of attainder for treason or felony. Now, an act of attainder is a legislative verdict.

I have said, that this authority remains with the people at large. Potentially, indeed, it does; actually, it cannot be said to remain even with them. The contrivance is so admirably exquisite concerning this tremendous jurisdiction, that, in the general course of things, it exists actually nowhere. But no sooner does any particular emergency call for its operations, than it starts into immediate existence.

But it remains, that I give satisfaction with regard to the inquiry-how shall this burthen, attended with so much uneasiness, be borne by those, upon whom, though only occasionally, it is laid?

It is, we acknowledge, a most weighty burthen. That man must, indeed, be callous to sensibility, who, without emotion and anxiety, can deliberate on the questionwhether, by his voice, his fellow-man and fellow-citizen shall live or die. But while capital punishments continue to be inflicted, the burthen must be borne; and while it must be borne, every citizen, who, in the service of his country, may be called to bear it, is bound to qualify himself for bearing it in such a manner, as will ensure peace of mind to himself, justice to him whose fate he may determine, and honor to the judicial administration of his country. By so qualifying himself, though, in the discharge of his duty, he will feel strong emotions, he will, from the performance of it, feel no remorse.

I must again enter upon a review of some principles, of which notice has already been taken.

With regard to the law in criminal cases, every citizen, in a government such as ours, should endeavor to acquire a reasonable knowledge of its principles and rules, for the direction of his conduct, when he is called to obey, when 1 Cons. U. S. art. 1, s. 9. Cons. Penn. art. 9, s. 18.

he is called to answer, and when he is called to judge. On questions of law, his deficiencies will be supplied by the professional directions of the judges, whose duty and whose business it is professionally to direct him. For, as we have seen, verdicts, in criminal cases, generally determine the question of law, as well as the question of fact. Questions of fact, it is his exclusive province to determine. With the consideration of evidence unconnected with the question which he is to try, his attention will not be distracted; for everything of that nature, we presume, will be excluded by the court. The collected powers of his mind, therefore, will be fixed, steadily and without interruption, upon the issue which he is sworn to try. This issue is an issue of fact. Its trial will depend upon the evidence. Evidence, in every cause, is that which produces: evidence, in a capital cause, is that which forces belief.

Belief, as we have seen, is an act of the mind, not easily described, indeed, but easily felt. Does the juror feel its force? Let him obey the constitution of his nature, and yield to the strong conviction. If the evidence produce, upon the mind of each of his fellow jurors, the same strong conviction, which it produces on his, their sentiments will be unanimous; and the unanimous sentiments of all will still corroborate the strong conviction of each. If a

[The opinions of unprejudiced men, who have had a wide and varied experience in the matter in question, are entitled to great weight.

The late Justice Miller would seem to fill the requirement in all particulars, starting with an opinion against the utility of the jury system. After a long professional career as a lawyer and a judge, his observation and experience compel him to change his view. His sentiments are given by Judge Dillon in his Lectures upon Law and Jurisprudence, p. 122. The most cogent fact stated is the difficulty experienced by the nine judges of the United States Supreme Court in agreeing upon questions of fact, compared with the ease with which they agree upon questions of law. He expresses himself very freely that the education of the lawyer and judge does not peculiarly fit men to pass upon questions of fact.]

single doubt remain in the mind of any juror, that doubt should produce his dissent; and the dissent of a single juror, according to the principles which we have explained, and, we trust, established, will produce a verdict of acquittal by all.

Considered in this manner, is the duty of a juror, in a capital case, intolerably burthensome? It cannot, indeed, as we have said, be discharged without emotion: but the unbiassed dictates of his own constitution will teach-will force him to discharge it properly.

In criminal-in capital cases, with what sublime majesty does the trial by jury now appear to its ravished beholders! In the first and purest principles of society its foundations are laid: by the most exquisite skill, united with consummate benignity, the grand and finely proportioned edifice has been raised: within its walls, strong and lofty as well as finely proportioned, freedom enjoys protection, and innocence rests secure.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

OF SHERIFFS AND CORONERS.

THE sheriff is an officer of high respectability in our juridical system, and was known to the most early ages of the common law.

Among the Saxons, his power was very great and extensive-judicial as well as ministerial. In his ministerial character, he executed the writs of the king and the judgments of his courts; in his judicial character, the sheriff presided in the several courts of justice comprehended within the sphere of his jurisdiction. He was chosen in the county court by the votes of the freeholders; and, like the king himself, says Selden, was entitled to his honor by the people's favor.

All the other nations of Gothic and German origin, who, on the ruins of the Roman empire, founded kingdoms in the different parts of Europe, had officers of the same kind with the sheriffs of the Anglo-Saxons. This is a strong evidence of their high antiquity, as well as general respectability. In some of the Gothic constitutions, the sheriffs were elected by the people, but confirmed by the king. The election and appointment were made in this manner: the people chose twelve electors; those electors nominated three persons to the king; from those three the king selected one, who was the confirmed sheriff.

The popular elections of the sheriffs, in England, were lost by the people in the reigns of Edward the Second and Edward the Third; and a new mode of appointment was substituted in their place. In the time of Lord Chancellor Fortescue, the manner of the election of sheriffs was as follows. Every year there met, in the court of exchequer, all the king's counsellors, as well lords spiritual and temporal, as all other the king's justices, all the barons of the exchequer, the master of the rolls, and certain other officers. All these, by common consent, nominated of every county three persons of distinction, such as they deemed best qualified for the office of sheriff, and presented them to the king. Of the persons so nominated and returned, the king made choice of one, who, by virtue of the king's letters patent, was constituted high sheriff of that county, for which he was so chosen. This mode of nomination and appointment still continues in England.

It has been usual to appoint them annually. But in the reign of Henry the Fifth, we find from this custom a parliamentary exception, rendered very remarkable by the reason assigned for it. The king is permitted to appoint sheriffs for four years; "because by wars and pestilence there are not a sufficient number remaining, in the different counties, to discharge this office from year to year.” 1

By a parliamentary regulation made in the reign of Edward the Second, and repeated in that of Edward the Third, it was directed that sheriffs should be chosen from such persons as had lands in their shires; and that those lands should be sufficient to answer to the king and his people, if grieved.2

By a law of the United States, a marshal is appointed

1 Bar. on St. 386.

2 Reev. 78.