exist in cases where private property was taken for public use, and yet in all these proceedings, questions of fact, involving the tenure to property in untold amounts, axe adjudicated upon by the courts, without the intervention of a jury.
So far as we can now trace the right of trial by jury, at common law, it did not extend to equitable actions, admiralty or summary proceedings, nor in cases where private property was taken for public use, nor in proceedings in rem, nor in civil proceedings against public officers, and this proceeding is nothing more or less than a civil proceeding against a public officer. By Magna Charta, it is declared that "no freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned, or deprived of his freehold, except by the regular judgment of his peers, or the law of the land."
In the seventeenth year of the reign of King John, at Runnymede, these concessions were made by the crown, and from that time forward, to some extent, the rights of Englishmen have been determined by the concession then made. King John's construction of the concession was, that it did not protect the "goods and chattels;" and, as an evidence of this, we have but to refer the unread to history of the time, and it will be found that armed forces were sent against the secret enemies of the king, and they were despoiled of their goods, without observing any form of law. Langton and his associates, and many others, were thrown into prison and despoiled of their goods, without the intervention of a jury, notwithstanding Magna Charta. Ling. His. Eng., vol. 2, 225 n. So far as our research has extended, the right of trial by jury, at common law, only extended to criminal prosecutions, and in actions where a freehold or goads and chattels were in dispute.
The term, "goods and chattels," includes personal property, choses in action, and chattels real. The right to an office is neither personal property, or a chose in action, or chattels real, in the sense used at law. In information in the nature of a quo warranto, it is expressly provided by an act of parliament, (3 Geo., 2 ch., 25), that a jury shall be struck before a proper
