actice, that
_jurors_ are to judge of the moral intent of an accused person, and hold
him guiltless, whatever his act, unless they find him to have acted with
a criminal intent; that is, with a design to do what he knew to be
criminal.

This principle is clear, because the question for a jury to determine
is, whether the accused be _guilty_, or _not guilty_. _Guilt_ is a
personal quality of the actor,--not _necessarily_ involved in the act,
but depending also upon the intent or motive with which the act was
done. Consequently, the jury must find that he acted from a criminal
motive, before they can declare him _guilty_.

There is no moral justice in, nor any political necessity for, punishing
a man for any act whatever that he may have committed, if he have done
it without any criminal intent. There can be no _moral justice_ in
punishing for such an act, because, there having been no _criminal
motive_, there can have been no other motive which justice can take
cognizance of, as demanding or justifying punishment. There can be no
_political necessity_ for punishing, to warn against similar acts in
future, because, if one man have injured another, however
unintentionally, he is liable, and justly liable, to a _civil_ suit for
damages; and in this suit he will be compelled to make compensation for
the injury, notwithstanding his innocence of any intention to injure. He
must bear the consequences of his own act, instead of throwing them upon
another, however innocent he may have been of any intention to do
wrong. And the damages he will have to pay will be a sufficient warning
to him not to do the like act again.

If it be alleged that there are crimes against the public, (as treason,
for example, or any other resistance to government,) for which private
persons can recover no damages, and that there is a political necessity
for punishing for such offences, even though the party acted
conscientiously, the answer is,--the government must bear with all
resistance that is not so clearly wrong as to give evidence of criminal
intent. In other words, the government, in all its acts, must keep
itself so _clearly_ within the limits of justice, as that twelve men,
taken at random, will all agree that it is in the right, or it must
incur the risk of resistance, without any power to punish it. This is
the mode in which the trial by jury operates to prevent the government
from falling into the hands of a party, or a faction, and to