Not stopping to dwell on this, I press at once to
the other provision, which is still more express: "In suits at common
law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the
right of Trial by Jury shall be preserved." This clause, which does not
appear in the Constitution as first adopted, was suggested by the very
spirit of freedom. At the close of the National Convention, Elbridge
Gerry refused to sign the Constitution because, among other things,
it established "a tribunal without juries, a star chamber as to civil
cases."
Many united in his opposition, and on the recommendation of the First
Congress this additional safeguard was adopted as an amendment.
Opposing this Act as doubly unconstitutional from the want of power
in Congress and from the denial of trial by jury, I find myself again
encouraged by the example of our Revolutionary Fathers, in a case which
is a landmark of history. The parallel is important and complete. In
1765, the British Parliament, by a notorious statute, attempted to draw
money from the colonies through a stamp tax, while the determination of
certain questions of forfeiture under the statute was delegated, not to
the Courts of Common Law, but to Courts of Admiralty without a jury.
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