On the whole, it is fair to presume that, while public opinion, and that intelligence which acts virtually as a bill of rights, even in the most despotic governments of Europe, not even excepting Turkey, perhaps, have produced a beneficial influence on the courts, the secrecy of their proceedings, the irresponsible nature of their trusts (responsible to power, and irresponsible to the nation), and the absence of publicity, produce precisely the effects that a common-sense view of the facts would lead one who understands human nature to expect.
I am no great admirer of the compromising verdicts of juries, in civil suits that admit of a question as to amounts. They are an admirable invention to settle questions of guilty or not guilty, but an enlightened court would, nine times in ten, do more justice in the cases just named. Would it not be an improvement to alter the present powers of juries, by letting them simply find for or against the suitor, leaving the damages to be assessed by regular officers, that might resemble masters in chancery? At all events, juries, or some active substitute, cannot be safely dispensed with until a people have made great progress in the science of publicity, and in a knowledge of the general principles connected with jurisprudence.
This latter feature is quite peculiar to America. Nothing has struck me more in Europe than the ignorance which everywhere exists on such subjects, even among educated people. No one appears to have any distinct notions of legal principles, or even of general law, beyond a few prominent facts, but the professional men. Chance threw me, not long since into the company of three or four exceedingly clever young Englishmen. They were all elder sons, and two were the heirs of peers.[7] Something was said on the subject of a claim of a gentleman with whom I am connected to a large Irish estate. The grandfather of this gentleman was the next brother to the incumbent, who died intestate. The grandson, however, was defeated in his claim, in consequence of its being proved, that the ancestor through whom he derived his claim was of the half-blood. My English companions did not understand the principle, and when, I explained by adding, that the grandfather of the claimant was born of a different mother from the last holder in fee, and that he could never inherit at law (unless by devise), the estate going to a hundredth cousin of the whole blood in preference, or even escheating to the king, they one and all protested England had no such law! They were evidently struck with the injustice of transferring property that had been acquired by the common ancestor of two brothers to a remote cousin, merely because the affinity between the sons was only on the father's side although that very father may have accumulated the estate; and they could not believe that what struck them as so grievous a wrong, could be the law of descents under which they lived. Luckily for me, one learned in the profession happened to be present, and corroborated the fact. Now all these gentlemen were members of parliament; but they were accustomed to leave legal questions of this nature to the management of professional men.