Appendix Q.— Vol. I. p. 335.
The Federal Constitution has introduced the jury into the tribunals of the Union in the same way as the States had introduced it into their own several courts: but as it has not established any fixed rules for the choice of jurors, the Federal Courts select them from the ordinary jury-list which each State makes for itself. The laws of the States must therefore be examined for the theory of the formation of juries. See Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, B. iii. chap. 38, p. 654-659; Sergeant's Constitutional Law, p. 165. See also the Federal Laws of the years 1789, 1800, and 1802, upon the subject.
For the purpose of thoroughly understanding the American principles with respect to the formation of juries, I examined the laws of States at a distance from one another, and the following observations were the result of my inquiries.
In America, all the citizens who exercise the elective franchise have the right of serving upon a jury. The great State of New York, however, has made a slight difference between the two privileges, but in a spirit quite contrary to that of the laws of France; for in the State of New York there are fewer persons eligible as jurymen than there are electors. It may be said in general that the right of forming part of a jury, like the right of electing representatives, is open to all the citizens: the exercise of this right, however, is not put indiscriminately into any hands.
Every year a body of municipal or county magistrates,—called selectmen in New England, supervisors in New York, trustees in Ohio, and sheriffs of the parish in Louisiana,—choose for each county a certain number of citizens who have the right of serving as jurymen, and who are supposed to be capable of exercising their functions. These magistrates, being themselves elective, excite no distrust; their powers, like those of most republican magistrates, are very extensive and very arbitrary, and they frequently make use of them to remove unworthy or incompetent jurymen.
The names of the jurymen thus chosen are transmitted to the County Court; and the jury who have to decide any affair are drawn by lot from the whole list of names.
The Americans have contrived in every way to make the common people eligible to the jury, and to render the service as
