Corpus Juris Civilis

“ The protection of men engaged in violating the rights, the liberties, and constitution of their country! Any judge, says the gentleman, who shall dare to refuse to grant the writ of habeas corpus, or officer who shall refuse to obey it, shall be mulcted in heavy damages. ”

“ Now among the institutions inherited from England were the trial by a jury of twelve men in all matters affecting liberty and life; the presumption in favour of life, liberty, and innocence; the right of every man under restraint to have a legal reason publicly shown for his confinement, by a writ of Habeas Corpus. ”

“ The deliberate popular judgment is never wrong. When, in times of excitement, the popular mind may be temporarily obscured from the dearth of correct information or the mists of passion, the day of retribution and justice speedily follows, and a summary reversal is the certain result. Just and patriotic sentiment is a sure reliance for every honest public servant. The sovereignty of the people must be maintained.
Section 15th of this act allows writs of habeas corpus to be issued by the probate judge, but leaves him no authority to hear the case and grant justice ”

“ If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary.
The Act of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners may insist on being brought to trial within a limited time, is the corner-stone of our liberty. ”

“ But, perhaps, if there was less Law, there might be more Justice, than in some other Courts; for, if the civil Law be a Law of universal Reason, judging of the Rectitude, or Obliquity of Mens Actions, every Man of common Sense is endued with a Portion of it, at least sufficient to make him distinguish Right from Wrong, or what the Civilians call, Malum in se. ”

“ Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other persons within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities, secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. ”

“ Under either system, the term used is designed to apply to man in his individual character, and to his natural capacities; to a being, or agent, possessing social and political rights, and sustaining, social, political, and moral obligations. It is in this acceptation only, therefore, that the term, citizen, in the article of the Constitution, can be received and understood. When distributing the judicial power, that article extends it to controversies between citizens of different States. ”

“ I say again, fellow-citizens, Oh, for a Supreme Court which shall be as true, as vigilant, as active and exacting in maintaining laws enacted for the protection of human rights, as in other days was that court for the destruction of human rights! ”

“ 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. ”

“ And judicial tribunals are as much bound to recognize, as lawful, any act of injustice or crime, which the will and power of a single individual may have succeeded in accomplishing, as they are to recognize as lawful any act of injustice, which large and organized bodies of men, self-styled governments, may accomplish. ”

“ This singular distinction, though something may be allowed for the urgent necessity of defending the peace of society, is derived from the nature of criminal and civil jurisprudence. Our duties to the state are simple and uniform: the law by which he is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or marble, but on the conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly proved by the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each other are various and infinite; our obligations are created, annulled, and modified by injuries, benefits, and promises ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ Is there any man, woman, or child, stranger or citizen deprived of his or her rights, or who cannot obtain a hearing for grievances real or imaginary? Who is there throughout the length and breadth of the Territory who cannot obtain the full benefit of law, equity, and justice? ”

“ Civil Lawyers, indeed, will tell you, with a grave face, that a slave is nobody; as Common Lawyers will, that a bastard is the son of nobody. But, to an unprejudiced eye, the condition of a state is the condition of all the individuals, without distinction, that compose it. ”

“ The adjudication of the conflicting interests of mankind, the interpretation of our statutes and [487] our common law the determination of rights and privileges of all men, is a judicial function. What rights we enjoy to-day have come in the final analysis from the courts. What rights we find ourselves to-day deprived of, and which we hope to enjoy to-morrow, must come, if at all, from the same source. The courts have the last word, and it is to that instrument of government we must appeal, and to that last word we must look for our safety, or fear our doom. ”

“ Notwithstanding all the pomp and display of eloquence on the occasion, every citizen is a citizen of some State or Territory, and as such, under an express provision of the Constitution, is entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States ”

“ The judicial power is declared to extend to all cases of the character described, making no distinction between civil and criminal, and the reasons for conferring upon the courts of the national government superior jurisdiction over cases involving authority and rights under the laws of the United States are equally applicable to both. ”

“ Slaves who shall not be properly fed, clad, and provided for by their masters, may give information thereof to the attorney-general or the Superior Council, or to all the other officers of justice of an inferior jurisdiction, and may put the written exposition of their wrongs into their hands ”

“ It is a singular question, whether a system of jurisprudence exists in a state where it is not known or understood. Whether, in a community where the civil law prevails, a system of laws shall be introduced which are against their prejudices. ”

“ The whole future will of each individual is concentrated into the one moment when he declares his willingness to participate in the commonwealth; and this extending the present will so as to embrace the whole future, changes the expressed common will into LAW. In so far as the common will determines how far the rights of each person shall extend, the law is called Civil Law; and in so far as it determines the punishment which shall follow a violation of the law, it is called Penal or Criminal Law. ”

“ The laws are made by the aristocracy, and in a lawsuit for damages the poor would have no show at all, and in most cases the leges non scriptæ are more powerful than the written. By common consent (of the aristocracy) the people have divided themselves into classes and they never transgress their acknowledged boundaries. ”

“ With the common people, with whom these institutions have mainly to deal, justice should be dispensed with regard to appearances; there should be the formality of the superior courts, and somewhat of their show. ”

“ Infants, minors, adults, men, women, and children possess equal civil rights. Impairment,229 suspension, forfeiture of civil rights is effected only by commission of crime, that is, by a voluntary act, inimical to sovereignty itself. ”

“ The increasing complexity of human action as civilization advanced outstripped the efforts of the law. Sometimes ancient custom furnished no redress for a wrong which sprang from modern circumstances. Sometimes the very pedantry and inflexibility of the law itself became in individual cases the highest injustice.
Equitable Jurisdiction
It was the consciousness of this that made men cling even from the first moment of the independent existence of these courts to the judicial power which still remained inherent in the Crown itself. ”

“ But lest it should be said that no such privileges and immunities are to be found if those we have been considering are excluded, we venture to suggest some which own their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws. ”

“ Within the domain of private law the division which calls for primary recognition is that between civil and criminal law. Civil law is that which is concerned with the enforcement of rights, while criminal law is concerned with the punishment of wrongs. We have examined and rejected the opinion that crimes are essentially offences against the state or the community at large, while civil wrongs are committed against private persons. ”

“ As we find little complaint of the administration of justice in all the records of disputes, reproaches, and recriminations which mark the records of those old manors, we must assume that the processes of law were carried on in harmony with the spirit of fairness prevailing in the home country. ”

“ Remedies of a statutory character, where the right to be enforced was unknown at the common law, are to be followed with strictness, both as to the methods to be pursued and the cases to which they are to be applied. ”

“ We must conclude, therefore, that the divisions between public and private wrongs and between crimes and civil injuries are not coincident but cross divisions. Public rights are often enforced, and private wrongs are often punished. ”

“ How little the notion of injury to the community had to do with the earliest interferences of the State through its tribunals, is shown by the curious circumstances that in the original administration of justice, the proceedings were a close imitation of the series of acts which were likely to be gone through in private life by persons who were disputing, but who afterwards suffered their quarrel to be appeased. ”

“ Power was given to the common law courts to allow parties to be interrogated by their opponents, to order discovery of documents, to direct specific delivery of goods, to grant injunctions, and to hear interpleader actions, and equitable pleas were allowed to be urged in defence to common law actions. ”

“ When a law creates a classification but neither targets a suspect class nor burdens a fundamental right, the court presumes the law is valid and will uphold it as long as it is rationally related to some legitimate government interest. ”

“ If the exercise of judicial power be such 'as the settled maxims of law permit and sanction, and under such safeguards for the protection of individual rights as those maxims prescribe for the class of cases to which the one in question belongs,' there has been no deprivation of due process of law. ”

“ Within the community the law insists that all force shall be judicial if possible. This protection against extrajudicial force—this freedom from all constraint save that which operates through the courts of law and justice—is one of the chief privileges of the members of the body politic. ”

“ The actual distinction between crimes and civil injuries in English law is no doubt largely accidental. As the historians of law point out, the civil process, having compensation, not punishment, for its object, is the form which the interference of the community for the maintenance of rights originally takes. ”

“ XVI. Guarding Rights In Court Confronted By Witnesses—Compulsory Process—Aid Of Counsel—Jury In Civil Trial I am sure that no one until he has studied the Constitution, no one certainly who is not a trained lawyer, will realize the many safeguards necessary to protect persons who may be wrongfully accused of a crime; but the framers of the Constitution knew the dangers from the sad experiences of innocent men and women who had been sacrificed by tyrants who had but little regard for human life or for human liberty. ”

“ Great civilians were employed to write elaborate defences of their science; to the manifest exaltation of the prerogative; to the prejudice of the national rights 382 and privileges; and to the disparagement of the common law. The consequence of these proceedings is well known. The most immediate was, that they provoked the jealousy of the common lawyers ”

“ These are the general characteristics of that incomparable monument of jurisprudence whose noble conceptions of the ends of legislation are best expressed in its own concise and energetic language:
“The law is the rival of divinity, the messenger of justice, and the guide of life. It dominates all classes of the state, and all ages of humanity, male and female, the young and the old, the wise and the ignorant, the noble and the peasant. It is not designed for the promotion of private aims, but to shelter and [189] protect the general interests of all. ”