The right effort could revitalize the jury and restore it to its rightful place in curtailing the endless growth of an all-powerful state.

Regulations are written yearly by the thousands of pages, read by few,
and understood by no one. This is done intentionally to keep the peasants
humble and to harass the people. It is used as a political tool for selective
prosecution. Regulations can favor certain industries while destroying others,
providing great accumulation of wealth for the beneficiaries.

Exemption from prosecution of some while others are pursued has
destroyed many good industries and companies. Prosecution in the
administrative courts requires great sums of money for self-defense. Juries are
not available, and one is considered guilty until proven otherwise. Tragically,
economic conditions usually prompt the businessman to pay the fine,
regardless of its unfairness, to save legal costs. Fighting the system through
political reform is not even a serious consideration. Those who would
consider such a struggle are ridiculed as idealistic and unrealistic. A powerful
political action committee and a shrewd lobbyist are today considered the best
investments. Since we have lived with massive bureaucracy for over fifty
years, most citizens, uneducated in the ways of equal rights, justice, and
freedom, are unaware of another system. By writing regulations with the
force of law and administrative justice, interpretations, and enforcement of
these laws, the judiciary “rulers" have made a mockery of Article 1, Section 1
of the Constitution.

Whether it's in the regular courts or the administrative courts, judges
who grew up under the welfare ethic, rarely concern themselves with
the right to own and control the fruits of one's own labor. The "right of
society," as they see it, precludes what they claim is a narrow self interest-the
individual.

Spooner argues eloquently for the right of the jury to pass final judgment on
all laws, the moral intent of the law, the constitutionality of the law, the facts
of the case, and the moral intent of the accused. Spooner's argument for
allowing such responsibility to rest with the accused peers is that delegating
responsibility only to the representatives in Washington was fraught with
danger. He was convinced
that removal of our representatives in the next election was not sufficient to
protect the people from unwise and meddling legislation.

If we had heeded the admonitions of Lysander Spooner, we would
not be faced with this crisis. Spooner begins his essay on trial by jury by clearly
stating the importance of the jury's responsibility to judge the law as well as
the facts in the case before them:

For more than six-hundred years, that is, since the Magna
Carta, in 1215, there has been no clearer principle of English or
American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases. It is
not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts,
what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused;
but it is also their right and their primary and paramount duty
to judge the justice of the law and to hold all laws invalid, that
are in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons
guiltless in violating or resisting the execution of such laws.

Spooner was highly critical of the phrase "according to the evidence"
in the oath of jurors, claiming it violated the classical common law. He states:
If the government can dictate the evidence, and require the jury
to decide according to that evidence, it necessarily dictates the
conclusion to which they must arrive. In that case the trial is
really a trial by the government, not by the jury. The jury
cannot try an issue unless they determine what evidence shall
be admitted. The ancient oath, it will be observed, says nothing
about 'according to the evidence.'

If a law is assumed to be correct constitutionally and morally merely
because it's a law written by our chosen representative, the government can
give itself dictatorial powers. And that's exactly what has happened with the
massive powers delegated to the President under the Emergency Powers Actpower
sitting there to be grabbed and used at the hint of a crisis.

Spooner saw the jury as the last guard against such usurpation of the
people's rights. Sadly, that protection is just about gone. It is up to us to
restore the principle of trial by jury to its rightful place of importance.