Two speeches of Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge ... on the state of the country

It is not improbable that the selection of jurymen was chiefly made to fall on the same men who played the leading part in the great mercantile associations, particularly those farming the revenues in Asia and elsewhere, just because these had a very close personal interest in sitting in the courts; and, if the lists of jurymen and the societies of publicani thus coincided as regards their chiefs, we can all the better understand the significance of the counter-senate thus constituted. The substantial effect of this was, that, while hitherto there had been only two authorities in the state - the government as the administering and controlling, and the burgesses as the legislative, authority - and the courts had been divided between them, now the moneyed aristocracy was not only united into a compact and privileged class on the solid basis of material interests, but also, as a judicial and controlling power, formed part of the state and took its place almost on a footing of equality by the side of the ruling aristocracy ...»