t by the laws of this State a married woman was
incapable of conveying her estate, and that the legislature, considering
this as an evil, should enact that she might dispose of her property by
deed executed in the presence of a magistrate. In such a case there can
be no doubt but the specification would amount to an exclusion of any
other mode of conveyance, because the woman having no previous power to
alienate her property, the specification determines the particular mode
which she is, for that purpose, to avail herself of. But let us further
suppose that in a subsequent part of the same act it should be declared
that no woman should dispose of any estate of a determinate value
without the consent of three of her nearest relations, signified by
their signing the deed; could it be inferred from this regulation that
a married woman might not procure the approbation of her relations to
a deed for conveying property of inferior value? The position is too
absurd to merit a refutation, and yet this is precisely the position
which those must establish who contend that the trial by juries in civil
cases is abolished, because it is expressly provided for in cases of a
criminal nature.

From these observations it must appear unquestionably true, that trial
by jury is in no case abolished by the proposed Constitution, and it is
equally true, that in those controversies between individuals in
which the great body of the people are likely to be interested, that
institution will remain precisely in the same situation in which it is
placed by the State constitutions, and will be in no degree altered
or influenced by the adoption of the plan under consideration. The
foundation of this assertion is, that the national judiciary will have
no cognizance of them, and of course they will remain determinable as
heretofore by the State courts only, and in the manner which the State
constitutions and laws prescribe. All land causes, except where claims
under the grants of different States come into question, and all other
controversies between the citizens of the same State, unless where they
depend upon positive violations of the articles of union, by acts of the
State legislatures, will belong exclusively to the jurisdiction of the
State tribunals. Add to this, that admiralty causes, and almost all
those which are of equity jurisdiction, are determinable under our own
government without the intervention of a jury, and the inference from
the