_This principle of the free administration of justice connects itself necessarily with the trial by jury, because a jury could not rightfully give judgment against any man, in either a civil or criminal case, if they had any reason to suppose he had been unable to procure his witnesses._ The true trial by jury would also compel the free administration of justice from another necessity, viz., that of preventing private quarrels; because, unless the government enforced a man's rights and redressed his wrongs, _free of expense to him_, a jury would be bound to protect him in taking the law into his own hands. A man has a natural right to enforce his own rights and redress his own wrongs. If one man owe another a debt, and refuse to pay it, the creditor has a natural right to seize sufficient property of the debtor, wherever he can find it, to satisfy the debt. If one man commit a trespass upon the person, property or character of another, the injured party has a natural right, either to chastise the aggressor, or to take compensation for the injury out of his property. But as the government is an impartial party as between these individuals, it is more likely to do _exact_ justice between them than the injured individual himself would do. The government, also, having more power at its command, is likely to right a man's wrongs more peacefully than the injured party himself could do it. If, therefore, the government will do the work of enforcing a man's rights, and redressing his wrongs, _promptly, and free of expense to him_, he is under a moral obligation to leave the work in the hands of the government; but not otherwise. When the government forbids him to enforce his own rights or redress his own wrongs, and deprives him of all means of obtaining justice, except on the condition of his employing the government to obtain it for him, _and of paying the government for doing it_, the government becomes itself the protector and accomplice of the wrong-doer. If the government will forbid a man to protect his own rights, it is bound to do it for him, _free of expense to him_. And so long as government refuses to do this, juries, if they knew their duties, would protect a man in defending his own rights. Under the prevailing system, probably one half of the community are virtually deprived of all protection for their rights, except what the criminal law affords them. Courts of justice, for all civil suits, are as effectually shut against them, as though it were done by bolts and bars. Being forbidden to maintain their own rights by force,--as, for instance, to compel the payment of debts,--and being unable to pay the expenses of civil suits, they have no alternative but submission to many acts of injustice, against which the government is bound either to protect them, _free of expense_, or allow them to protect themselves.