[原创] 托克维尔《美国的民主》中论美国的法律一章（翻译）

WIND

我曾翻译过托克维尔著作中的一章，他说在美国，平衡民主因素的是律师这个阶层——他们养成了英国贵族那样的气质，以及起源于英国的由审判团审判的社会制度。布莱克斯通对由审判团审判的制度的起源和演变进行了阐释，在《英格兰法律解释》的第三卷之中。不过我看了一下，有点长，不敢啃。

WIND

Chapter 16
第16章
Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States
在合众国暴政得到缓和的原因

WIND

Part I

The national majority does not pretend to conduct all business
—Is obliged to employ the town and county magistrates to execute its supreme decisions.
国家的多数并没有宣称要主导所有的事务
——它必须雇用乡镇和郡的管理者来执行它的最高决定。

I have already pointed out the distinction which is to be made between a centralized government and a centralized administration. The former exists in America, but the latter is nearly unknown there. If the directing power of the American communities had both these instruments of government at its disposal, and united the habit of executing its own commands to the right of commanding; if, after having established the general principles of government, it descended to the details of public business; and if, having regulated the great interests of the country, it could penetrate into the privacy of individual interests, freedom would soon be banished from the New World.
我已经指出了集中的政府和集中的管理之间的区别。前者存在于美国，但是后者几乎很少为人所知。如果美国各州的这种引导权力将这两种政府手段都能够使用的话，并将执行它自己的命令的习惯与命令者的权利联结在一起的话；如果，在建立起一般的政府原则之后，它又亲自管理公共事务的具体细节；并且如果，管理国家的巨大利益之后，它还能进入个人利益的私人领域，自由很快就会被逐出了新世界。

But in the United States the majority, which so frequently displays the tastes and the propensities of a despot, is still destitute of the more perfect instruments of tyranny. In the American republics the activity of the central Government has never as yet been extended beyond a limited number of objects sufficiently prominent to call forth its attention. The secondary affairs of society have never been regulated by its authority, and nothing has hitherto betrayed its desire of interfering in them. The majority is become more and more absolute, but it has not increased the prerogatives of the central government; those great prerogatives have been confined to a certain sphere; and although the despotism of the majority may be galling upon one point, it cannot be said to extend to all. However the predominant party in the nation may be carried away by its passions, however ardent it may be in the pursuit of its projects, it cannot oblige all the citizens to comply with its desires in the same manner and at the same time throughout the country. When the central Government which represents that majority has issued a decree, it must entrust the execution of its will to agents, over whom it frequently has no control, and whom it cannot perpetually direct. The townships, municipal bodies, and counties may therefore be looked upon as concealed break-waters, which check or part the tide of popular excitement. If an oppressive law were passed, the liberties of the people would still be protected by the means by which that law would be put in execution: the majority cannot descend to the details and (as I will venture to style them) the puerilities of administrative tyranny. Nor does the people entertain that full consciousness of its authority which would prompt it to interfere in these matters; it knows the extent of its natural powers, but it is unacquainted with the increased resources which the art of government might furnish.
但是常常表现出独裁暴君的口味和习性的多数，在合众国仍然缺乏进一步实行暴政的手段。在美国各州（共和州），集中的政府（联邦政府）只关注非常有限的足够值得它来关注的事务。它的权力并不管理社会的次要事务，迄今为止还没有什么能够证明它想干预它们。多数的意志虽然变得越来越绝对，但是它并没有增加联邦政府的特殊权力；那些巨大的特殊权力一直被限制在一个确定的领域内；并且虽然多数的独裁意志可能在某点上增强了，但不能说延伸到了所有方面。虽然国家主要的政党可能由于它的激情丧失理性，虽然它的热情可能让他们实施他们自己的方案，但是它不能强迫全国所有的公民在同一时间以同样的方式服从于它的期望。当代表多数的联邦政府发布一项法令，它必须将它的意志的执行权力授权给它的代理机构，对它的代理机构它通常无法控制，也不能永久的引导它们。所以这些城镇，自我管理的共同体和郡可以看成是诸多隐蔽的阻浪堤，它们阻止或者分离由于大众的激情所产生的浪潮。如果一部压迫性的法律得到通过，人们的自由仍然能够通过这种方式得到保护，而法律也必须通过它才能得到执行：多数不能亲自管理具体细节和（如我冒昧的称呼它们）管理的暴政的幼稚。人们不可能完全意识到他们的这种可以怂恿他们干预这些事情的权力；它知道它的自然的权力边界，但是还不知道统治技术可能提供的增强的资源。

This point deserves attention, for if a democratic republic similar to that of the United States were ever founded in a country where the power of a single individual had previously subsisted, and the effects of a centralized administration had sunk deep into the habits and the laws of the people, I do not hesitate to assert, that in that country a more insufferable despotism would prevail than any which now exists in the monarchical States of Europe, or indeed than any which could be found on this side of the confines of Asia.
这一点值得注意，因为如果像合众国这样的民主共和制在某个国家建立起来，而这个国家之前存在的是一个单独的人的权力，一种集中的管理的影响已经深深的渗入到人们的习俗和法律之中，我会毫不犹豫的断定，在这样的国家一种令人更难以忍受的独裁统治将会泛滥开来，超过欧洲现存的任何君主制国家，或者实际上超过在亚洲能够发现的任何国家。

WIND

The Profession Of The Law In The United States Serves To Counterpoise The Democracy
合众国的法律职业成为民主的平衡力量

Utility of discriminating the natural propensities of the members of the legal profession
—These men called upon to act a prominent part in future society
—In what manner the peculiar pursuits of lawyers give an aristocratic turn to their ideas
—Accidental causes which may check this tendency
—Ease with which the aristocracy coalesces with legal men
—Use of lawyers to a despot
—The profession of the law constitutes the only aristocratic element with which the natural elements of democracy will combine
—Peculiar causes which tend to give an aristocratic turn of mind to the English and American lawyers
—The aristocracy of America is on the bench and at the bar
—Influence of lawyers upon American society
—Their peculiar magisterial habits affect the legislature, the administration, and even the people.
识别法律职业从业者的自然习性的效用
——这些人被召唤将在未来社会中担当重要的角色
——律师特殊的工作以什么样的方式给与了他们的观念一种贵族化的倾向
——可抑制这种倾向的偶然原因
——放心让贵族与法律从业者结合
——独裁者利用律师
——法律职业成为民主唯一的贵族元素并与其它的民主自然元素联合
——给与英国和美国的律师一种精神贵族化倾向的特殊原因
——美国的贵族是法官和律师
——律师对美国社会的影响
——他们特殊的管理习惯影响立法机构，管理机构甚至普通人

In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws we perceive that the authority they have entrusted to members of the legal profession, and the influence which these individuals exercise in the Government, is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy. This effect seems to me to result from a general cause which it is useful to investigate, since it may produce analogous consequences elsewhere.
在访问一些美国人并研究他们的一些法律之后，我们发现他们已经授予法律职业的从业者的权柄，以及这些个体诉讼对政府所施加的影响，是民主不脱离轨道的最有力的保障。这种效果在我看来是某种一般原因的结果，追究这个原因是有用的，因为它可能在其它地方产生类似的结果。

The members of the legal profession have taken an important part in all the vicissitudes of political society in Europe during the last five hundred years. At one time they have been the instruments of those who were invested with political authority, and at another they have succeeded in converting political authorities into their instrument. In the Middle Ages they afforded a powerful support to the Crown, and since that period they have exerted themselves to the utmost to limit the royal prerogative. In England they have contracted a close alliance with the aristocracy; in France they have proved to be the most dangerous enemies of that class. It is my object to inquire whether, under all these circumstances, the members of the legal profession have been swayed by sudden and momentary impulses; or whether they have been impelled by principles which are inherent in their pursuits, and which will always recur in history. I am incited to this investigation by reflecting that this particular class of men will most likely play a prominent part in that order of things to which the events of our time are giving birth.
过去五百年，法律职业的从业者在欧洲的政治社会的变迁中担当了重要的角色。时而他们成为那些投身于政治权力的人的工具，时而他们将政治权力变成他们的工具。在中世纪他们给王权提供了有力的支持，在那之后他们投身并尽其所能的限制王权。在英格兰他们与贵族建立了亲密的联盟；在法兰西他们已经证明是贵族最危险的敌人。我的目标就是要弄清楚，在所有这些条件下，法律职业的从业者是否由突然和即时的冲动所支配；或者在他们的诉讼中是否由某种恒定的原则所驱使，这些原则在历史中总是一再的重现。我急切的进行这个调查，我认为这个特殊的阶层在我们这个时代即将诞生的事物的秩序中很可能担当一个重要的角色。

Men who have more especially devoted themselves to legal pursuits derive from those occupations certain habits of order, a taste for formalities, and a kind of instinctive regard for the regular connection of ideas, which naturally render them very hostile to the revolutionary spirit and the unreflecting passions of the multitude.
那些投身于法律诉讼的人，从这种工作中养成了遵守秩序的确定习惯，讲究程序，对观念中的有规则的联系有一种本能的直觉，这一切使他们对“革命的精神”和群众不经反思的激情非常反感。

The special information which lawyers derive from their studies ensures them a separate station in society, and they constitute a sort of privileged body in the scale of intelligence. This notion of their superiority perpetually recurs to them in the practice of their profession: they are the masters of a science which is necessary, but which is not very generally known; they serve as arbiters between the citizens; and the habit of directing the blind passions of parties in litigation to their purpose inspires them with a certain contempt for the judgment of the multitude. To this it may be added that they naturally constitute a body, not by any previous understanding, or by an agreement which directs them to a common end; but the analogy of their studies and the uniformity of their proceedings connect their minds together, as much as a common interest could combine their endeavors.
律师从他们的研习中获得的特殊的信息使他们相信他们在社会中的独特位置，他们在知识群体中组成一种拥有特殊权利的群体。在他们的职业诉讼中他们也常常产生优越的念头：他们是某种必需的科学的主人，不过这种科学还不是为一般人所知；他们成为公民之间的仲裁人；在诉讼中引导盲目的当事人意识到他们的目标的习惯激发了他们一种对“群众的判断”（the judgment of the multitude）的蔑视。此外他们自然的组成一个群体，不是通过任何成见，或者通过引导他们达到一个共同目的的协议；而是由于他们的研习的相似性以及他们工作过程的一致性将他们的思想连在了一起，犹如一种共同的兴趣将他们的努力联合在了一起。

A portion of the tastes and of the habits of the aristocracy may consequently be discovered in the characters of men in the profession of the law. They participate in the same instinctive love of order and of formalities; and they entertain the same repugnance to the actions of the multitude, and the same secret contempt of the government of the people. I do not mean to say that the natural propensities of lawyers are sufficiently strong to sway them irresistibly; for they, like most other men, are governed by their private interests and the advantages of the moment.
于是贵族的一部分喜好和习惯可以在这些法律职业从业者的性格中发现。他们分享同样的对秩序和程序的本能的热爱；他们对群众的行为抱有同样的厌恶，对民主政府抱有同样的隐秘的蔑视。我并不是说律师们的这种自然的习性强烈到不可克制的支配他们的程度；就他们而言，和其他大多数人一样，也是由他们私人的即时的利益所支配。

In a state of society in which the members of the legal profession are prevented from holding that rank in the political world which they enjoy in private life, we may rest assured that they will be the foremost agents of revolution. But it must then be inquired whether the cause which induces them to innovate and to destroy is accidental, or whether it belongs to some lasting purpose which they entertain. It is true that lawyers mainly contributed to the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789; but it remains to be seen whether they acted thus because they had studied the laws, or because they were prohibited from co-operating in the work of legislation.
在这样一种社会的国家中，法律职业的从业者被阻止在政治世界中拥有他们在私人生活中所享有的地位，我们可以肯定他们一定会成为“革命”的先锋。但是我们仍然要弄清楚促使他们去革新和去破坏的原因是不是偶然的，或者这种原因是否属于某种他们所抱有的恒定的意图。实际上在1789年律师们成为推翻法国君主制的主要的因素；但是仍然要弄明白他们这样做是因为他们已经研习了法律，还是因为他们被阻止参与立法的工作。

Five hundred years ago the English nobles headed the people, and spoke in its name; at the present time the aristocracy supports the throne, and defends the royal prerogative. But aristocracy has, notwithstanding this, its peculiar instincts and propensities. We must be careful not to confound isolated members of a body with the body itself. In all free governments, of whatsoever form they may be, members of the legal profession will be found at the head of all parties. The same remark is also applicable to the aristocracy; for almost all the democratic convulsions which have agitated the world have been directed by nobles.
五百年前英国的贵族领导人们，并以人们的名义说话；现在贵族支持国王，并捍卫国王的特殊权力。尽管如此，贵族仍拥有它特殊的本能和习性。我们必须当心不要混淆一个群体的单个成员和这个群体本身的区别。在所有的自由的政府中，无论它采用何种形式，法律职业的从业者一定是所有团体的头脑。这同样的结论也适用于贵族政体；因为几乎所有的搅乱世界的民主癫痫都是由贵族引导的。

A privileged body can never satisfy the ambition of all its members; it has always more talents and more passions to content and to employ than it can find places; so that a considerable number of individuals are usually to be met with who are inclined to attack those very privileges which they find it impossible to turn to their own account.
一个拥有特殊权利的群体永远满足不了它所有成员的欲望；它总是拥有比它所能找到的施展空间更多的才能和更多的激情；所以有相当数量的个人通常会攻击那些享有特殊权利的人，这些特殊权利他们发现不可能为他们所拥有。

I do not, then, assert that all the members of the legal profession are at all times the friends of order and the opponents of innovation, but merely that most of them usually are so. In a community in which lawyers are allowed to occupy, without opposition, that high station which naturally belongs to them, their general spirit will be eminently conservative and anti-democratic. When an aristocracy excludes the leaders of that profession from its ranks, it excites enemies which are the more formidable to its security as they are independent of the nobility by their industrious pursuits; and they feel themselves to be its equal in point of intelligence, although they enjoy less opulence and less power. But whenever an aristocracy consents to impart some of its privileges to these same individuals, the two classes coalesce very readily, and assume, as it were, the consistency of a single order of family interests.
所以，我不认为所有的法律职业从业者自始至终都是秩序的朋友和革新的对手，而只是这个群体的大部分如此罢了。在一个共同体之中，若律师可以没有阻碍的拥有某种社会地位，那么最高的社会地位自然的属于他们，他们通常的精神突出的就是保守和反民主。当贵族将那种职业的领导者排除出它的阶层之外，它所激起的敌意对它的安全将更加可怕，因为他们依靠他们的勤勉的工作独立于贵族；他们感觉他们自己在智力上于贵族不相上下，然而他们却享有较少的财富和较少的权力。但是无论何时只要贵族同意将它的特殊权利与这些人分享，这两个群体非常容易结合在一起，而且我认为这种结合会成为家族利益一样的单一秩序。

I am, in like manner, inclined to believe that a monarch will always be able to convert legal practitioners into the most serviceable instruments of his authority. There is a far greater affinity between this class of individuals and the executive power than there is between them and the people; just as there is a greater natural affinity between the nobles and the monarch than between the nobles and the people, although the higher orders of society have occasionally resisted the prerogative of the Crown in concert with the lower classes.
以同样的方式，我也倾向于相信，一个君主总是能够将法律从业者变成他的权柄的最有用的工具。这些个体所形成的群体与执行权力之间的吸引力远比他们与人们之间的吸引力要强大；就如贵族和君主之间的吸引力远比贵族和人们之间的吸引力要大，虽然偶尔贵族与人们联合起来抵制国王的特殊权力。

Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other consideration, and the best security of public order is authority. It must not be forgotten that, if they prize the free institutions of their country much, they nevertheless value the legality of those institutions far more: they are less afraid of tyranny than of arbitrary power; and provided that the legislature take upon itself to deprive men of their independence, they are not dissatisfied.
律师热衷公共秩序胜过一切，而公共秩序最好的保证就是权力。不应当忘记，如果他们很珍视他们国家的自由体系，然而他们对他们国家的法律体系还要重视的多：对于暴政和一种肆意的权力，他们更担心后者；假如立法机构剥夺人们的独立性，他们也不会有什么不满。

I am therefore convinced that the prince who, in presence of an encroaching democracy, should endeavor to impair the judicial authority in his dominions, and to diminish the political influence of lawyers, would commit a great mistake. He would let slip the substance of authority to grasp at the shadow. He would act more wisely in introducing men connected with the law into the government; and if he entrusted them with the conduct of a despotic power, bearing some marks of violence, that power would most likely assume the external features of justice and of legality in their hands.
所以我相信（be convinced: 被说服，证据使•••相信）当君主面临民主渗入的时候，他在他的统治下尽力损害审判权力，并消弱律师们的政治影响力，他将在犯一个巨大的错误。他将使他真正的权力滑走而抓住的不过是权力的阴影罢了。他应当更明智的将与法律有关的人引入政府；并且如果他信任他们让他们引导独裁权力，那么除了一些暴力痕迹，这种权力在他们手里将很可能被认为是具有公正和合法的外部特征。

The government of democracy is favorable to the political power of lawyers; for when the wealthy, the noble, and the prince are excluded from the government, they are sure to occupy the highest stations, in their own right, as it were, since they are the only men of information and sagacity, beyond the sphere of the people, who can be the object of the popular choice. If, then, they are led by their tastes to combine with the aristocracy and to support the Crown, they are naturally brought into contact with the people by their interests. They like the government of democracy, without participating in its propensities and without imitating its weaknesses; whence they derive a twofold authority, from it and over it. The people in democratic states does not mistrust the members of the legal profession, because it is well known that they are interested in serving the popular cause; and it listens to them without irritation, because it does not attribute to them any sinister designs. The object of lawyers is not, indeed, to overthrow the institutions of democracy, but they constantly endeavor to give it an impulse which diverts it from its real tendency, by means which are foreign to its nature. Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, to the aristocracy by habit and by taste, and they may be looked upon as the natural bond and connecting link of the two great classes of society.
民主政府有助于律师的政治权力；因为当富豪，贵族和君主被排除出政府之后，律师必定会占据最高的地位——他们本应拥有这样的位置，既然他们是超越人们掌握信息和睿智的唯一群体，谁将会成为大众选择的目标。那么，如果由于他们的喜好他们倾向于与贵族联合并支持国王，由于他们的利益他们又自然的与人们联系在一起。他们喜欢民主政府，却又没有沾染它的习性和它的缺点；于是他们获得了双重权力，一种来源于民主政府，一种超越了民主政府。民主国家的人们不会不信任法律职业的从业者，因为大家都知道他们有兴趣服务于大众的事务；人们倾听他们的声音而不会恼怒，因为他们不会蓄谋邪恶的意图。实际上，律师的目标并不是推翻民主体系，反而他们常常竭力约束那些使民主偏离真正轨道的因素，由于这些因素民主不再与它的本性相符。律师这个群体在出身（来自人们）和利益上属于人们，在习惯和喜好上属于贵族，所以他们可以被认为是社会中这两个大群体之间自然的结合和联系的纽带。

The profession of the law is the only aristocratic element which can be amalgamated without violence with the natural elements of democracy, and which can be advantageously and permanently combined with them. I am not unacquainted with the defects which are inherent in the character of that body of men; but without this admixture of lawyer-like sobriety with the democratic principle, I question whether democratic institutions could long be maintained, and I cannot believe that a republic could subsist at the present time if the influence of lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.
法律职业是唯一能够与民主的自然元素相融合而不带暴力的元素，它能够有益于并永久性的与他们联合在一起。我并非没有认识到那个群体本身所带有的缺陷；但是民主原则若不与律师这种冷静理性结合在一起，对于民主体系能否长久维续我是质疑的，而且我不相信在我们这个时代共和制还能够存在下去，如果律师对公共事务的影响力不随人们权力的增长而增长的话。

This aristocratic character, which I hold to be common to the legal profession, is much more distinctly marked in the United States and in England than in any other country. This proceeds not only from the legal studies of the English and American lawyers, but from the nature of the legislation, and the position which those persons occupy in the two countries. The English and the Americans have retained the law of precedents; that is to say, they continue to found their legal opinions and the decisions of their courts upon the opinions and the decisions of their forefathers. In the mind of an English or American lawyer a taste and a reverence for what is old is almost always united to a love of regular and lawful proceedings.
我坚持认为是法律职业共有的这种贵族特征，在合众国和英国比任何其它国家都表现得更为明显。这种结果不仅仅来源于英国和美国律师的法律研习，还来源于他们立法的性质，以及这两个国家中律师所拥有的社会地位。英国人和美国人都保持着判例法（the law of precedents：我认为判例法是唯一与公正的精神相一致的方式；公正，无非就是力求如何对待他那么也如何对待我，或者力求如何对待那个人也如何对待这个人）；换句话说，在法庭上他们一直在他们先辈的观点和裁决中寻找他们的法律观点和裁决。在英国或美国律师的思想中，对古老事物的喜好和敬重几乎总是与对有序和合法的诉讼的热爱结合在一起。

This predisposition has another effect upon the character of the legal profession and upon the general course of society. The English and American lawyers investigate what has been done; the French advocate inquires what should have been done; the former produce precedents, the latter reasons. A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own; whilst the reverse occurs in France. There the most trifling litigation is never conducted without the introduction of an entire system of ideas peculiar to the counsel employed; and the fundamental principles of law are discussed in order to obtain a perch of land by the decision of the court. This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this subjection of thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more sluggish inclinations in England and America than in France.
这种民俗对法律职业的特征和社会一般事务还有另外一种影响。英国和美国的律师调查已经发生了什么；而法国的律师却主张追问应当做什么；前者创造判例，后者创造理由。一个法国旁观者将会非常惊讶，一个英国或美国律师如此频繁的引用别人的观点，却极少提出他自己的观点；然而在法国却相反。在那里最细小的一件诉讼案，若不引入辩护律师个人的那一套观念，审判便不能进行下去；他们争论法律的基础性原则以便通过法庭的裁决获得一席之地。这种对自我观点的克制，以及对他的先辈们观点由衷的尊重，是英国和美国律师共有的特征，他必须宣誓的这种服从，在英国和美国比法国给与了律师更多腼腆的习惯和更多的惰性。

The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can be read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents. The indispensable want of legal assistance which is felt in England and in the United States, and the high opinion which is generally entertained of the ability of the legal profession, tend to separate it more and more from the people, and to place it in a distinct class. The French lawyer is simply a man extensively acquainted with the statutes of his country; but the English or American lawyer resembles the hierophants of Egypt, for, like them, he is the sole interpreter of an occult science.
法国法典常常难以理解，但是它们能够被每个人阅读；另一方面，对缺乏法律知识的人而言，没有什么比基于判例的立法更令人费解了。在英国和合众国里，人们对法律援助的需要是必不可少的，通常人们认为法律职业的能力高人一等，使律师越来越从人们这个大群体中分离出来，从而成为一个很独特的阶层。法国的律师仅仅是对他的国家的法律条文广泛的熟知而已；但是英国或美国的律师则类似于古埃及的祭司，因为像他们一样，他是某种神秘科学的唯一解释者。

The station which lawyers occupy in England and America exercises no less an influence upon their habits and their opinions. The English aristocracy, which has taken care to attract to its sphere whatever is at all analogous to itself, has conferred a high degree of importance and of authority upon the members of the legal profession. In English society lawyers do not occupy the first rank, but they are contented with the station assigned to them; they constitute, as it were, the younger branch of the English aristocracy, and they are attached to their elder brothers, although they do not enjoy all their privileges. The English lawyers consequently mingle the taste and the ideas of the aristocratic circles in which they move with the aristocratic interests of their profession.
在英国和美国律师所占据的社会地位仍然对他们的习惯和观点产生着重要的影响。英国的贵族，一直留心着将那些与它相似的东西接纳到它自己的领域，授予法律职业的从业者相当程度的重要性和权力。在英国社会，律师并不占据第一阶层，但是他们对给与他们的地位感到满意；他们组成了他们应当组成的英国贵族的较年轻的分支，他们忠诚于比他们较年长的兄弟，虽然他们并未完全享有那些年长的贵族所享有的特殊权利。其结果是英国的律师们将他们进入的贵族圈的习性和观念与他们的职业的贵族化兴趣结合起来了。

And indeed the lawyer-like character which I am endeavoring to depict is most distinctly to be met with in England: there laws are esteemed not so much because they are good as because they are old; and if it be necessary to modify them in any respect, or to adapt them the changes which time operates in society, recourse is had to the most inconceivable contrivances in order to uphold the traditionary fabric, and to maintain that nothing has been done which does not square with the intentions and complete the labors of former generations. The very individuals who conduct these changes disclaim all intention of innovation, and they had rather resort to absurd expedients than plead guilty to so great a crime. This spirit appertains more especially to the English lawyers; they seem indifferent to the real meaning of what they treat, and they direct all their attention to the letter, seeming inclined to infringe the rules of common sense and of humanity rather than to swerve one title from the law. The English legislation may be compared to the stock of an old tree, upon which lawyers have engrafted the most various shoots, with the hope that, although their fruits may differ, their foliage at least will be confounded with the venerable trunk which supports them all.
实际上我所竭力描述的这种律师特征在英国可以很明显的找到：在那里法律受到尊重主要还不是因为法律良好而是因为法律古老；并且如果有必要在某方面修改它们，或者让它们适应社会随着时间所发生的改变，他们所寻求的仍然是最不可思议的方式，以支持传统的构造，若与先辈的意图不符和不能完善先辈们的劳动成果，他们就会坚持什么都不做。这种独特的对待变化的个性拒绝所有革新的意图，他们宁肯被人暂时指责为荒唐可笑，也不愿承认对先辈们犯如此大的罪。这种精神尤其属于英国的律师；他们看起来对他们所讨论的事情的真实含义漠不关心，他们所有的注意力都在法律文本上，似乎倾向于违背通常的情感和人性而不愿歪曲一条法律。英国的立法可以比喻成一棵古树的系统，在这棵树上律师们移植各种各样的新枝，他们希望——虽然结的果实会不一样——至少这些新枝的树叶能够与支持它们的原有的大树一致。

In America there are no nobles or men of letters, and the people is apt to mistrust the wealthy; lawyers consequently form the highest political class, and the most cultivated circle of society. They have therefore nothing to gain by innovation, which adds a conservative interest to their natural taste for public order. If I were asked where I place the American aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation that it is not composed of the rich, who are united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and the bar.
在美国，没有英国这样的贵族和考据文本的人（man of letters≠文人，中国的文人，既缺乏基督信仰，也对大宪章这样的法律传统极端无知，甚至都没有基本的逻辑思维能力，所以他们总是能够随心所欲的解释任何事情），人们也倾向于不信任富豪；于是律师形成了社会中最高的政治阶层和最有教养的群体。所以他们无须通过革新去获得什么，这更增加了他们对公共秩序的自然喜好的保守性。如果有人问我美国的贵族阶层在哪里，我会毫不犹豫地回答，它不是那些没有共同联系纽带的富人，而是那些占据审判法庭的法官和律师们。

The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States the more shall we be persuaded that the lawyers as a body form the most powerful, if not the only, counterpoise to the democratic element. In that country we perceive how eminently the legal profession is qualified by its powers, and even by its defects, to neutralize the vices which are inherent in popular government. When the American people is intoxicated by passion, or carried away by the impetuosity of its ideas, it is checked and stopped by the almost invisible influence of its legal counsellors, who secretly oppose their aristocratic propensities to its democratic instincts, their superstitious attachment to what is antique to its love of novelty, their narrow views to its immense designs, and their habitual procrastination to its ardent impatience.
我们越是思考美国所发生的一切，我们越是相信律师作为一个群体形成了民主元素最有力的平衡因素，如果不是唯一的因素的话。在那个国家我们认识到法律职业通过它的力量甚至是通过它的缺点而成为大众化政府本身所具有的恶行的完美的抵制因素。当美国人们由于激情而失去控制，或者由于情绪急躁而脱离正常轨道时，就会由于几乎无处不在的律师们的无形的影响而得到阻止，律师们秘而不宣的用他们贵族化习性反对人们的民主本能，用他们对古老的盲目忠诚反对人们对新奇的热爱，用他们精密的见解反对人们的天马行空，用他们的遵循习惯反对人们的激情难耐。

The courts of justice are the most visible organs by which the legal profession is enabled to control the democracy. The judge is a lawyer, who, independently of the taste for regularity and order which he has contracted in the study of legislation, derives an additional love of stability from his own inalienable functions. His legal attainments have already raised him to a distinguished rank amongst his fellow-citizens; his political power completes the distinction of his station, and gives him the inclinations natural to privileged classes.
审判法庭是法律职业能够控制民主的最明显机构。法官也是律师，在立法的研习中他感染了对规则性和秩序的喜好，而且从他自己不可转让的工作中获得了一种额外的对稳定的热爱。他的法律知识已经使他在他的同胞中成为了特别的阶层；他的政治权力又使他的特别地位更加完整，从而给与他成为拥有特殊权利群体的自然倾向。

Armed with the power of declaring the laws to be unconstitutional, 196 the American magistrate perpetually interferes in political affairs. He cannot force the people to make laws, but at least he can oblige it not to disobey its own enactments; or to act inconsistently with its own principles. I am aware that a secret tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the United States, and by most of the constitutions of the several States the Government can, upon the demand of the two houses of the legislature, remove the judges from their station. By some other constitutions the members of the tribunals are elected, and they are even subjected to frequent re-elections. I venture to predict that these innovations will sooner or later be attended with fatal consequences, and that it will be found out at some future period that the attack which is made upon the judicial power has affected the democratic republic itself.
196: See chapter VI. on the “Judicial Power in the United States.”
拥有宣布法律违宪的权力的美国管理者，终身可以干预政治事务。他不能强制人们制定法律，但是至少他能够强制人们不得违反他们自己制定的法令；或者不得制定与他们自己的原则相违背的法律。我注意到了有一种隐秘的趋势在削弱合众国既存的审判权力，在各州多数的宪法中规定政府可以基于立法机构的两院的要求，免去法官的职务。在其它某些州中法官由选举产生，甚至还可能频繁的重选（法官有限任期制）。我冒昧的预言，这些革新迟早会产生致命的后果，而且在未来的某个时期会发现这种对审判权力的攻击也将攻击民主共和制本身。

It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of which I have been speaking has been confined, in the United States, to the courts of justice; it extends far beyond them. As the lawyers constitute the only enlightened class which the people does not mistrust, they are naturally called upon to occupy most of the public stations. They fill the legislative assemblies, and they conduct the administration; they consequently exercise a powerful influence upon the formation of the law, and upon its execution. The lawyers are, however, obliged to yield to the current of public opinion, which is too strong for them to resist it, but it is easy to find indications of what their conduct would be if they were free to act as they chose. The Americans, who have made such innovations in their political legislation, have introduced very sparing alterations in their civil laws, and that with great difficulty, although those laws are frequently repugnant to their social condition. The reason of this is, that in matters of civil law the majority is obliged to defer to the authority of the legal profession, and that the American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when they are left to their own choice.
然而，不要认为我所说的法律精神在合众国仅限于审判的法庭；它远远超出了法庭。因为律师组成了人们不会不信任的唯一的启蒙阶层，他们自然的被呼请担任了大部分的公共职位。他们填满了立法议会，并且指导管理；于是他们对法律的制定行使了强大的影响，对法律的执行也产生了强大的影响。不过，律师们不得不屈服于当下的公众意见，他们抗拒这种公众意见实在太困难了，而如果他们想依他们自己的选择而自由行动时，总是很容易发现他们这种行为的迹象。在政治立法方面做了这么多革新的美国人，在他们的世俗法律方面所进行的变更却非常保守，而且这些微小的变更还经历了巨大的困难，虽然那些法律常常与他们的社会条件相冲突。这里的原因在于，在世俗法律(civil law & canon law)的事务中多数不得不将权力委托给法律职业，而美国的律师们在由他们自由处理时却又不愿去革新。

It is curious for a Frenchman, accustomed to a very different state of things, to hear the perpetual complaints which are made in the United States against the stationary propensities of legal men, and their prejudices in favor of existing institutions.
对于一个习惯了事物无常变化莫测的法国人而言，在合众国听到人们对法律人士的稳定习性和他们支持既存体系的没完没了的抱怨时，一定非常好奇。

The influence of the legal habits which are common in America extends beyond the limits I have just pointed out. Scarcely any question arises in the United States which does not become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate; hence all parties are obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As most public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce the customs and technicalities of their profession into the affairs of the country. The jury extends this habitude to all classes. The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a vulgar tongue; the spirit of the law, which is produced in the schools and courts of justice, gradually penetrates beyond their walls into the bosom of society, where it descends to the lowest classes, so that the whole people contracts the habits and the tastes of the magistrate. The lawyers of the United States form a party which is but little feared and scarcely perceived, which has no badge peculiar to itself, which adapts itself with great flexibility to the exigencies of the time, and accommodates itself to all the movements of the social body; but this party extends over the whole community, and it penetrates into all classes of society; it acts upon the country imperceptibly, but it finally fashions it to suit its purposes.
在美国法律习惯影响的普遍性已经超出了我刚才指出的范围。在合众国出现的任何问题，几乎迟早都会变成法庭辩论的主题；于是所有的社团不得不将在通常的审判程序中所使用的观念，甚至语言，引入到他们的日常争论中。因为大多数担任公共职位的人是或者曾经是法律从业者，他们将他们职业的习俗和技术引入国家的事务之中。审判团（Jury：对于中英翻译者，我热切的期望你们能够将它翻译成“审判团”而不是“陪审团”）将这种习惯传播到所有阶层。从而这种法律语言变成了——在某种程度上——一种通俗的说话方式；产生于学校和法庭的法律精神，逐渐的穿透它们的围墙进入社会的内部，进入社会最低阶层，于是社会全体成员都感染了管理者的习惯和喜好。合众国的律师们形成了一个党，它不足惧怕很少被意识到，它没有自己特别的标志，它极其灵活可以适应紧急时期的要求和适应所有的社会运动；但是这个党扩展到了整个共同体，渗入到了社会所有的阶层；它对国家的影响潜移默化，不过它最终会造成它所预期的那样。

WIND

Part II

Trial By Jury In The United States Considered As A Political Institution
在合众国由审判团审判作为一种政治制度

Trial by jury, which is one of the instruments of the sovereignty of the people, deserves to be compared with the other laws which establish that sovereignty
—Composition of the jury in the United States
—Effect of trial by jury upon the national character
—It educates the people
—It tends to establish the authority of the magistrates and to extend a knowledge of law among the people.
由审判团审判，是人们行使世俗统治权（sovereignty）的一种手段，应当与建立这种统治权的其它法律相对照
——合众国的审判团的组成
——由审判团审判对国家特征的影响
——它培养人们
——它趋向于建立管理者的权力和在人们中间传播法律知识

Since I have been led by my subject to recur to the administration of justice in the United States, I will not pass over this point without adverting to the institution of the jury. Trial by jury may be considered in two separate points of view, as a judicial and as a political institution. If it entered into my present purpose to inquire how far trial by jury (more especially in civil cases) contributes to insure the best administration of justice, I admit that its utility might be contested. As the jury was first introduced at a time when society was in an uncivilized state, and when courts of justice were merely called upon to decide on the evidence of facts, it is not an easy task to adapt it to the wants of a highly civilized community when the mutual relations of men are multiplied to a surprising extent, and have assumed the enlightened and intellectual character of the age.
既然我已经被我的主题引导再次提出“合众国的公正的管理”，我就不能绕过而不谈及审判团的制度。由审判团审判可以分成两个方面来考虑，作为一种审判制度和作为一种政治制度。如果我现在想问由审判团审判的制度（尤其是在世俗的案件中）在多大的程度上有助于保证最好的公正的管理，我承认它的功用可以讨论。因为审判团最初被引入的时候，那时的社会还处于野蛮状态，公正的法庭仅仅被召集来裁决一些证据明显的事实，但是当人们的相互关系复杂到一种令人吃惊的程度并被认为是已经启蒙了和有知识的特征的时代时，它是不容易做到适应这种高度文明的共同体的需要的。

My present object is to consider the jury as a political institution, and any other course would divert me from my subject. Of trial by jury, considered as a judicial institution, I shall here say but very few words. When the English adopted trial by jury they were a semi-barbarous people; they are become, in course of time, one of the most enlightened nations of the earth; and their attachment to this institution seems to have increased with their increasing cultivation. They soon spread beyond their insular boundaries to every corner of the habitable globe; some have formed colonies, others independent states; the mother-country has maintained its monarchical constitution; many of its offspring have founded powerful republics; but wherever the English have been they have boasted of the privilege of trial by jury. 198 They have established it, or hastened to re-establish it, in all their settlements. A judicial institution which obtains the suffrages of a great people for so long a series of ages, which is zealously renewed at every epoch of civilization, in all the climates of the earth and under every form of human government, cannot be contrary to the spirit of justice.
我现在的主题是将审判团作为一种政治制度来考虑，任何其它的思路都将使我偏离主题。将由审判团审判作为一种审判制度，在此我仅仅说一点点。当英国人吸收由审判团审判的制度时，他们还是一种半野蛮的的人群；在时间的进程中，他们变成了世界上最文明的国家；并且他们对这种制度的热爱看起来随着他们教养的增长而增长了。他们很快走出岛国的边界，分散到世界可居住的每个角落；一些形成了附属国（Colony：附属领地。在古希腊，一个大城市建立它的附属领地，便称为colony。在国家普遍建立之后，应当译成附属国，它受另一个国家的统治，没有独立的国际地位。最近一个世纪，很多英国的附属国开始独立，于是逐渐转变为基于平等的联邦形式），其它的形成了独立的国家；母国仍然保持它的君主制；它的许多后代则建立了强大的共和国；但是无论哪里的英国人，他们都将由审判团审判的特殊权利引以为荣。在所有定居的地方，他们都建立了这套制度，或者快速重建了这套制度。一套审判制度，它在如此长的连续的时期获得了大多数的人们的选择，它在文明的每个重要时期都得到了人们热衷的复兴，在世界上所有的气候中，在每种人类政府形式下，这种制度都不会与公正的精神相背离。

I turn, however, from this part of the subject. To look upon the jury as a mere judicial institution is to confine our attention to a very narrow view of it; for however great its influence may be upon the decisions of the law courts, that influence is very subordinate to the powerful effects which it produces on the destinies of the community at large. The jury is above all a political institution, and it must be regarded in this light in order to be duly appreciated.
然而，我要离开这个主题。将审判团仅仅视为一种审判制度，是将我们的关注点局限在一种非常狭窄的视域之内；因为无论它对法庭裁决的结果的影响多么重大，那种影响相对于它对整个共同体的命运的强有力的影响而言还是非常次要的。最重要的，审判团首先是一种政治制度，必须从这一点来看待它才能恰当的认识它。

By the jury I mean a certain number of citizens chosen indiscriminately, and invested with a temporary right of judging. Trial by jury, as applied to the repression of crime, appears to me to introduce an eminently republican element into the government upon the following grounds:—
The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or democratic, according to the class of society from which the jurors are selected; but it always preserves its republican character, inasmuch as it places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed, or of a portion of the governed, instead of leaving it under the authority of the Government. Force is never more than a transient element of success; and after force comes the notion of right. A government which should only be able to crush its enemies upon a field of battle would very soon be destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be found in penal legislation, and if that sanction be wanting the law will sooner or later lose its cogency. He who punishes infractions of the law is therefore the real master of society. Now the institution of the jury raises the people itself, or at least a class of citizens, to the bench of judicial authority. The institution of the jury consequently invests the people, or that class of citizens, with the direction of society.
“由审判团”我的意思是任意选出一定数量的公民，授予一种暂时的审判权利。由审判团审判，作为制止罪行的应用方式，在我看来是将一种显著的共和制元素引入了政府，理由如下：——
这种审判团的制度可能是贵族制的或者是民主制的，依所选审判员来自哪个社会阶层而定；但是它总是保持它的共和特征，因为它将社会的现实引导权交给了被统治者，或者一部分被统治者，而不是放在统治者的权力之下。强制从来不过是转瞬即逝的成功因素；强制之后随之而来的是权利的观念。一个只能在战场征服它的敌人的政府将很快被毁灭。政治法律真正的认可在于惩罚罪行方面的立法，如果缺乏这种认可法律迟早将丧失它的说服力。所以，一个人只有惩罚了违反法律的行为，他才能实际上成为社会的主人。现在这种审判团的制度将人们自己，或者至少一个公民阶层的人提升到审判权力的席位上。这种审判团的制度授予人们或那个公民阶层的人一种社会引导的权力。

In England the jury is returned from the aristocratic portion of the nation; 201 the aristocracy makes the laws, applies the laws, and punishes all infractions of the laws; everything is established upon a consistent footing, and England may with truth be said to constitute an aristocratic republic. In the United States the same system is applied to the whole people. Every American citizen is qualified to be an elector, a juror, and is eligible to office. 202 The system of the jury, as it is understood in America, appears to me to be as direct and as extreme a consequence of the sovereignty of the people as universal suffrage. These institutions are two instruments of equal power, which contribute to the supremacy of the majority. All the sovereigns who have chosen to govern by their own authority, and to direct society instead of obeying its directions, have destroyed or enfeebled the institution of the jury. The monarchs of the House of Tudor sent to prison jurors who refused to convict, and Napoleon caused them to be returned by his agents.
在英格兰，审判团从国家的贵族中选出；贵族制定法律，应用法律，并惩罚所有违反法律的行为；一切都建立在一种始终一致的基础之上，英格兰确实可以被称作是建立了一种贵族的共和制。在合众国同样的系统应用于整个人们。每个美国公民都可成为选举人，审判员，并有资格担任公职。这种在美国众所周知的审判团系统，在我看来如同普遍的选举权一样，是人们的世俗统治权的直接和最终的结果。这些制度是支撑多数最高世俗统治权力的两种相等权力的手段。所有选择以他们自己的权力来统治国家的君主，为了引导社会而不是由社会来引导，都会破坏或干预审判团制度。都铎王室（英国，1485-1603）的君主将那些拒绝对被告定罪的审判员押入监狱，拿破仑令自己的代理人挑选审判员。

However clear most of these truths may seem to be, they do not command universal assent, and in France, at least, the institution of trial by jury is still very imperfectly understood. If the question arises as to the proper qualification of jurors, it is confined to a discussion of the intelligence and knowledge of the citizens who may be returned, as if the jury was merely a judicial institution. This appears to me to be the least part of the subject. The jury is preeminently a political institution; it must be regarded as one form of the sovereignty of the people; when that sovereignty is repudiated, it must be rejected, or it must be adapted to the laws by which that sovereignty is established. The jury is that portion of the nation to which the execution of the laws is entrusted, as the Houses of Parliament constitute that part of the nation which makes the laws; and in order that society may be governed with consistency and uniformity, the list of citizens qualified to serve on juries must increase and diminish with the list of electors. This I hold to be the point of view most worthy of the attention of the legislator, and all that remains is merely accessory.
然而，无论大部分的这些真理看起来是多么的清晰明了，它们并没有获得普遍的赞同。至少在法国，人们对由审判团审判的制度的理解非常的不完全。如果问题只是审判员的恰当资格，那么所要讨论的仅仅就是那些可被挑选出来的公民的智力和知识，审判团仅仅视为一种审判制度。这在我看来只是全部意义的极少部分。审判团最重要的是一种政治制度；它应当作为人们世俗统治权的一种形式来考虑；当这种权力遭到否定的时候，它一定会被拒绝，或者它被法律规定，从而人们的世俗统治权得到建立。审判团是法律的执行权力授权的国家部分成员，如同国会组成制定法律的国家部分成员；为了社会能够得到普遍一致性的管理，具备资格服务于审判团的公民的名单应当随着选举人的名单的增加而增加，减少而减少。我认为这一点最值得立法者加以注意，其它一切都只是附属。

I am so entirely convinced that the jury is preeminently a political institution that I still consider it in this light when it is applied in civil causes. Laws are always unstable unless they are founded upon the manners of a nation; manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people. When the jury is reserved for criminal offences, the people only witnesses its occasional action in certain particular cases; the ordinary course of life goes on without its interference, and it is considered as an instrument, but not as the only instrument, of obtaining justice. This is true a fortiori when the jury is only applied to certain criminal causes.
我是如此的相信审判团是最重要的一种政治制度，所以，当它应用于世俗事务时，我仍然是从这个角度来考虑的。除非法律建立在一个国家的习俗之上，否则它们总是不稳定的；习俗是人们中间唯一稳定和持久的权力。当审判团仅仅应用于罪行的审判时，人们只能在一定的特殊案例中见证它偶尔的作用；人们正常的生活却没有它的影响，人们认为它是一种获得公正的工具，不过不是唯一的一种。当审判团仅仅应用于一些特定的罪案时，就是这样。

When, on the contrary, the influence of the jury is extended to civil causes, its application is constantly palpable; it affects all the interests of the community; everyone co-operates in its work: it thus penetrates into all the usages of life, it fashions the human mind to its peculiar forms, and is gradually associated with the idea of justice itself.
相反，当审判团的影响扩大到所有世俗事务中的时候，它的应用时常呈现于人们的眼前；它影响共同体中所有人的利益；每个人都会参与其中：这样它渗入到所有生活的习惯之中，它将人类的思想都造就成它特殊的形式，逐渐的它就与公正观念本身结合在一起了。

The institution of the jury, if confined to criminal causes, is always in danger, but when once it is introduced into civil proceedings it defies the aggressions of time and of man. If it had been as easy to remove the jury from the manners as from the laws of England, it would have perished under Henry VIII, and Elizabeth, and the civil jury did in reality, at that period, save the liberties of the country. In whatever manner the jury be applied, it cannot fail to exercise a powerful influence upon the national character; but this influence is prodigiously increased when it is introduced into civil causes. The jury, and more especially the jury in civil cases, serves to communicate the spirit of the judges to the minds of all the citizens; and this spirit, with the habits which attend it, is the soundest preparation for free institutions. It imbues all classes with a respect for the thing judged, and with the notion of right. If these two elements be removed, the love of independence is reduced to a mere destructive passion. It teaches men to practice equity, every man learns to judge his neighbor as he would himself be judged; and this is especially true of the jury in civil causes, for, whilst the number of persons who have reason to apprehend a criminal prosecution is small, every one is liable to have a civil action brought against him. The jury teaches every man not to recoil before the responsibility of his own actions, and impresses him with that manly confidence without which political virtue cannot exist. It invests each citizen with a kind of magistracy, it makes them all feel the duties which they are bound to discharge towards society, and the part which they take in the Government. By obliging men to turn their attention to affairs which are not exclusively their own, it rubs off that individual egotism which is the rust of society.
审判团制度，如果只限于审判罪案，总是处于危险之中，但是一旦引入一般的世俗诉讼中它将使一切由于时间的推移和人的原因对它的损害落空。如果从习俗中消除审判团如同从英格兰的法律中消除它一样容易，那么在亨瑞八世和伊丽莎白的统治之下它就已经被毁了，而世俗审判团在那段时期实际上拯救了国家的自由。无论审判团以何种方式应用，它对国家特征的强大的影响就不会不存在；但是当它被引入到一般的世俗诉讼中时，它的影响将会惊人的增加。审判团，尤其是一般世俗诉讼中的审判团，将法官的精神传递到了所有公民的思想之中；这种精神和拥有这种精神的习惯，是自由制度最理性的预备。它感染所有的阶层尊重判决的结果，形成权利的观念。如果这两个元素去掉的话，对独立（或译为自由）的热爱就只能剩下破坏性的激情了。它教导人们要平等的审判，每个人学习去审判他的邻人而他自己也将被邻人审判；这在一般的世俗审判中尤其真实，因为，虽然有理由担心被罪案起诉的人数不多，然而每个人都有可能被起诉。审判团教导每个人在面对自己行为的责任时不要退缩，要拥有坚定的男人般的信心（manly confidence）——没有这一点政治美德便不会存在。它授权每个公民行使一种管理权，它使他们所有人都能感觉到他们对社会应当履行的职责，以及他们参与政府的管理。通过强制人们将他们的注意力转到他们自己之外的事务之中，它擦去已经成为社会运转中的锈的那些个人利己思想。

The jury contributes most powerfully to form the judgement and to increase the natural intelligence of a people, and this is, in my opinion, its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as a gratuitous public school ever open, in which every juror learns to exercise his rights, enters into daily communication with the most learned and enlightened members of the upper classes, and becomes practically acquainted with the laws of his country, which are brought within the reach of his capacity by the efforts of the bar, the advice of the judge, and even by the passions of the parties. I think that the practical intelligence and political good sense of the Americans are mainly attributable to the long use which they have made of the jury in civil causes. I do not know whether the jury is useful to those who are in litigation; but I am certain it is highly beneficial to those who decide the litigation; and I look upon it as one of the most efficacious means for the education of the people which society can employ.
审判团对形成人们的判断和增加人们的自然智力产生了非常有力的作用，这在我看来，就是它最大的益处。可以把它视为一种永远开放的免费公共学校，在这里每个审判员学习去行使他的权利，与最博学和最文明的上层阶层的成员进行日常的交流，以及现实的熟知他的国家的法律，通过律师的努力，法官的劝告，甚至争议双方的情绪，这一切都将国家的法律带到了他能够理解的范围之内。我认为美国人的实际智力和政治上的良好感觉主要的归功于他们在世俗事务中对审判团的长期应用。我不知道审判团是否对那些诉讼双方有用；但是我确信它非常有益于那些裁决诉讼的人；我将它视为社会能够使用的培养人们最有效的手段之一。

What I have hitherto said applies to all nations, but the remark I am now about to make is peculiar to the Americans and to democratic peoples. I have already observed that in democracies the members of the legal profession and the magistrates constitute the only aristocratic body which can check the irregularities of the people. This aristocracy is invested with no physical power, but it exercises its conservative influence upon the minds of men, and the most abundant source of its authority is the institution of the civil jury. In criminal causes, when society is armed against a single individual, the jury is apt to look upon the judge as the passive instrument of social power, and to mistrust his advice. Moreover, criminal causes are entirely founded upon the evidence of facts which common sense can readily appreciate; upon this ground the judge and the jury are equal. Such, however, is not the case in civil causes; then the judge appears as a disinterested arbiter between the conflicting passions of the parties. The jurors look up to him with confidence and listen to him with respect, for in this instance their intelligence is completely under the control of his learning. It is the judge who sums up the various arguments with which their memory has been wearied out, and who guides them through the devious course of the proceedings; he points their attention to the exact question of fact which they are called upon to solve, and he puts the answer to the question of law into their mouths. His influence upon their verdict is almost unlimited.
前面我的论述可以适用于所有的国家，下面我将要评论的只是针对美国人和民主国家的人们。我已经注意到在民主制下法律职业的从业者和管理者组成了唯一能够阻止人们混乱的贵族群体。贵族并没有被授予物质上的力量，但是它对人们的思想施加它的保守的影响，而它权力的最丰富的资源便是一般世俗审判团的制度。在罪案审判（criminal cause，civil cause：我认为托克维尔将后者视为一般的诉讼，而将前者视为一种特殊的civil cause，分别译为“罪案审判”和“一般世俗诉讼”）中，当装备起来的社会反对单个的人时，审判团倾向于将法官视为被动的（在罪案审判中，执行权力代表共同体起诉个人，因为共同体受到了个人的侵犯，被动是在这个意义上说的）社会权力的工具，从而不信任他的意见。此外，罪案审判完全依据事实证据，这些证据要求通常的感觉都能够容易的领会；在这个基础上法官和审判团是平等的。然而在一般的世俗诉讼中就不是这种情况；这时法官是以两种冲突情绪之间的并与双方无利益关系的仲裁者身份出现。审判员带着信任敬重法官并愿意倾听他的意见，因为在这种情况下他们的智力会完全的被他的博学所控制。由于各种各样的争论审判员的记忆精疲力竭，而对这些争论作出概要总结的是法官，他引导他们从迷宫中走出来；他指出他们应当准确的注意哪些事实问题，而这些问题正是召集他们要来解决的，并且他告诉他们应该如何从法律上来回答问题。他对他们判决的影响几乎是无限的。

If I am called upon to explain why I am but little moved by the arguments derived from the ignorance of jurors in civil causes, I reply, that in these proceedings, whenever the question to be solved is not a mere question of fact, the jury has only the semblance of a judicial body. The jury sanctions the decision of the judge, they by the authority of society which they represent, and he by that of reason and of law.
如果有人需要我向他解释为什么在一般的世俗诉讼中源于审判员的无知所产生的观点很少触动我，我的回答是，在这些诉讼中，任何时候问题得到解决都不仅仅是一个事实的问题，审判团只具有一个审判实体的外形。审判团认可法官的裁决，他们依靠他们所代表的社会权力，而他依靠理性和法律的权力。

In England and in America the judges exercise an influence upon criminal trials which the French judges have never possessed. The reason of this difference may easily be discovered; the English and American magistrates establish their authority in civil causes, and only transfer it afterwards to tribunals of another kind, where that authority was not acquired. In some cases (and they are frequently the most important ones) the American judges have the right of deciding causes alone. 204 Upon these occasions they are accidentally placed in the position which the French judges habitually occupy, but they are invested with far more power than the latter; they are still surrounded by the reminiscence of the jury, and their judgment has almost as much authority as the voice of the community at large, represented by that institution. Their influence extends beyond the limits of the courts; in the recreations of private life as well as in the turmoil of public business, abroad and in the legislative assemblies, the American judge is constantly surrounded by men who are accustomed to regard his intelligence as superior to their own, and after having exercised his power in the decision of causes, he continues to influence the habits of thought and the characters of the individuals who took a part in his judgment.
在英格兰和美国，法官对罪案审判的影响是法国的法官从来没有的。这种差异的原因可以很容易的找到；英国和美国的管理者在一般世俗诉讼中建立了他们的权力，随后仅仅将它移到另一种他们原来未获得权力的审判法庭中。在某些案件中（这些案件常常是最重要的案件，比如联邦法官处理的案件）美国的法官拥有独自裁决案件的权利。在这些场合他们偶尔被置于法国法官习惯性所占据的那些位置，但是他们被授予了远比后者要强大的权力；他们仍被审判团的影响所环绕，他们的裁决几乎拥有与那种制度所代表的共同体最大的声音相同的权力。他们的影响超越了法庭的范围；在私人生活的休闲娱乐中和在公共事务的混乱中，在国外和在立法集会中，美国法官常常被人们习惯性的视为智力高于他们自己，在裁决案件中他行使完了他的权力，他继续影响那些参与他的审判的人的思想习惯和个人性格。

The jury, then, which seems to restrict the rights of magistracy, does in reality consolidate its power, and in no country are the judges so powerful as there, where the people partakes their privileges. It is more especially by means of the jury in civil causes that the American magistrates imbue all classes of society with the spirit of their profession. Thus the jury, which is the most energetic means of making the people rule, is also the most efficacious means of teaching it to rule well.
所以，看起来约束了管理权利的审判团，实际上加强了它的权力，没有哪个国家的法官能够和他们一样强大，那里的人们分享他们的特殊权利。尤其通过世俗诉讼中的审判团的方式，美国的管理者用他们的职业精神感染所有社会阶层。于是，作为最强有力的统治人们的手段的审判团，也是教导人们好好统治的最有效的手段。