ciple of English or American
constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the
right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law,
and what was the moral intent of the accused; _but that it is also their
right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of
the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion,
unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or
resisting the execution of, such laws_.

Unless such be the right and duty of jurors, it is plain that, instead
of juries being a "palladium of liberty"--a barrier against the tyranny
and oppression of the government--they are really mere tools in its
hands, for carrying into execution any injustice and oppression it may
desire to have executed.

But for their right to judge of the law, _and the justice of the law_,
juries would be no protection to an accused person, _even as to matters
of fact_; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever,
in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of
evidence. That is, it can dictate what evidence is admissible, and what
inadmissible, _and also what force or weight is to be given to the
evidence admitted_. And if the government can thus dictate to a jury the
laws of evidence, it can not only make it necessary for them to convict
on a partial exhibition of the evidence rightfully pertaining to the
case, but it can even require them to convict on any evidence whatever
that it pleases to offer them.

That the rights and duties of jurors must necessarily be such as are
here claimed for them, will be evident when it is considered what the
trial by jury is, and what is its object.

_"The trial by jury," then, is a "trial by the country"--that is, by the
people--as distinguished from a trial by the government._

It was anciently called "trial _per pais_"--that is, "trial by the
country." And now, in every criminal trial, the jury are told that the
accused "has, for trial, put himself upon the _country_; which _country_
you (the jury) are."

_The object of this trial "by the country" or by the people, in
preference to a trial by the government, is to guard against every
species of oppression by the government. In order to effect this end, it
is indispensable that the people, or "the country," judge of and
determine their own liberties against the government; instead of the
government's judging of and determining