But that the phrase does mean a law that gives a man an opportunity to be heard, before depriving him of his life, liberty, or property, there can be no doubt whatever: Windsor v. McVeigh, 93 U. S. 274. Without attempting, however, to give a definition which would be accurate, and express the meaning that those words are intended to convey, we shall content ourselves with citing such definitions as have been most frequently relied upon and followed. Mr. Webster's definition, in the Dartmouth College Case, 4 Wheat. 519; S. C., Works of Webster, vol. 5, p. 487, is perhaps more often quoted than any other. "By the law of the land is most clearly intended the general law; a law which hears before it condemns; which proceeds upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after trial. The meaning is, that every citizen shall hold his life, liberty, property, and immunities under the protection of the general rules which govern society. Everything which may pass under the form of an enactment is not therefore to be considered the law of the land. If this were so, acts of attainder, bills of pain and penalties, acts of confiscation, acts reversing judgments, and acts directly transferring one man's estate to another, legislative judgments, decrees, and forfeitures, in all possible forms, would be the law of the land." So in Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 244, it is said: "As to the words from Magna Charta, incorporated into the constitution of Maryland, after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at length settled down to this: that they were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private rights and distributive justice." Mr. Cooley, in his valuable work on Constitutional Limitations, examines the meaning of this phrase at length. He says: "If, now, we shall ascertain the sense in which the phrases 'due process of law' and 'the law of the land' are employed in the several constitutional provisions which we have referred to, when the protection of rights in property is had in view, we shall be able, perhaps, to indicate the rule by which the proper conclusion may be reached in those cases in which legislative action is objected to as not being 'the law of the land,' or judicial or ministerial action is contested as not being 'due process of law,' within the meaning of these terms as the constitution employs them. "If we examine such definitions of these terms as are met with in the reported cases, we shall find them so various that some difficulty must arise in fixing upon one which shall be accurate, complete in itself, and at the same time appropriate in all the cases. The diversity of definition is certainly not surprising, when we consider the diversity of cases for the purpose of which it has been attempted, and reflect that a definition that is sufficient for one case, and applicable to its facts, may be altogether insufficient or entirely inapplicable in another." Mr. Cooley here quotes the definition given by Mr. Webster in the Dartmouth College case, which is given elsewhere in this note, and then proceeds: "The words 'by the law of the land,' as used in the constitution, do not mean a statute passed for the purpose of working the wrong. That construction would render the restriction absolutely nugatory, and turn this part of the constitution into mere nonsense. The people would be made to say to the two houses: 'You shall be vested with the legislative power of the state, but no one shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges of a citizen unless you pass a statute for that purpose. In other words, you shall not do the wrong unless you choose to do it.' When the law of the land is spoken of, 'undoubtedly a pre-existing rule of conduct' is intended, 'not an ex post facto rescript or decree made for the occasion. The design' is 'to exclude arbitrary power from every branch of the government; and there would be no exclusion if such rescripts or decrees were to take effect in the form of a statute. There are, nevertheless, many cases where the title to property may pass from one person to another without the intervention of judicial proceedings properly so called, and in the preceding pages it has been shown that special legislative acts designed to accomplish the like end are allowable in some cases. The necessity for 'general rules' precludes the legislature from establishing special rules for particular cases, provided the particular cases range themselves under some general rule of legislative power; nor is there any requirement of judicial action which demands that, in every case, the parties interested shall have a hearing in court. On the other hand, we shall find that general rules may sometimes be as obnoxious as special, if they operate to deprive individual citizens of vested rights. While every man has a right to require that his own controversies shall be judged by the same rules which are applied in the controversies of his neighbors, the whole community is also entitled at all times to demand the protection of the ancient principles which shield private rights against arbitrary interference, even though such interference may be under a rule impartial in its operation. It is not the partial nature of the rule, so much as its arbitrary and unusual character, which condemns it as unknown to the law of the land:" Cooley's Constitutional Limitation (4th ed.), 437-440. In Vanzant v. Waddel, 2 Yerg. 259, "law of the land" was held to mean a general or public law, equally binding upon every member of the community. Legislation of the kind attempted in the principal case has generally met the disapproval of the judicial branch of the government, as not being "the law of the land." Laws are not however invalid because special, there being a large number of cases in which laws, special in their nature, have been upheld and enforced. The whole subject of "Unequal and Partial Legislation" is carefully considered by Mr. Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, and his views are there expressed, as follows: "In the course of our discussion of this subject it has been seen that some statutes are void, though general in their scope, while others are valid, though establishing rules for single cases only. An enactment may therefore be the law of the land with out being a general law. And this being so, it may be important to consider in what cases constitutional principles will require a statute to be general in its operation, and in what cases, on the other hand, it may be valid without being general. We speak now in reference to general constitutional principles, and not to any peculiar rules which may have become established by special provisions in the constitutions of individual states. The cases relating to municipal corporations stand upon peculiar grounds, from the fact that those corporations are agencies of government, and as such are subject to complete legislative control. Statutes authorizing the sale of property of minors, and other persons under disability, are also exceptional, in that they are applied for by the parties representing the interests of the owners, and are remedial in their character. Such statutes are supported by the presumption that the parties in interest would consent if capable of doing so; and in law they are to be considered as assenting in the person of the guardian or trustees of their rights. And perhaps in any other case, if a party petitions for legislation, and avails himself of it, he may justly be held estopped from disputing its validity: Ferguson v. Landram, 5 Bush, 230; Motz v. Detroit, 18 Mich. 495; Beall v. Beall, 8 Ga. 210; so that the great bulk of private legislation which is adopted, from year to year, may at once be dismissed from this discussion. Laws public in their objects may, unless express con stitutional provision forbids, Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 128; State v. County Commissioners of Baltimore, 29 Md. 516; Pollock v. McClurken, 42 Ill. 370; Haskel v. Burlington, 30 Iowa, 232, be either general or local in their application; they may embrace many subjects or one, and they may extend to all citizens, or be confined to particular classes, as minors or married women, bankers or traders, and the like: 1. R. R. Land Co. v. Soper, 39 Iowa, 112; Matter of Goodell, 39 Wis. 232; S. C., 20 Am. Rep. 42; Com. v. Hamilton Manuf. Co., 120 Mass. 383. "The authority that legislates for the state at large must determine whether particular rules shall extend to the whole state and all its citizens, or, on the other hand, to a subdivision of the state, or a single class of its citizens only. The circumstances of a particular locality, or the prevailing public sentiment in that section of the state, may require or make acceptable different police regulations from those demanded in another, or call for different taxation, and a different application of the public moneys. The legis lature may therefore prescribe or authorize different laws of police, allow the right of eminent domain to be exercised in different cases and through different agencies, and prescribe peculiar restrictions upon taxation in each distinct municipality, provided the state constitution does not forbid. These discriminations are made constantly, and the fact that the laws are of local or special operation only is not supposed to render them obnoxious in principle. The legislature may also deem it desirable to prescribe peculiar rules for the several occupations, and to establish distinctions in the rights, obligations, duties, and capacities of citizens. The business of common carriers, for instance, or of bankers, may require special statutory regulations for the general benefit, and it may be matter of public policy to give laborers in one business a specific lien for their wages, when it would be impracticable or impolitic to do the same by persons engaged in some other employments. If the laws be otherwise unobjectionable, all that can be required in these cases is that they be general in their application to the class or locality to which they apply; and they are then public in character, and of their propriety and policy the legislature must judge. The legislature may suspend the operation of the general laws of the state; but when it does so, the suspension must be general, and can not be made for individual cases, or for particular localities. Privileges may be granted to particular individuals, when by so doing the rights of others are not interfered with; disabilities may be removed; the legislature as purens patriæ, when not forbidden, may grant authority to the guardians or trustees of incompetent persons to exercise a statutory control over their estates for their assistance, comfort, or support, or for the discharge of legal or equitable liens upon their property; but every one has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules, and a special statute, which, without his consent, singles his case out as one to be regulated by a different law from that which is applied in all similar cases, would not be legitimate legislation, but would be such an arbitrary mandate as is not within the province of free governments. Those who make the laws are to govern by promulgated, established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favorite at court and the countryman at plough:' Locke on Civ. Government, sec. 142; State v. Duffy, 7 Nev. 349. This is a maxim in constitutional law, and by it we may test the authority and binding force of legislative enactments: Lewis v. Webb, 3 Greenl. 326; Durham v. Lewiston, 4 Id. 140; Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396 [6 Am. Dec. 174]; Picquet, Appellant, 5 Pick. 64; Budd v. State, 3 Humph. 483; Vanzant v. Waddel, 2 Yerg. 260; People v. Frisbie, 26 Cal. 135; Davis v. Menasha, 21 Wisc. 491; Lancaster v. Barr, 25 Id. 560; Brown v. Haywood, 4 Heisk. 357; Wally's Heirs v. Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554, ante, 511; Officer v. Young, 5 Id. 320; Griffin v. Cunningham, 20 Gratt. 31; Dorsey v. Dorsey, 37 Md. 64; S. C., 11 Am. Rep. 528; Trustees v. Bailey, 10 Fla. 238; Lawson v. Jeffries, 47 Miss. 686; S. C., 12 Am. Rep. 342; Arnold v. Kelley, 5 W.Va. 446; Cooley's Const. Lim. 95, 96. Special courts can not be created for the trial of the rights and obligations of particular parties: Bank of the State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. 599; Durkee v. Janesville, 28 Wisc. 464; 9 Am. Rep. 500. And those cases in which legislative acts granting new trials or other special relief in judicial proceedings, while they have been regarded as usurpations of judicial authority, have also been considered obnoxious to the objection that they undertook to suspend general laws in special cases. Equality of rights, privileges, and capacities unquestionably should be the aim of the law; and if special privileges are granted, or special burdens or restrictions imposed in any case, it must be presumed that the legislature designed to depart as little as possible from this fundamental maxim of government:" Cooley's Const. Lim. (4th ed.) 389–393. SPECIAL STATUTES AUTHORIZING THE SALE of the property of decedents, minors and others, have been frequently enacted, and their constitutionality has been assailed with varying success, on the grounds: First, that such statutes deprive individuals of their property without due process of law; and second, that they involve an assumption by the legislative department, of functions belonging exclusively to the judiciary. The power of the legisla ture, by special statutes, to authorize the sale of the property of infants or lunatics, while in some cases denied, on the ground that it deprived them of their property without due process of law, Opinion of the Judges, 4 N. H. 572; Jones v. Perry, 10 Yerg. 59, has generally been sustained: Kibby v. Chitwood's Adm'r, 16 Am. Dec. 143; Rice v. Parkman, 16 Mass. 329; Stewart v. Griffith, 33 Mo. 23; Brenham v. Davidson, 51 Cal. 352; Davis v. Hebig, 27 Md. 452; Freeman on Void Judicial Sales, sec. 21. The power by like statutes to authorize sales by administrators, has also been upheld in the vast majority of the instances in which it has been questioned, unless it appeared that there were no debts to be paid, and no necessity of depriving the heir of his estate: Freeman on Void Judicial Sales, secs. 65-70; Brenham v. Story, 39 Cal. 185; Powers v. Bergen, 6 N. Y. 358. THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the constitution of the United States declares: "Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." One of the consequences following the adoption of this amendment is, that the national courts may be resorted to for the purpose of determining whether, in a particular judicial proceeding, the defendant has been proceeded against according to due process of law. Heretofore the various state courts have adopted rules with reference to the presumptions of jurisdiction, and the extent to which collateral attacks on the judgments of their courts could be pursued. These rules have differed in the different states. It now appears that all questions of this nature may be considered in the supreme court of the United States on writ of error, and that the decisions of this tribunal upon this subject must therefore be binding upon, and constitute the rule of decision in, all the state courts. "Since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution, the validity of such judgments may be directly questioned, and their enforcement in the state be resisted, on the ground that proceedings in a court of justice to determine the personal rights and obligations of the parties over whom the court has no jurisdiction, do not constitute due process of law:" Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714; Belcher v. Chambers, 53 Cal. 635. While this amendment entitles the national government to interpose and prevent any state from depriving "any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," it does not attempt any definition of those words, and they are doubtless to be given the interpretation which they had acquired when used in other constitutions prior to the adoption of this amendment: Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. Acts for the levying and collection of taxes without any suit, notice, or judicial proceedings, having been understood not to be within the prohibitions of the state constitutions against depriving persons of property "without due process of law," are not rendered invalid by the fourteenth amendment: McMillen v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 37; Pearson v. Yewdall, Id. 294; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 Id. 97. PARTIAL OR SPECIAL LAWS, WHEN NOT THE "LAW OF THE LAND."-The determination in the principal case, and in Wally's Heirs v. Kennedy, ante, 511, as to what constitutes a partial law, and when such laws are unconstitutional because they destroy or affect individual rights, has been frequently approved in Tennessee, and those cases have been cited, both in that state and elsewhere, as establishing the correct rule in that regard. The cases in which Wally's Heirs v. Kennedy has been cited, will be found in the note to that case, ante, 514. The principal case has been cited in the following cases: Tate v. Bell, 4 Yerg. 208; Jones v. Perry, 10 Id. 77; Mayor v. Dearmon, 2 Sneed, 122; Horne v. M. & O. R. Co., 1 Coldw. 78. See also l'anzant v. Waddel, 2 Yerg. 258. Notwithstanding the comprehensive definitions that have been given of a partial law, none so fully express the meaning intended to be conveyed, when it is said that a law is not the "law of the land," because it is partial, as that given by Reese, J., in Budd v. State, 3 Humph. 490. That case involved the question of the power of the legislature to create a felony in relation to the officers, agents, and servants of the Union Bank, a corporation in Tennessee, and to them alone. The act provided that any officer, agent, or servant of that bank who should embezzle or appropriate any of the funds thereof to his own use, should be guilty of a felony. The learned judge, in speaking of this act, said: "Is this a law of the land in the sense of our bill of right? Law, to use the definition of Mr. Justice Blackstone, a little modified to suit the genius of our institutions, 'is a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the law-making power of the state, commanding what is right, or prohibiting what is wrong.' This, then, is a rule of conduct prescribed by the legislature and directed to the officers, agents, and servants of the Union Bank, prohibiting them from doing what is wrong. What is the Union Bank? It is a legal person, having capacity to sue and to be sued, to own property, and to employ agents and servants. This, then, is a rule mandatory to the servants and agents of this legal person. It expends all its force upon them. This statement of the question merely goes far, it seems to us, to supersede the necessity of elaborate reasoning on the subject. Not, indeed, upon the ground that the officers, servants, and agents of this legal person, the bank, are more or less numerous, but because the officers, agents, and servants of this person only, and not of any other persons, are comprehended or affected. If the felony were enacted with regard to the clerks, servants, and agents of a merchant to deter them from embezzlement and false entries, would it be imagined for a moment that it would be regarded as the 'law of the land,' and consistent with the bill of rights. If the felony affected only all the clerks of all the merchants of Nashville, or of Davidson county, or of mid |