What is this but saying that the people, who are supposed to be represented in juries, and who institute and support the government, (of course for the protection of their own rights and liberties, as they understand them, for plainly no other motive can be attributed to them,) are really the slaves of a despotic power, whose arbitrary commands even they are not supposed competent to understand, but for the transgression of which they are nevertheless to be punished as criminals This is plainly the sum of the doctrine, because the jury are the peers (equals) of the accused, and are therefore supposed to know the law as well as he does, and as well as it is known by the people at large. If they (the jury) are not presumed to know the law, neither the accused nor the people at large can be presumed to know it. Hence, it follows that one principle of the truetrial by jury is, that no accused person shall be held responsible for any other or greater knowledge of the law than is common to his political equals, who will generally be men of nearly similar condition in life. But the doctrine of Mansfield is, that the body of the people, from whom jurors are taken, are responsible to a law, which it is agreed they cannot understand. What is this but despotism? and not merely despotism, but insult and oppression of the intensest kind? [3] This declaration of Mansfield, that juries in England "are not sworn to decide the law" in criminal cases, is a plain falsehood. They are sworn to try the whole case at issue between the king and the prisoner, and that includes the law as well as the fact. See Jurors Oath, page 85. This doctrine of Mansfield is the doctrine of all who deny the right of juries to judge of the law, although all may not choose to express it in so blunt and unambiguous terms. But the doctrine evidently admits of no other interpretation or defence. CHAPTER X. MORAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR JURORS THE trial by jury must, if possible, be construed to be such that a man can rightfully sit in a jury, and unite with his fellows in giving judgment. But no man can rightfully do this, unless he hold in his own hand alone a veto upon any judgment or sentence whatever to be rendered by the jury against a defendant, which veto he must be permitted to use according to his own discretion and conscience, and not bound to use according to the dictation of either legislatures or judges.