to decide in the last resort on the laws of their own making. To
crown this absurdity, they have repealed a law which prohibited
them to plead before the very court of which they are Judges."
Attacks like this were too just to be resisted, and two years
later the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and Assistants were
replaced by the Judges of the Superior Court.

Constitutional provisions that the right of trial by jury shall
be preserved inviolate preclude, as a general rule, the
establishment of courts in which the judges can make a final
disposition of petty causes which turn on disputed facts. An
appeal from their decision must be allowed, and a new hearing
given on the merits in a court furnished with a jury. Under the
Constitution of the United States a trial by jury cannot be
claimed in civil cases at common law involving a demand of not
over twenty dollars, and in most of the older States it cannot be
in cases where it was not a matter of right prior to the adoption
of their Constitutions.

The verdict of a jury can only be reviewed on its merits by a
court of last resort where it was clearly and palpably against
the weight of evidence, and in order to do this the whole
evidence given in the trial court must be certified up.

Where a judgment has been rendered on a finding of facts made by
a judge in a cause of an equitable nature, this finding can, in
the courts of the United States and in many of the States, be
reversed on any point on appeal. For this purpose also all the
evidence that was before him, or all that is pertinent to
questions involved, must be reported to the court above.