The institution of the jury consequently invests the people, or that class of citizens, with the direction of society.

*e [Footnote e: An important remark must, however, be made.

Trial by jury does unquestionably invest the people with a general control over the actions of citizens, but it does not furnish means of exercising this control in all cases, or with an absolute authority.

When an absolute monarch has the right of trying offences by his representatives, the fate of the prisoner is, as it were, decided beforehand.

But even if the people were predisposed to convict, the composition and the non-responsibility of the jury would still afford some chances favorable to the protection of innocence.] In England the jury is returned from the aristocratic portion of the nation; *f the aristocracy makes the laws, applies the laws, and punishes all infractions of the laws; everything is established upon a consistent footing, and England may with truth be said to constitute an aristocratic republic.