others might submit to their consideration. These were called
bills of indictment. If the grand jury believed that there were
sufficient grounds for upholding any of them, their foreman
endorsed it as "A true bill," and it then became an indictment.
If, on the other hand, they rejected a bill of indictment as
unfounded, the foreman indorsed it as "Not a true bill," or with
the Latin term "_Ignoramus_," and this was the end of it.

The organization and functions of the American grand jury are
similar, except that here we have prosecuting attorneys to
procure the presence of the necessary witnesses and direct the
course of their examination. In the Federal courts almost all
criminal accusations, great or small, are, and by the fifth
amendment to the Constitution of the United States all charges of
infamous crimes must be, prosecuted by presentment or indictment.
In most of the States the intervention of a grand jury is
requisite only in case of serious offenses; in some only in
capital cases. It is obvious that it is less needed here than in
England, since here it is not within the power of any private
individual to institute criminal proceedings against another at
his own will, but they are brought by a public officer
commissioned for that very purpose and acting under the grave
sense of responsibility which such authority is quite sure to
carry with it. The grand jury, however, has its plain uses
wherever political feeling leads to public disorder. It has
also, since the Civil War, been found an effective restraint in
some of the Southern States, whether for good or ill, upon
prosecutions for violations of certain laws of the United States,
brought against members of a community in which those laws were
regarded with general disfavor.