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OUR RELATION TO OUR COUNTRY.

[Part II.

live,* it seems too plain to require or even to admit further illus-tration, that all citizens who cannot claim exemption on somefair and reasonable ground, are morally bound, when called uponby government, to aid, and, if need be, personally to take part inthe defence of their country. This aid is to be given cordiallyand cheerfully, not in obedience to power which we cannot re-sist, but as a part of our moral duty.

Again, it is the duty of the citizen to render personal aid inthe administration of justice, by serving on juries and by givingtestimony on oath. “ The trial by jury,” says Sir MatthewHale, “ is justly esteemed one of the chief excellences of theEnglish constitution, it being an institution most admirably calcu-lated for the preservation of liberty, life, and property. Indeed,what greater security can we have for these inestimable blessings,than the certainty that we cannot be divested of either, withoutthe unanimous decision of twelve of our honest and impartialneighbours ? This tribunal was universally established among allthe northern nations, and so interwoven with their very constitu-tions, that the earliest account of the one, gives us also sometraces of the other. In this nation,” continues he, “ it has beenused time out of mind, and is coeval with the civil governmentthereof; and, though its establishment was shaken for a time bythe introdution of the Norman trial by battle, it was always sohighly valued by the people, that no conquest, no change of gov-ernment could ever prevail to abolish it.” f

Our ancestors brought the trial by jury with them, when theysettled this country, and the eulogium bestowed upon it by thewise, pious, and learned jurist just quoted, is not beyond theirestimate of its value. It was claimed and admitted as a rightfrom the beginning ; and, when this right was abridged by theBritish Parliament, the Congress of 1774 declared (see the fifthof their Resolutions), that “ the respective colonies are entitledto the common law of England, and more especially to the greatand inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vi-cinity, according to the course of that law.” In fact, the trial

* See p. 100. — Rom. xiii. 1 - 7; 1 Peter ii. 33 -17.

t History of the Common Law, Vol. II. p. 134.