superior numbers, and without regard to justice, to dispose at pleasure
of the property and persons of all bodies of men less numerous than
themselves.

The difference, in short, between the two systems, is this. The trial by
jury protects person and property, inviolate to their possessors, from
the hand of the law, unless _justice, beyond a reasonable doubt_,
require them to be taken. The majority principle takes person and
property from their possessors, at the mere arbitrary will of a
majority, who are liable and likely to be influenced, in taking them, by
motives of oppression, avarice, and ambition.

If the relative numbers of opposing parties afforded sufficient evidence
of the comparative justice of their claims, the government should carry
the principle into its courts of justice; and instead of referring
controversies to impartial and disinterested men,--to judges and jurors,
sworn to do justice, and bound patiently to hear and weigh all the
evidence and arguments that can be offered on either side,--it should
simply _count_ the plaintiffs and defendants in each case, (where there
were more than one of either,) and then give the case to the majority;
after ample opportunity had been given to the plaintiffs and defendants
to reason with, flatter, cheat, threaten, and bribe each other, by way
of inducing them to change sides. Such a process would be just as
rational in courts of justice, as in halls of legislation; for it is of
no importance to a man, who has his rights taken from him, whether it be
done by a legislative enactment, or a judicial decision.

In legislation, the people are all arranged as plaintiffs and defendants
in their own causes; (those who are in favor of a particular law,
standing as plaintiffs, and those who are opposed to the same law,
standing as defendants); and to allow these causes to be decided by
majorities, is plainly as absurd as it would be to allow judicial
decisions to be determined by the relative number of plaintiffs and
defendants.

If this mode of decision were introduced into courts of justice, we
should see a parallel, and only a parallel, to that system of
legislation which we witness daily. We should see large bodies of men
conspiring to bring perfectly groundless suits, against other bodies of
men, for large sums of money, and to carry them by sheer force of
numbers; just as we now continually see large bodies of men conspiring
to carry, by mere force of numbers, s