alike and equally guard
persons invested with it against deprivation of or injury to it.
Persons invested with it can not be deprived of it otherwise than
by "due process of law." See

The State _vs._ Staten, 6 Caldwell's Rep., p. 243. See also
Rison _vs._ Farr, 25 Ark. Rep., p. 173; Winehamer _vs._
People, 13 N. Y., 378; State _vs._ Symonds, 57 Maine, 150,
511; Huber _vs._ Riley, 53 Penn., 112; Cooley's
Constitutional Limitations.

We conclude this list of references with Mr. Webster's celebrated
definition in the Dartmouth College case (4 Wheaton, 581):

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 pains and penalties, acts of
confiscation, acts reversing judgments, and acts directly
transferring one man's estate to another, legislative
judgments, decrees and forfeiture, in all possible forms,
would be the law of the land.

Such a strange construction would render constitutional
provisions of the highest importance completely inoperative
and void. It would tend directly to establish the union of
all powers in the Legislature. There would be no general
permanent law for courts to administer, or for men to live
under. The administration of justice would be an empty
form--an idle ceremony. Judges would sit to execute
legislative judgments and decrees; not to declare the law,
or to administer the justice of the country.

That the elective franchise is a privilege of citizenship, we
have the authority of Judge Washington, for he says:

What are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the
several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these
expressions to those privileges and immunities which are in
their nature fundamental; which belong