"In a representative government ... there is no absurdity or
contradiction, nor any arraying of the people against themselves,in requiring that the statutes or enactments of the governmentshall pass the ordeal of any number of separate tribunals, beforeit shall be determined that they are to have the force of laws. Our American constitutions have provided five of these separate tribunals, to wit, representatives, senate, executive, ... jury, and judges; and have made it necessary that each enactment shall pass the ordeal of all these separate tribunals, before its authority can be established by the punishment of those who choose to transgress it... there is no more absurdity in giving a jury a veto upon the laws than there is in giving a veto to eachof these other tribunals." Lysander Spooner, An Essay on the Trial by Jury, 1852.
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