sent year over a
thousand laws were proposed. Further, the members of the legislature
are beset by constituents and others to favor legislative measures for
their own special benefit, or that of their association, or of their
locality. One result is that during every legislative session the
ordinary citizen is dreading oppressive legislation and feels relieved
when the session is over.

When we consider the wide, almost unlimited range of the legislative
function, and the power and tendency of legislatures to push that
function to the extreme, it would seem that some check should be put
upon the legislature to prevent its enacting discriminatory laws or
otherwise depriving the individual of some accustomed and cherished
freedom of action. If it be said that public opinion is sufficient
restraint, the answer is that in a democracy, or in a republic with
universal suffrage, the efficient public opinion is practically that
of the majority of the electorate, and it is an acknowledged truism
that the unrestrained majority is even more likely than the few to be
oppressive of the individual. The opinion of the many is more
variable than that of the few, more likely to be swayed by sympathy,
prejudice, and other emotions. Indeed, public opinion sometimes
induces legislatures to enact laws which they themselves feel to be
unwise and tyrannical.

If history and reason show that the happiness of the people as a whole
requires certain individual liberties and rights to be left
undisturbed and that the safety of the people as a whole does not
require the contrary, then in order to secure justice those possessing
the powers of government should be restrained from any acts infringing
those liberties and rights; for, as already stated, justice consists
in the equilibrium between restrictions necessary for the welfare of
the whole people without discrimination, and the freedom of the
individual to serve his own welfare.

I think there are such liberties and rights. The subjects of King John
in the 13th century thought so and compelled the king to guarantee by
the Magna Charta that certain specified rights and liberties should
not be infringed. Again, the subjects of Charles I in the 17th century
had a similar conviction and expressed it in the Petition of Right,
which named some liberties and rights not to be infringed. The king
assented to that much limitation of the royal power. In the same
century, upon the accession of William a