The few cases wherein these
things may do evil, cannot be weighed against the multitude, wherein the
want of them will do evil. In disputes between a foreigner and a native,
a trial by jury may be improper. But if this exception cannot be agreed
to, the remedy will be to model the jury, by giving the _medietas
linguae_, in civil as well as criminal cases. Why suspend the _habeas
corpus_ in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be
arrested, may be charged instantly with a well-defined crime: of course,
the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires, that the
government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony in
those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and
retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against
the government, for damages. Examine the history of England. See how
few of the cases of the suspension of the _habeas corpus_ law have been
worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treason, wherein
the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots,
where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected.
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