Justice is the object of government, and those who support the government, must be agreed as to the justice to be executed by it, or they cannot rightfully unite in maintaining the government itself.
[4] Jones on Bailments,
[5] Kent, describing the difficulty of construing the written law, says:
"Such is the imperfection of language, and the want of technical skill in the makers of the law, that statutes often give occasion to the most perplexing and distressing doubts and discussions, arising from the ambiguity that attends them. It requires great experience, as well as the command of a perspicuous diction, to frame a law in such clear and precise terms, as to secure it from ambiguous expressions, and from all doubts and criticisms upon its meaning " Kent, 460.
The following extract from a speech of Lord Brougham, in the
House of Lords, confesses the same difficulty:
There was another subject, well worthy of the consideration of government during the recess, the expediency, or rather the absolute necessity, of some arrangement for the preparation of bills, not merely private, but public bills, in order that legislation might be consistent and systematic, and that the courts might not have so large a portion of their time occupied in endeavoring to construe acts of Parliament, in many cases unconstruable, and in most cases difficult to be construed." Law Reporter, 1848, p. 525.
[6] This condemnation of written laws must, of course, be understood as applying only to cases where principles and rights are involved, and not as condemning any governmental arrangements, or instrumentalities, that are consistent with natural right, and which must be agreed upon for the purpose of carrying natural law into effect. These things may be varied, as expediency may dictate, so only that they be allowed to infringe no principle of justice. And they must, of course, be written, because they do not exist as fixed principles, or laws in nature.
CHAPTER VI. JURIES OF THE PRESENT DAY ILLEGAL
It may probably be safely asserted that there are, at this day, no legal juries, either in England or America. And if there are no legal juries, there is, of course, no legal trial, nor "judgment," by jury.
In saying that there are probably no legal juries, I mean that there are probably no juries appointed in conformity with the principles of the common law.