Stanley Matthews

“ The constitution of the United States was ordained, it is true, by descendants of Englishmen, who inherited the traditions of the English law and history; but it was made for an undefined and expanding future, and for a people gathered, and to be gathered, from many nations and of many tongues; and while we take just pride in the principles and institutions of the common law, we are not to forget that in lands where other systems of jurisprudence prevail, the ideas and processes of civil justice are also not unknown. ”

“ Due process of law, in spite of the absolutism of continental governments, is not alien to that Code which survived the Roman empire as the foundation of modern civilization in Europe, and which has given us that fundamental maxim of distributive justice, suum cuique tribuere. There is nothing in Magna Charta, rightly construed as a broad charter of public right and law, which ought to exclude the best ideas of all systems and of every age ”

“ The constitution of Connecticut, adopted in 1818 and in force when the fourteenth amendment took effect, requires an indictment or presentment of a grand jury only in cases where the punishment of the crime charged is death or imprisonment for life, and yet it also declares that no person shall 'be deprived of life, liberty or property but by due course of law.' It falls short, therefore, of that measure of protection which it is claimed is guarantied by Magna Charta to the right of personal liberty ”

“ Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90, the court said: 'A trial by jury in suits at common law pending in state courts is not, therefore, a privilege or immunity of national citizenship which the states are forbidden by the fourteenth amendment to abridge. A state cannot deprive a person of his property without due process of law; but this does not necessarily imply that all trials in the state courts affecting the property of persons must be by jury. This requirement of the constitution is met if the trial is had according to the settled course of judicial proceedings. ”

“ Abritrary power, enforcing its edicts to the injury of the persons and property of its subjects, is not law, whether manifested as the decree of a personal monarch or of an impersonal multitude. And the limitations imposed by our constitutional law upon the action of the governments, both state and national, are essential to the preservation of public and private rights, notwithstanding the representative character of our political institutions. ”

“ The enforcement of these limitations by judicial process is the device of self-governing communities to protect the rights of individuals and minorities, as well against the power of numbers, as against the violence of public agents transcending the limits of lawful authority, even when acting in the name and wielding the force of the government. ”

“ In delivering the opinion of the court in that case, MERRICK, J., alone dissenting, the chief justice said: 'The right of individual citizens to be secure from an open and public accusation of crime, and from the trouble, expense, and anxiety of a public trial before a probable cause is established by the presentment and indictment of a grand jury, in case of high offenses, is justly regarded as one of thesecurities to the innocent against hasty, malicious, and oppressive public prosecutions, and as one of the ancient immunities and privileges of English liberty. ”

“ The natural and obvious inference is that, in the sense of the constitution, 'due process of law' was not meant or intended to include, ex vi termini, the institution and procedure of a grand jury in any case. The conclusion is equally irresistible, that when the same phrase was employed in the fourteenth amendment to restrain the action of the states, it was used in the same sense and with no greater extent ”

“ It follows that any legal proceeding enforced by public authority, whether sanctioned by age and custom, or newly devised in the discretion of the legislative power in furtherance of the general public good, which regards and preserves these principles of liberty and justice, must be held to be due process of law. ”

“ It refers to certain fundamental rights which that system of jurisprudence, of which ours is a derivative, has always recognized. If any of these are disregarded in the proceedings by which a person is condemned to the loss of life, liberty, or property, then the deprivation has not been by 'due process of law. ”

“ Without being brought in to answere swere but by due proces of the common law. No man be put to answer without presentment before justices, or thing of record, or by due proces, or by writ originall, according to the old law of the land. ”

“ And, if he is acquitted by the ordeal, let him find pledges and remain in the kingdom, unless he is accused of murder or other base felony by the body of the country and the lawful knights of the country; but, if he is so accused as aforesaid, although he is acquitted by the ordeal of water, nevertheless he must leave the kingdom in 40 days, and take his chattels with him, subject to the rights of his lords, and he must adjure the kingdom at the mercy of our lord the king.' 'The system thus established,' says Mr. ”

“ He undertakes to 'evince that this method of prosecution is noways contrariant to any fundamental rule of law, but agreeable to it.' He answers the objection that it is inconvenient and vexatious to the subject by saying, (page 117:) 'Here is no inconvenience to the people. ”

“ Gregg, 12 N. Y. 202, by DENIO, J., p. 212: 'The provision was designed to protect the citizen against all mere acts of power, whether flowing from the legislative or executive branches of the government.' The principle and true meaning of the phrase have never been more tersely or accurately stated than by Mr. ”