the celebrated twenty-ninth chapter
of Magna Charta, he says: "No man shall be disseized, &c., unless it be
by the lawful judgment, that is, verdict of equals, or by the law of
the land, that is (to speak it once for all), by the due course and
process of law."[46] Have the plaintiffs lost their franchises by "due
course and process of law"? On the contrary, are not these acts
"particular acts of the legislature, which have no relation to the
community in general, and which are rather sentences than laws"?

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. Every thing 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 forfeitures 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 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. "Is that the law of the land," said Mr. Burke, "upon which, if
a man go to Westminster Hall, and ask counsel by what title or tenure he
holds his privilege or estate _according to the law of the land_, he
should be told, that the law of the land is not yet known; that no
decision or decree has been made in his case; that when a decree shall
be passed, he will then know _what the law of the land is_? Will this be
said to be the law of the land, by any lawyer who has a rag of a gown
left upon his back, or a wig with one tie upon his head?"

That the power of electing and appointing the officers of this college
is not only a right of the trustees as a corporation, generally, and in
the aggregate, but that each individual trustee