Peter Vivian Daniel

“ The impartial administration of justice, which secures both our persons and our property, is the great end of civil society. But if that be entirely intrusted to the magistracy, a select body of men, and those generally selected by the prince, or such as enjoy the highest offices in the state, their decisions, in spite of their own natural integrity, will have frequently an involuntary bias towards those of their own rank and dignity. ”

“ The principle itself, if properly applied, of the right to take property to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy, is undisputed. But in this case there was no immediate or impending danger, no enemy advancing to put the goods in peril. They were more exposed to marauding parties than to any public force, the danger from which he plaintiff considered himself able to take care of. The next ground of defence, and which constitutes the principal question in the case, and upon which it must probably ultimately turn, is the taking of the goods by the public authorities for public use. ”

“ Nay, it may be insisted, that if the court, in passing upon the weight of the evidence, was acting within its legitimate sphere, the counsel would have been justly obnoxious to the imputation of indecorum, if not of contempt, in assailing before the jury the judge's decision; for the respective provinces of the court, the counsel, and the jury, are separate, distinct, and well defined, and neither should be subject to invasion by the other. ”

“ Surely it may be assumed as a postulate, that a court of justice, in adjudicating upon the rights of the citizen or of the State, should do, and can have power to do, nothing which is irregular, or vain, or useless. ”

“ An army upon its march, in danger from the public enemy, would have a right to seize the property of the citizen, and use it to fortify itself against assault while the danger existed and was impending, and the officer ordering the seizure would not be liable as a trespasser; the owner must look to the Government for indemnity. The safety of the country is paramount, and the rights of the individual must yield in case of extreme necessity. ”

“ He has not simply said, ad quaestionem juris respondent judices, nor in like manner ad quaestionem facti, respondent juratores, but he has placed them in a striking opposition and contrast, and drawn a well-defined limit around the functions of both the court and the jury, and informed them, in terms too unequivocal for misapprehension, that the limit, thus prescribed, neither has the power to transcend; has declared to each what it shall not do. ”

“ The plaintiff's goods, therefore, stood in the same condition as the goods of any other trader in the country. The testimony does not make out a case of seizure of property justified by the peril of its falling into the enemy's hands. The peril must be immediate and urgent, not contingent or remote; otherwise every citizen's property, particularly on the frontiers, would be liable to be seized or destroyed, as it must always be more or less exposed to capture by the public enemy. ”

“ It is wisely ordered, therefore, that the principles and axioms of law, which are general propositions flowing from abstracted reason, and not accommodated to times or men, should be deposited in the breasts of the judges, to be occasionally applied to such facts as come properly ascertained before them. ”

“ In the first place, the counsel for the plaintiff could not have made to the jury so authoritative an argument in behalf of his client; and in the next place the counsel for the defendant must have been a rash man could he have attempted to throw his individual weight (whatever might have been his ability) in opposition to this authoritative declaration and influence of the court. ”