurors, in substance, to the laws and usages now in
force in such state; and, further, shall have power, by role or
order, from time to time, to conform the same to any change in
these respects which may be hereafter adopted by the legislatures
of the respective states for the state courts." St. 1840, ch.
47, Statutes at Large, vol. 5, p. 394.
In this corrupt and lawless manner, Congress, instead of taking
care to preserve the trial by jury, so far as they might, by
providing for the appointment of legal juries incomparably the
most important of all our judicial tribunals, and the only ones on
which the least reliance can be placed for the preservation of
liberty have given the selection of them over entirely to the
control of an indefinite number of state legislatures, and thus
authorized each state legislature to adapt the juries of the
United States to the maintenance of any and every system of
tyranny that may prevail in such state.
Congress have as much constitutional right to give over all the
functions of the United States government into the hand of the
state legislatures, to be exercised within each state in such
manner as the legislature of such state shall please to exercise
them, as they have to thus give up to these legislatures the
selection of juries for the courts of the United States.
There has, probably, never been a legal jury, nor a legal trial by
jury, in a single court of the United States, since the adoption
of the constitution.
These facts show how much reliance can be placed in written
constitutions, to control the action of the government, and
preserve the liberties of the people.
If the real trial by jury had been preserved in the courts of the
United States that is, if we had had legal juries, and the
jurors had known their rights it is hardly probable that one
tenth of the past legislation of Congress would ever have been
enacted, or, at least, that, if enacted, it could have been
enforced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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