ftitution and hating the law; fpurning all allegiance and difdainful of controul, they have purfued meatures for overturning their eftablifhed fyftem of juriprudence, degrading the courts of judicature, and deftroying the independence of the judges.

In enumerating the tyrannical proceedings of the Pennfylvania legiflature, the impeachment of judge Addifon fhould not be omitted. This learned and upright judge had incurred the difpleafure of certain men of influence and power in that State, who fuccefsfully contrived to perfuade the legislature to efpoufe their quarrel, and revenge their fuppofed affront. Judge Addifon, as prefident of one of their circuit courts, flopped and prevented one of the puifne juftices from addreffing a grand jury after the prefident himfelf had delivered his charge. This was a ground of impeachment for high crimes and mifdemeanour in office. The judge was tried by the fenate, found guilty, divefted of his commiflion, and difqualified forever from holding any offices of honour and refponfibility under the State of Pennfylvania. The real and unpardonable crime of judge Addison was, that he was a federalift; that he had exerted his influence and talents to oppofe Mr. M'Kean's election for governour; that in his charges to the grand jury he had difcuffed political topicks, advocating civil liberty in oppofition to the ungoverned licentioufnefs of the infuriated populace, defending and explaining the principles of our conflitution and the meafures of the paft adminiftration.

The endeavours of this fame le giflature have been eager and unremitting to abolith the republican inftitution of jury trial; a right made facred by the conftitution, by the habits, manners, and feelings of our countrymen. For this purpose they have repeatedly attempted to pafs feveral bills of adjuftment, of arbitra, tion, and for extending the jurif diction of the juftices; fome of which have been happily fruftrated by the wifdom, vigilance, and firmnefs of the governour. This moft prominent feature of their measures, their hoftility to the judiciary department and to the trial by jury, occupies the particular attention of our author. He addreffes himself to the people of Pennsylvania; he tells them that their worst enemy is within their own walls, in poffeflion of their very capitol; enforces upon them the immediate neceflity of arouf ing from their lethargy, and, by rejecting from their fuffrages thefe bold invaders of their deareft rights and liberties, prove their veneration for the conftitution, their love of rational liberty and focial order. He entreats them to listen to the voice of wisdom while their ancient fabricks, conftructed by their forefathers, and rendered venerable and holy by age, yet ftand on their folid bafes; he admonishes them to receive the light through "well contrived and well difpofed windows," and not wilfully to reject it till it flafhes upon them "through flaws and breaches-through the yarning chafms of their ruin."

The writer commences his publication by fome general obfervations on the immenfe importance

of the people in popular governments informing themfelves fully of the genius of their political inftitutions, of the nature and extent of their conftitutional privileges and inherent rights, in or der that they may better judge of the qualification of thofe to whom they delegate the power of adminiftering the one, and the truft of maintaining inviolate the other, He wishes to imprefs on his fellow citizens the extenfive nature of the fcience of government; that its acquifition demands valt exertions of the mind, perfevering exercife of the intellectual powers, and that a faithful difcharge of official truft is an arduous undertaking, for which all are not equally qualified. He urges the importance of electing fuch men only to offices of honour and refponsibility, particularly to legiflative trufts, as are wife, well informed, and virtuous; and proves to them, that their rights, their interefts, their fafety, are implicated in the confideration. Hav. ing thus occupied feveral pages with obfervations peculiarly adapted for the people of Pennfylvania, our author proceeds to give a hiftory of the trial by jury, and deduces our right to this important prerogative from the common law of England; but as the characteristicks and obliga, tion of this law, which conftitutes a great part of our own municipal laws are very imperfectly undertood in this country, and in confequence of entire mifconception of its provifions, the most unfounded prejudices exift against it, he very judiciously takes a curfory view of this as preliminary to his obfervations on the trial by

jury. He obferves that the common law is founded on ancient immemorial ufage and common confent, deriving its fanction from its reafonablenefs, the equity of its maxims, and juftnefs of its fundamental principles. Wood, in his inftitutes, ftyles the common law to be common right, com. mon reafon or common justice; and the laws of nature, of nations, and of religion, conftitute parts of it. Bracton calls the laws of England the ancient judgments of the juft, and confiders them as the undoubted birthright of every Englishman. My lord chief juf tice Coke avers in the words of Cicero, "major hæreditas venit unicuique noftrum a jure & legibus, quam a parentibus." Burke fpeaks of the common law as the pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies,and errours,is the collected wisdom of ages, combining the principles of original juftice with the infinite variety of human concerns. It is in fact the fubftra, tum of the whole system of jurif prudence in every State of the Union, and the foundation of the ftyle of process and modes of proceeding in our courts of law, both with refpect to property and offences. The common law of England was claimed as a right, to which the American people were entitled, by an unanimous refolution of Congress 14th Oct, 1774, and the exiftence of the law in this country, fubfequent to the revolution, is exprefsly recognized in the 9th article of the amendments to the conftitution. That, obferves the writer, may be confidered as the common law in force in Pennfylvania,

which comprehends fuch portions of the English common law, exifting prior to the 4th July, 1776, as were applicable to our circumftances, political condition, and relations, and have not been fince changed or abrogated either by the primary and conftitutional law of the land, by the acts of the ftate affembly, or by the laws of Congrefs, which are obligatory on the people as citizens of the Union. The principles of general mercantile law are incorporated into the body of our jurifprudence as a common law, and conftitutes a part of our municipal law. The lex parliamentaria is part of the law of England, and parliament is in general the fole' and exclufive judge and expofitor of its own privileges. own privileges. In the fame manner Congrefs and the ftate legiflatures, exercifing the legislative powers of their refpective governments, are poffeff ed of certain privileges and powers of a fimilar nature. All of them have certain rules and régulations for governing and conducting their own proceedings. Thefe conftitute what may be termed our lex parliamentatia, or our parliamentary law. Our courts of juftice have alfo their peculiar and established rules for their own government. Thefe tribunals poffefs powers, which are effential to their exiftence and prefervation, and they, as well as the officers, enjoy certain and appropriate privileges neceffary to them in their refpective spheres. All thefe rules of right, fays our author, enter into the compofition of the law of the land, and being either portions of the English common law, or cuf

toms and ufages of our own, an alagous thereto, and fanctioned by long experience, they may collec tively be confidered as our common law.

Having thus defined what he' understood by the common law, the writer proceeds to detail the hiftory of the common law trial by jury.

He obferves that its origin is of great antiquity, even time out of mind. The most profound and learned researches of the English hiftorians and lawyers have not enabled them to date with any certainty the origin of the inftitution in England, fuppofed even to be coeval with the government itself. Its establishment and ufe in England, what ever be its date, has been fo highly eftimated by the people, and fo tenacious have they been of preferving such a vital part of their birthright and freedom, that no conqueft of revolution, the mixture of foreigners or the mus tufal feuds of the natives, have at any time been able to abolish or fupprefs it. In magna charta' it is more than once infifted on as the principal bulwark of Englifh liberty, and it has been establifhed and confirmed by English parliaments no less than fiftyeight times fince the invafion by the Normans, a circumstance unprecedented with relation to any other privilege.

Independently of the ufe of this trial in England, the writer ob ferves that

Traces are perceived of the ancient ufe of Juries in France, Germany and Italy; all of whom had a judicial tribunal, compofed of twelve good men true: And in Sweden, where the regal power was formerly very limited, the

and

trial by Jury was in eft blifhed ufe, till the middle of the feventeenth century. Sir William Temple remarks, that veitiges are not wanting of this trial, from the very inftitutions of Odin or Wodenthe firft leader of the Scythians, Afiatick Goths, or Goeta, into Europe; and founder of that mighty kingdom round

the Baltick fea, from whence all the

Gothick governments in the north weitern parts of Europe were derived. Hence it is known to have been as ancient in Sweden, as any records or traditions of that kingdom-Nor is it improbable that the ancient Swedes, and the founders

of other northern nations in Europe among whom jury trial obtained, may have borrowed the inftitution from the Roman polity. The Normans, long accuftomed to Jury-trial, are fuppofed to have brought it into England with them, together with other juridical inftitutions of their own country; although it had been used among the Saxon-English, long before the conqueft. About the fame period, too, the inftitution of juries is recognized as an established usage, in Germany, by the laws of the emperor

Conrad II. He decreed, that none of

his fubjects fhould be deprived of their Benefice, unless according to the custom of their ancestors, and by the judgment of their peers.

Such, then, is the origin of Jury-trial, as it obtained among our ancestors. From them, we derived the Right: And judge Patterson has emphatically ftyled it—“ a fundamental law, made facred by the Conflitution"-a law, which" cannot be legiflated away."

Our author proceeds to introduce many authorities from the journals of the old Congrefs to prove how effential to their liberties that venerable body of ftatefmen confidered the trial by jury. On the 20th Oct. 1774, Congrefs afferted the claim of the American colonies to jury trial as a "great right," and afterwards introduced into the declaration of rights an unanimous refolution, that the refpective colonies are entitled to the common law of

England, and more efpecially to the great and intimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to the courle of that law. This, fays the fame Congress, provides that neither life, liberty, nor property can be taken from the poffeffer, unul twelve of his unexceptionable countrymen and peers of his vicinage, on a fair trial and full inquiry, face to face, in open court, before as many of the people as choole to attend, thall pats their fentence upon oath against him.. The attempt of the British parliament to deprive the American people in many instances of this mode of trial, was one of the molt ferious grievances complained of by that Congrefs; and a charge reiterated against that government nearly two years after in the declaration of indepen dence. Many gentlemen in the general convention, which formed the conftitution, voted, against that inftrument, because there was no exprefs provifion fecuring the right of trial by jury in civil as well as criminal cafes; and in order to allay this jealoufy, the people very early engrafted into the amendment an article fecuring this right in all fuits, where the value in controversy fhould exceed twenty dollars. The people of Pennfylvania, in framing their conftitution, ufed the moft clear and precife language, that could be devised, for fecuring the right, as it existed at that moment, in its fullest extent to themfelves and their pofterity. "The trial by jury," fay they, "fhall be as heretofore."

From the plain import of these words, fays the writer,it is obvious,that any new

ribunal whatever," for the decision of fats, without the intervention of a jury," which fhould be erected fubfequently to the adoption of the conftitution, would be a violation of the right of jury-trial: and, that every extenfion of the jurifdiction of the then ex fting judiciary tribunals, acting without the intervention of a jury, either as to the measure and objects of

fuch jurifdiction-or, as impeding or obstructing the difcretion which the citizens might choose to exercise, in respect to the mode of afferting or defending their rights, as well as in feeking redrefs for, or vindicating themselves against wrongs-would be equally an infringement of the conftitution. (To be continued.)

NEW WORKS.

THE Portsmouth Mifcellany, or Lady's Library improved: defigned as a reading Book for the Ufe of young Ladies' Academies. Prepared and publithed by Charles Peirce. Portimouth. 1 vol. 12mo.

Reports of Cafes argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States in August and December Terms, 1801; and February Term, 180s. By William Cranch, affiftant Judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. Vol. I.

The Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 11. part 2d. Containing Mr. Bowditch's new Method of Working, a Lunar Obfervation; an aftronomical Problem by Theophilus Parfons, Efq.; Mr. Winthrop's Remarks on an Eclipfe of the Sun feen at Jerufalem not long before the Death of Herod; Mr. Dearborn's Defcription of an improved Steel-yard; Mr. E. Wrights' Method of finding the Area of a Field arithmetically; Mr. Pope's Defcription of his Orrery; Mr. Peck's Defcription of four remarkable Fishes, with a Plate; Dr. Holyoke's Remarks on meteorological Obfervations, and Bills of Mortality; Rev. Prefident M'Keen's Deductions from felect Bills of Mortality; Mr. Bennet's Account of a Water-spout in Watuppee Pond; Dr. De Witt's Account of fome of the mineral and fofil Productions in the State of New York; Rev. Dr. Lathrop's Account of the Effects of Lightning in recent Inftances, and of mephitick Air; Mr. Baldwin's Obfervations on Electricity and an improved Mode of constructkig Lightning-Rods; Dr. Putnam's ReVol. I. No. 14. Mmmm

marks on Mr. Baldwin's improved Mode &c.; Dr. Thacher's Observations on the Manufacture of marine Salt, with a Defcription of the Salt-works in Machufetts; Mr. Platt's Process for making Cider; Mr. Winthrop's Account of an infcribed Rock at Dighton, with a Plate representing the lufcription; Dr. Rand and Dr. Warren's Account of the Diffection of three Perfons, who died of the Yellow-Fever; Rev. Mr. Willis's Account of the Ufe of the Oil of Tobacco in the Cure of Cancers ;-with feveral other Articles. Boston. 8vo.

An Inquiry into the law Merchant of the United States; or Lex Mercatoria Americana on feveral Heads of commercial Importance. 8vo.

An Abstract of thofe Laws of the United States, which relate chiefly to the Duty and Authority of Judges of inferiour State Courts, and Juftices of Peace, throughout the Union. By Samuel Bayard, Efq.

Tranfactions of the American Philofophical Society. Vol 6, part 1.

The understanding Reader, or Knowledge before Oratory. Defigned for the Use of Schools. By Daniel Adams,

Science of Sanctity, according to Reafon, Scripture, Common Senfe, and the Analogy of Things; containing an Idea of God, of his Creations and Kingdoms, of the Holy Scriptures, of the Chriftian Trinity, and the Gofpel Syftem. By Thomas Feffenden, A. M. paftor of the Church in Walpole, N. H.

A Hiftory of Virginia from its first Settlement to the prefent Day. By John Burk. In 4 vols. 8vo. Printed at Petersburg. Ift vol. published.

Elements of Life inthe Laws of vital