The other reason is that the court must always decide what evidence shall be admitted. So if the jury are to be the judges of the law, one authority must determine what evidence they shall consider, and another determine what law shall be applied to it. For instance, suppose a defendant charged with homicide offers to prove certain facts which as he claims justify the killing. The Judge says these facts do not, under the law, justify the killing and excludes the evidence. That may be the real point in the case, and the jury may believe that those facts fully justify the homicide; still they cannot be permitted to hear them. It is preposterous to suppose that so logical and reasonable a system as the Common Law could ever have tolerated such an absurdity. My friend, Mr. Justice Gray of the United States Supreme Court, an admirable judge and one of the great judges of the world, in his dissenting opinion in _Sparf et al. v. U. S., 156, U. S. Reports, page 51, etc.,_ has little to say on this point, except that of course there must be some authority to regulate the conduct of trials. I declined a reelection to the Senate. I was twice nominated for Mayor by the Republicans of Worcester, when the election of their candidate was sure; once by a Citizens' Convention, and once by a Committee authorized to nominate a candidate, and another year urged by prominent and influential citizens to accept such a nomination. But I preferred my profession. I never had any desire or taste for executive office, and I doubt if I had much capacity for it. When Charles Allen declined reelection to Congress, in 1852, I have no doubt I could have succeeded him if I had been willing, although I was but twenty-six years old, only a year past the Constitutional age. As I found myself getting a respectable place in the profession my early ambitions were so far changed and expanded that I hoped I might some day be appointed to the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that there could be no more delightful life for a man competent to the service than one spent in discussing with the admirable lawyers, who have always adorned that Bench, the great questions of jurisprudence, involving the rights of citizens, and the welfare of the Commonwealth, and helping to settle them by authority. This ambition was also disappointed. I have twice received the offer of a seat on that Bench, under circumstances which rendered it out of the question that I should accept it, although on both occasions I longed exceedingly to do so.