“ But when, in the year of grace 1866, there is placed in the Constitution of the United States a declaration that 'no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,' can a state make anything due process of law which, by its own legislation, it chooses to declare such? ”

“ Among the rights enumerated as 'essential and inalienable' is that no man 'can be compelled to give evidence against himself,' and 'no freeman ought to be deprived of his life, liberty, or property but by the law of the land.' New York ratified with a proposal of numerous amendments and a declaration of rights which the convention declared could not be violated and were consistent with the Constitution. ”

“ If, then, it be assumed, without deciding the point, that an exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is what is described as a fundamental right belonging to all who live under a free government, and incapable of impairment by legislation or judicial decision, it is, so far as the states are concerned, a fundamental right inherent in state citizenship, and is a privilege or immunity of that citizenship only. ”

“ It does not follow, however, that a procedure settled in English law at the time of the emigration, and brought to this country and practised by our ancestors, is an essential element of due process of law. If that were so, the procedure of the first half of the seventeenth century would be fastened upon the American jurisprudence like a straight jacket, only to be unloosed by constitutional amendment. ”

“ Much might be said in favor of the view that the privilege was guaranteed against state impairment as a privilege and immunity of national citizenship, but, as has been shown, the decisions of this court have foreclosed that view. There seems to be no reason whatever, however, for straining the meaning of due process of law to include this privilege within it, because, perhaps, we may think it of great value. The states had guarded the privilege to the satisfaction of their own people up to the adoption of the 14th Amendment. No reason is perceived why they cannot continue to do so. ”

“ We have to consider whether the right is so fundamental in due process that a refusal of the right is a denial of due process. One aid to the solution of the question is to inquire how the right was rated during the time when the meaning of due process was in a formative state, and before it was incorporated in American constitutional law. ”

“ The power of their people ought not to be fettered, their sense of responsibility lessened, and their capacity for sober and restrained self-government weakened, by forced construction of the Federal Constitution. If the people of New Jersey are not content with the law as declared in repeated decisions of their courts, the remedy is in their own hands. ”

“ It is my opinion, also, that the right to immunity from self-incrimination cannot be taken away by any state consistently with the clause of the 14th Amendment that relates to the deprivation by the state of life or liberty without due process of law. ”

“ Nothing is made clearer by the history of our country than that the Constitution would not have been accepted by the requisite number of states, but for the understanding, on all sides, that it should be promptly amended so as to meet this objection. ”

“ As a reason why it takes up first the question of the power of a state, so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, to compel self-incrimination, the court says that if the right here asserted is not a Federal right that is an end of the case, and it must not go further. ”

“ These principles grow out of the proposition universally accepted by American courts on the authority of Coke, that the words 'due process of law' are equivalent in meaning to the words 'law of the land,' contained in that chapter of Magna Charta which provides that 'no freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or any wise destroyed ”

“ Every statement of counsel operated as a question to the prisoner, and indeed they were constantly thrown into the form of questions, the prisoner either admitting or denying or explaining what was alleged against him. ”