Opinion of the Court. 2 Kilty's Laws,) defining the civil jurisdiction of justices of the peace, were entitled acts "for the speedy recovery of small debts out of court." And Congress has vested in them, "as individual magistrates," the powers and duties which justices of the peace previously had under the laws in force in the District of Columbia. Act of February 27, 1801, c. 15, § 11; 2 Stat. 107; Rev. Stat. D. C. § 995. A trial by a jury of twelve men before a justice of the peace, having been unknown in England or America before the Declaration of Independence, can hardly have been within the contemplation of Congress in proposing, or of the people in ratifying, the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. V. Another question having an important bearing on the validity and the interpretation of the successive acts of Congress, concerning trial by jury in civil actions begun before. justices of the peace in the District of Columbia, is whether the right of trial by jury, secured by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, is preserved by allowing a common law trial by jury in a court of record, upon appeal from a judgment of a justice of the peace, and upon giving bond with surety to prosecute the appeal and to abide the judgment of the appellate court. The question considered and decided by this court in Callan v. Wilson, (1888) 127 U. S. 540, though somewhat analogous, was essentially a different one. That case was a criminal case, not affected by the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution, but depending upon the effect of those other provisions of the original Constitution and of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, which declare that "the trial of all causes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury," that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," and that "in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury." The point there decided was that a person accused of a conspiracy to prevent another person from pursuing his lawful calling, and by intimidations and molestations to reduce him to beggary, had the right to a trial by Opinion of the Court. jury in the first instance, and that it was not enough to allow him a trial by jury after having been convicted by a justice. of the peace without a jury. The decision proceeded upon the ground that such a conspiracy was an offence of a grave character, affecting the public at large, as well as one the punishment of which might involve the liberty of the citizen; it was conceded that there was a class of minor offences to which the same rule could not apply; and the question of applying a like rule to civil cases did not arise in the case, and was not touched by the court. All the other cases cited at the bar, in which the constitutional right of trial by jury was held not to be secured by allowing such a trial on appeal from a justice of the peace, or from an inferior court, were criminal cases. Greene v. Briggs, (1852) 1 Curtis, 311, 325; Saco v. Wentworth, (1853) 37 Maine, 165; In re Dana, (1872) 7 Benedict, 1. On the other hand, the authority of the legislature, consistently with constitutional provisions securing the right of trial by jury, to provide, in civil proceedings for the recovery of money, that the trial by jury should not be had in the tribunal of first instance, but in an appellate court only, is supported by unanimous judgments of this court in two earlier cases, the one arising in the District of Columbia, and the other in the State of Pennsylvania. The declaration of rights, prefixed to the constitution of Maryland of 1776, declared, in article 3, that "the inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the common law of England, and the trial by jury according to the course of that law;" and, in article 21, repeated the words of Magna Charta, "No person ought to be taken or imprisoned," &c., " or deprived of his life, liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land." 1 Charters and Constitutions, 817, 818. The statute of the State of Maryland of 1793, c. 30, incorporating a bank in the District of Columbia, provided that on any bill or note made or indorsed to the bank, and expressly made negotiable at the bank, and not paid when due, or within ten days after demand, the bank, upon filing an affidavit of its president to the sum due, might obtain Opinion of the Court. 2 from the clerk of a court an execution against the property of the debtor; "and if the defendant shall dispute the whole or any part of the said debt, on the return of the execution, the court before whom it is returned shall and may order an 'issue to be joined, and trial to be had in the same court at which the return is made, and shall make such other proceedings that justice may be done in the speediest manner." Kilty's Laws. The general court of Maryland, in 1799, held that this statute did not infringe the constitutional right of trial by jury. Bank of Columbia v. Ross, 4 Har. & McH. 456, 464, 465. The statute was continued in force in the District of Columbia by the acts of Congress of February 27, 1801, c. 15, § 5, and March 3, 1801, c. 24, § 5. 2 Stat. 106, 115; Bank of Columbia v. Okely, (1819) 4 Wheat. 235, 246. In Bank of Columbia v. Okely, an execution so issued was sought to be quashed upon the ground that the statute of Maryland violated the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, as well as the constitution of the State of Maryland. But this court held the statute to be consistent with both constitutions, and, speaking by Mr. Justice Johnson, said: "This court would ponder long before it would sustain this action, if we could be persuaded that the act in question produced a total prostration of the trial by jury, or even involved the defendant in circumstances which rendered that right unavailing for his protection. But a power is reserved to the judge, to make such rules and orders as that justice may be done;' and as the possession of judicial power imposes an obligation to exercise it, we flatter ourselves that, in practice, the evils so eloquently dilated on by the counsel do not exist. And if the defendant does not avail himself of the right given him, of having an issue made up, and the trial by jury, which is tendered to him by the act, it is presumable that he cannot dispute the justice of the claim. That this view of the subject is giving full effect to the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution is not only deducible from the general intent, but from the express wording of the Article referred to. Had the terms been that 'the trial by jury shall be preserved,' it might Opinion of the Court. have been contended that they were imperative, and could not be dispensed with. But the words are, that the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, which places it on the foot of a lex pro se introducta, and the benefit of it may therefore be relinquished. As to the words of Magna Charta, incorporated into the constitution of Maryland, after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at length settled down to this: that they were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private rights and distributive justice. With this explanation, there is nothing left to this individual to complain of. What he has lost, he has voluntarily relinquished; and the trial by jury is open to him, either to arrest the progress of the law in the first instance, or to obtain redress for oppression, if the power of the bank has been abused. The same answer is equally applicable to the argument founded on the third article of the Maryland constitution." 4 Wheat. 243, 244. The constitution of Pennsylvania of 1776 provided, in article 11 of the declaration of rights, that "in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the parties have a right to trial by jury, which ought to be held sacred," and, in section 25 of the frame of government, that "trials shall be by jury as heretofore;" and the constitution of 1790, in section 6 of the bill of rights, declared that "trial by jury shall be as heretofore, and the right thereof remain inviolate." 2 Charters and Constitutions, 1542, 1546, 1554. The statutes of Pennsylvania, from 1782, required all accounts between the State and its officers to be settled by the comptroller general, and approved by the executive council; and, if a balance was found due to the State, authorized the comptroller general to direct the clerk of the county where the officer resided to issue summary process to collect the amount due. And a statute of February 18, 1785, after reciting "whereas it will be agreeable to the constitution of this State, which has declared that trial by jury shall be as heretofore,' that persons conceiving themselves aggrieved by the Opinion of the Court. proceedings of the said comptroller general should be allowed to have trial of the facts by a jury, and questions of law arising thereupon determined in a court of record," enacted that any such person might appeal from the settlement or award of the comptroller general to the Supreme Court of the State, "provided the said party enter sufficient security" before a judge "to prosecute such appeal with effect, and to pay all costs and charges which the Supreme Court shall award, and also pay any sum of money which shall appear by the judg ment of the said court to be due from him " to the State; and might have the whole matter tried by a jury upon the appeal. This statute also provided that the settlement of any account by the comptroller general, and confirmation thereof by the executive council, whereby any sum of money should be found due from any person to the State, should be a lien on all his real estate throughout the State. 2 Dall. Laws Penn. 44, 247, 248, 251. In Livingston v. Moore, (1833) 7 Pet. 469, which came to this court from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the validity of a lien so acquired by the State was attacked on the ground, among others, that the statutes creating it were contrary to section 6 of the Pennsylvania bill of rights of 1790. But this court upheld the validity of the lien, and in an opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Johnson, after elaborately discussing the other questions in the case, briefly disposed of this one as follows: "As to the sixth section of the Pennsylvania bill of rights, we can see nothing in these laws on which to fasten the imputation of a violation of the right of trial by jury; since, in creating the lien attached to the settled accounts, the right of an appeal to a jury is secured to the debtor." 7 Pet. 552. While, as has been seen, the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States requires that "the right of trial by jury shall be preserved" in the courts of the United States in every action at law in which the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars, and forbids any fact once tried by a jury to "be otherwise reëxamined, in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law," mean |