We can all perhaps form some idea, though few of us will be likely to form any adequate idea, of what a different thing the trial by jury would have been in practice, and of what would have been the difference to the liberties of England, for five hundred years last past, had this prohibition of Magna Carta, upon the king's officers sitting in the trial of criminal cases, been observed. The principle of this chapter of Magna Carta, as applicable to the governments of the United States of America, forbids that any officer appointed either by the executive or legislative power, or dependent upon them for their salaries, or responsible to them by impeachment, should preside over a jury in criminal trials. To have the trial a legal (that is, a common law) and true trial by jury, the presiding officers must be chosen by the people, and be entirely free from all dependence upon, and all accountability to, the executive and legislative branches of the government. [12] [1] The proofs of this principle of the common law have already been given on page 120, note. There is much confusion and contradiction among authors as to the manner in which sheriffs and other officers were appointed; some maintaining that they were appointed by the king, others that they were elected by the people. I imagine that both these opinions are correct, and that several of the king's officers bore the same official names as those chosen by the people; and that this is the cause of the confusion that has arisen on the subject. It seems to be a perfectly well established fact that, at common law, several magistrates, bearing the names of aldermen, sheriff, stewards, coroners and bailiffs, were chosen by the people; and yet it appears, from Magna Carta itself, that some of the king's officers (of whom he must have had many) were also called "sheriffs, constables, coroners, and bailiffs." But Magna Carta, in various instances, speaks of sheriffs and bailiffs as "our sheriff's and bailiffs;" thus apparently intending to recognize the distinction between officers of the king, bearing those names, and other officers, bearing the same official names, but chosen by the people. Thus it says that "no sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other (officer), shall take horses or carts of any freeman for carriage, unless with the consent of the freeman himself." John's Charter, ch. 36.