“By no means; if you mean that opinion which is the result of deliberate judgment, and has a direct connection with our religion, morals, and manners. That is a public opinion to which we all ought to defer, when it is fairly made up, and has been distinctly and independently pronounced; most especially when it comes from high quarters, and not from low. But the country is full of simulated public opinion, in the first place, and it is not always easy to tell the false from the true. Yes, the country is full of what I shall call an artificial public opinion, that has been got up to effect a purpose, and to that no wise man will defer, if he can help it. Now, look at our scheme of administering justice. Twelve men taken out of the bosom of the community, by a species of lottery, are set apart to pronounce on your fortune, or mine—nay, to utter the fearful words of ‘guilty,’ or ‘not guilty.’ All the accessories of this plan, as they exist here, make against its success. In the first place, the jurors are paid, and that just enough to induce the humblest on the list to serve, and not enough to induce the educated and intelligent. It is a day-labourer’s wages, and the day-labourer will be most likely to profit by it. Men who are content to toil for seventy-five cents a day are very willing to serve on juries for a dollar; while those whose qualifications enable them to obtain enough to pay their fines, disregard the penalty, and stay away.” “Why is not an evil as flagrant as this remedied? I should think the whole bar would protest against it.” “With what result? Who cares for the bar? Legislators alone can change this system, and men very different from those who are now sent must go to the legislature, before one is found, honest enough, or bold enough, to get up and tell the people they are not all fit to be trusted. No, no; this is not the way of the hour. We have a cycle in opinion to make, and it may be that when the round is fairly made, men may come back to their senses, and perceive the necessity of fencing in justice by some of the useful provisions that we are now so liberally throwing away. To tell you the truth, Ned, the state is submitting to the influence of two of the silliest motives that can govern men—ultra conservatism, and ultra progress; the one holding back, often, to preserve that which is not worth keeping; and the other ‘going ahead,’ as it is termed, merely for the sake of boasting of their onward tendencies. Neither course is in the least suited to the actual wants of society, and each is pernicious in its way.” “It is thought, however, that when opinion thus struggles with opinion, a healthful compromise is made, in which society finds its advantage.”