It seems taken for granted that though one of the Jurors may be an old judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and have sat on the bench for twenty years; nay, though he may be also an old legislator of twenty years' standing, and as legislator have made the very statute in question, and also as judge subsequently have explained and declared it, yet the moment he takes the oath as Grand-Juror, all this knowledge is "gone from him" as completely Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The court is the assembly of magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and Chaldeans to restore it. Congress might pass a law compelling ex-judges, ex-senators, and ex-representatives--who are so numerous nowadays, and continually increasing and likely to multiply yet more,--to serve as grand-jurors; soon as they take their oath, they are in law held and accounted to be utterly ignorant of law, and bound to accept as law whatsoever the court declares such. The acting judge may be young, blind, ignorant, ambitious, drunk with brandy or rage, he may have a personal interest in promoting [Transcriber's Note: for 'promoting' read 'perverting'; see Errata] the law, and may notoriously twist it so as to gratify his peculiar or familistic spleen, still the jury to accept the court's opinion for the nation's law. Any political ignoramus, if hoisted to the "bench," has judicial authority to declare the law,--it is absolute. If he errs, "he is responsible to the proper authorities--he may be removed by impeachment;" but the jury must not question the infallibility of his opinion. For though the grand-jury is "the country," the judge is not only all that, and more so; but is "the rest of mankind" besides. Then the judge goes further--talks _solemnly_, yet familiar; to wheedle jurors the better, he mixes himself with them, his "WE" embracing both judge and jury. I shall now quote actual language used in this very court, by the late Hon. Judge Woodbury:--