And other authorities abundantly corroborate this assertion.[12]

The king was, therefore, constitutionally the government; and the only
legal limitation upon his power seems to have been simply the _Common
Law_, usually called "_the law of the land_," which he was bound by oath
to maintain; (which oath had about the same practical value as similar
oaths have always had.) This "law of the land" seems not to have been
regarded at all by many of the kings, except so far as they found it
convenient to do so, or were constrained to observe it by the fear of
arousing resistance. But as all people are slow in making resistance,
oppression and usurpation often reached a great height; and, in the case
of John, they had become so intolerable as to enlist the nation almost
universally against him; and he was reduced to the necessity of
complying with any terms the barons saw fit to dictate to him.

It was under these circumstances, that the Great Charter of English
Liberties was granted. The barons of England, sustained by the common
people, having their king in their power, compelled him, as the price of
his throne, to pledge himself that he would punish no freeman for a
violation of any of his laws, unless with the consent of the peers--that
is, the equals--of the accused.

The question here arises, Whether the barons and people intended that
those peers (the jury) should be mere puppets in the hands of the king,
exercising no opinion of their own as to the intrinsic merits of the
accusations they should try, or the _justice_ of the laws they should be
called on to enforce? Whether those haughty and victorious barons, when
they had their tyrant king at their feet, gave back to him his throne,
with full power to enact any tyrannical laws he might please, reserving
only to a jury ("the country") the contemptible and servile privilege of
ascertaining, (under the dictation of the king, or his judges, as to the
laws of evidence), the simple _fact_ whether those laws had been
transgressed? Was this the only restraint, which, when they had all
power in their hands, they placed upon the tyranny of a king, whose
oppressions they had risen in arms to resist? Was it to obtain such a
charter as that, that the whole nation had united, as it were, like one
man, against their king? Was it on such a charter that they intended to
rely, for all future time, for the security of their liberties? No. They
were engaged in no such senseless work a