Samuel Freeman Miller

“ No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives. ”

“ In all cases where the title to property came into controversy between the crown and a subject, whether held in right of the person who was king or as representative of the nation, the petition of right presented a judicial remedy-a remedy which this court, on full examination in a case which required it, held to be practical and efficient. There has been, therefore, no necessity for suing the officers or servants of the king who held possession of such property, when the issue could be made with the king himself as defendant. ”

“ It is not to be expected, therefore, that the courts will permit their process to disturb the possession of the crown by acting on its officers or agents.
Under our system the people, who are there called subjects, are the sovereign. Their rights, whether collective or individual, are not bound to give way to a sentiment of loyalty to the person of the monarch. The citizen here knows no person, however near to those in power, or however powerful himself, to whom he need yield the rights which the law secures to him when it is well administered. ”

“ Notwithstanding the progress which has been made since the days of the Stuarts in stripping the crown of its powers and prerogatives, it remains true to-day that the monarch is looked upon with too much reverence to be subjected to the demands of the law as ordinary persons are, and the king-loving nation would be shocked at the spectacle of their queen being turned out of her pleasure garden by a writ of ejectment against the gardener. ”

“ As we have no person in this government who exercises supreme executive power or performs the public duties of a sovereign, it is difficult to see on what solid foundation of principle the exemption from liability to suit rests. It seems most probable that it has been adopted in our courts as a part of the general doctrine of publicists, that the supreme power in every state, wherever it may reside, shall not be compelled, by process of courts of its own creation, to defend itself from assaults in those courts. ”

“ The evils supposed to grow out of the possible interference of judicial action with the exercise of powers of the government essential to some of its most important operations will be seen to be small indeed compared to this evil, and much diminished, if they do not wholly disappear, upon a recurrence to a few considerations. One of these, of no little significance, is that during the existence of the government for now nearly a century under the present constitution, with this principle and the practice under it well established, no injury from it has come to that government. ”

“ When he, in one of the courts of competent jurisdiction, has established his right to property, there is no reason why deference to any person, natural or artificial, not even the United States, should prevent him from using the means which the law gives him for the protection and enforcement of that right. ”

“ Courts of justice are established, not only to decide upon the controverted rights of the citizens as against each other, but also upon rights in controversy between them and the government, and the docket of this court is crowded with controversies of the latter class. ”

“ I hold by order of the president, and the progress of justice must be stayed.' That, though the nature of the controversy is one peculiarly appropriate to the judicial function, though the United States is no party to the suit, though one of the three great branches of the government to which by the constitution this duty has been assigned has declared its judgment after a fair trial, the unsuccessful party can interpose an absolute veto upon that judgment by the production of an order of the secretary of war, which that officer had no more authority to make than the humblest private citizen. ”

“ Dependent as its courts are for the enforcement of their judgments upon officers appointed by the executive, and removable at his pleasure, with no patronage and no control of purse or sword, their power and influence rests solely upon the public sense of the necessity for the existence of a tribunal to which all may appeal for the assertion and protection of rights guarantied by the constitution and by the laws of the land, and on the confidence reposed in the soundness of their decisions and the purity of their motives. ”

“ In this connection many cases of imaginary evils have been suggested, if the contrary doctrine should prevail. Among these are a supposed seizure of vessels of war, invasions of forts and arsenals of the United States. Hypothetical cases of great evils may be suggested by a particularly fruitful imagination in regard to almost every law upon which depends the rights of the individual or of the government, and if the existence of laws is to depend upon their capacity to withstand such criticism, the whole fabric of the law must fail. ”

“ The instances in which the life and liberty of the citizen have been protected by the judicial writ of habeas corpus are too familiar to need citation, and many of these cases, indeed indeed almost all of them, are those in which life or liberty was invaded by persons assuming to act under the authority of the government. ”

“ The crown remains the fountain of honor, and the surroundings which give dignity and majesty to its possessor are cherished and enforced all the more strictly because of the loss of real power in the government. ”

“ One of the objections pressed with pertinacity all through the case to the jurisdiction of the court was the conceded fact that the state of Ohio, though not made a defendant to the bill, was the real party in interest. That all the parties sued were her officers, her auditor, her treasurer, and their agents concerning acts done in their official character, and in obedience to her laws. It was conceded that the state could not be sued, and it was earnestly argued there as here, that what could not be done directly could not be done by suing her officers. ”

“ Lee, in whom the title then was, to pay the taxes, interest, and costs, and was told that the commissioners could receive the money from no one but the owner of the land in person. In all this matter we do not see any error in the rulings of the court, nor any reason to doubt that the jury were justified in finding that the United States acquired no title under tax-sale proceedings. In approaching the other question which we are called on to decide, it is proper to make a clear statement of what it is. ”

“ Or, if satisfied that its title has been shown to be invalid, and it still desires to use the property, or any part of it, for the purposes to which it is now devoted, it may purchase such property by fair negotiation, or condemn it by a judicial proceeding, in which a just compensation shall be ascertained and paid according to the constitution. ”

“ As the United States was not a party to the suit below, and, while defending the action by its proper law officers, expressly declined to submit itself as a defendant to the jurisdiction of the court, there may exist some doubt whether it has a right to prosecute the writ of error in its own name ”

“ The objection is that, as the real party cannot be brought before the court, a suit cannot be sustained against the agents of that party; and cases have been cited to show that a court of chancery will not make a decree unless all those who are substantially interested be made parties to the suit. ”

“ In the course of this war persons hostile to the Union did not hesitate to invoke the powers of the courts for their protection as citizens in order to cripple the exercise of the authority necessary to put down the rebellion, yet no improper interference with the exercise of that authority was permitted or attempted by the courts. ”