"There is that great simplicity and plainness in the Common Law, that Lord Coke has gone so far as to assert, (and Lord Bacon nearly seconds him in observing,) that 'he never knew two questions arise merely upon common law; but that they were mostly owing to statutes ill-penned and overladen with provisos.'"--_3 Eunomus_, 157-8. If it still be said that juries would disagree, as to what was natural justice, and that one jury would decide one way, and another jury another; the answer is, that such a thing is hardly credible, as that twelve men, taken at random from the people at large, should _unanimously_ decide a question of natural justice one way, and that twelve other men, selected in the same manner, should _unanimously_ decide the same question the other way, _unless they were misled by the justices_. If, however, such things should sometimes happen, from any cause whatever, the remedy is by appeal, and new trial. [Footnote 73: Judges do not even live up to that part of their own maxim, which requires jurors to try the matter of fact. By dictating to them the laws of evidence,--that is, by dictating what evidence they may hear, and what they may not hear, and also by dictating to them rules for weighing such evidence as they permit them to hear,--they of necessity dictate the conclusion to which they shall arrive. And thus the court really tries the question of fact, as well as the question of law, in every cause. It is clearly impossible, in the nature of things, for a jury to try a question of fact, without trying every question of law on which the fact depends.] [Footnote 74: Most disagreements of juries are on matters of fact, which are admitted to be within their province. We have little or no evidence of their disagreements on matters of natural justice. The disagreements of _courts_ on matters of law, afford little or no evidence that juries would also disagree on matters of law--that is, _of justice_; because the disagreements of courts are generally on matters of _legislation_, and not on those principles of abstract justice, by which juries would be governed, and in regard to which the minds of men are nearly unanimous.] [Footnote 75: This is the principle of all voluntary associations whatsoever. No voluntary association was ever formed, and in the nature of things there never can be one formed, for the accomplishment of any objects except those in which all the parties to the association are agreed. Government, therefore, must be kept within these limits, or it is no longer a voluntary association of all who contribute to its support, but a mere tyranny established by a part over the rest.