It may be well to explain briefly some of the terms commonly used in connection with the law and the courts. The parties to a suit at law are usually known as the _plaintiff_ and the _defendant_. A _criminal case_ is one in which some crime is charged; in a _civil case_, the issue concerns the private rights of individuals (for example, when a man is sued for debt). A court has _original_ jurisdiction where cases come before it in the first instance without having already been heard by some other court; it has _appellate_ jurisdiction when cases come up from some other court on appeal. Footnote 139: In more than one hundred and thirty years only one Supreme Court justice has been impeached and he was acquitted. The charges in this case, moreover, did not reflect upon the integrity of the judge. Footnote 140: Article III, Section 1. Footnote 141: A few cases come directly before the Supreme Court, for example, suits between two states of the Union; but the great majority of cases come up on appeal, or on writ of error, which is a method of appeal. Footnote 142: There are, in addition, some special federal courts, such as the court of claims, the courts which try cases in the District of Columbia, and the courts of the insular possessions. Footnote 143: These rules were gathered together and put into written form by various commentators, chief among whom were Glanvil, Bracton, Coke, Littleton, and Blackstone. Blackstone’s _Commentaries on the Common Law of England_, compiled before the American Revolution, is still the standard work, known to every lawyer. Footnote 144: The colonists looked upon the common law as a bulwark of individual freedom. Edmund Burke, in one of his speeches, mentioned as a significant indication of the colonists’ familiarity with the common law the fact that almost as many copies of Blackstone had been sold in America as in England. The Declaration of Rights adopted by the First Continental Congress in 1774 spoke of the colonies as entitled to all the provisions of the common law. Footnote 145: