lsewhere receive in the like cases, until such times as the customs of
the realm were put in writing and certainly published_?"

The fact that, in that dark age, so many of the principles of natural
equity, as those then embraced in the _Common Law_, should have been so
uniformly recognized and enforced by juries, as to have become
established by general consent as "_the law of the land_;" and the
further fact that this "law of the land" was held so sacred that even
the king could not lawfully infringe or alter it, but was required to
swear to maintain it, are beautiful and impressive illustrations of the
truth that men's minds, even in the comparative infancy of other
knowledge, have clear and coincident ideas of the elementary principles,
and the paramount obligation, of justice. The same facts also prove that
the common mind, and the general, or, perhaps, rather, the universal
conscience, as developed in the untrammelled judgments of juries, may be
safely relied upon for the preservation of individual rights in civil
society; and that there is no necessity or excuse for that deluge of
arbitrary legislation, with which the present age is overwhelmed, under
the pretext that unless laws be _made_, the law will not be known; a
pretext, by the way, almost universally used for overturning, instead of
establishing, the principles of justice.

SECTION III.

_The Oaths of Jurors._

The oaths that have been administered to jurors, in England, and which
are their _legal_ guide to their duty, _all_ (so far as I have
ascertained them) corroborate the idea that the jurors are to try all
cases on their intrinsic merits, independently of any laws that they
deem unjust or oppressive. It is probable that an oath was never
administered to a jury in England, either in a civil or criminal case,
to try it _according to law_.

The earliest oath that I have found prescribed by law to be administered
to jurors is in the laws of Ethelred, (about the year 1015,) which
require that the jurors "_shall swear, with their hands upon a holy
thing, that they will condemn no man that is innocent, nor acquit any
that is guilty_."--_4 Blackstone_, 302. _2 Turner's History of the
Anglo-Saxons, 155. Wilkins' Laws of the Anglo-Saxons_, 117. _Spelman's
Glossary_, word _Jurata_.

Blackstone assumes that this was the oath of the _grand_ jury (_4
Blackstone_, 302); but there was but one jury at the time this oath was
ordained. The institution of two j