shank, 92 U. S. 542; Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90; Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410; Holmes v. Jennison, 14 Pet. 540; Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252. . . .

This leaves us alone the assignment of error that the Supreme Court of Iowa disregarded the provisions of section 1 of Article XIV. of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, because it upheld the statute of Iowa, which it is supposed by counsel deprives persons charged with selling intoxicating liquors of the equal protection of the law, abridges their rights and privileges, and denies to them the right of trial by jury, while in all other criminal prosecutions the accused must be presented by indictment, and then have the benefit of trial by a jury of his peers.

The first observation to be made on this subject is, that the plaintiffs in error are seeking to reverse a judgment of the District Court of Plymouth County, Iowa, imposing upon them a fine and imprisonment for violating the injunction of that court, which had been regularly issued and served upon them. Of the intentional violation of this injunction by plaintiffs we are not permitted to entertain any doubt, and, if we did, the record in the case makes it plain. Neither is it doubted that they had a regular and fair trial, after due notice, and opportunity to defend themselves in open court at a regular term thereof.

The contention of these parties is, that they were entitled to a trial by jury on the question as to whether they were guilty or not guilty of the contempt charged upon them, and because they did not have this trial by jury they say that they were deprived of their liberty without due process of law within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

If it has ever been understood that proceedings according to the common law for contempt of court have been subject to the right of trial by jury, we have been unable to find any instance of it. It has

1 Section 1543 of the Code of Iowa, as amended by c. 143 of the Acts of the Twentieth General Assembly, is as follows:

SEC. 1543. In case of violation of the provisions of either of the three preceding sections or of section fifteen hundred and twenty-five of this chapter, the building or erection of whatever kind, or the ground itself in or upon which such unlawful manufacture, or sale, or keeping, with intent to sell, use or give away, of any intoxicating liquors, is carried on or continued or exists, and the furniture, fixture, vessels and contents, is hereby declared a nuisance, and shall be abated as hereinafter provided, and whoever shall erect or establish, or continue, or use any building, erection or place for any of the purposes prohibitel in said sections, shall be deemed guilty of a nuisance, and may be prosecuted and punished accordingly, and upon conviction, shall pay a fine of not exceeding one thousand dollars and costs of prosecution, and stand committed until the fine and costs are paid; and the provisions of chapter 47, title 25 of this Code, shall not be applicable to persons committed under this section. Any citizen of the county where such nuisance exists, or is kept or maintained, may maintain an action in equity, to abate and perpetually enjoin the same, and any person violating the terms of any injunction granted in such proceeding shall be punished as for contempt, by fine of not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment in the county jail not more than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.

always been one of the attributes one of the powers necessarily incident to a court of justice that it should have this power of vindicating its dignity, of enforcing its orders, of protecting itself from insult, without the necessity of calling upon a jury to assist it in the exercise of this power.

In the case in this court of Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, this doctrine is fully asserted and enforced; quoting the language of the court in the case of Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 227, where it was said that courts of justice are universally acknowledged to be vested, by their very creation, with power to impose silence, respect and decorum in their presence, and submission to their lawful mandates;" citing also with approbation the language of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Cartwright's Case, 114 Mass. 230, 238. that "the summary power to commit and punish for contempts tending to obstruct or degrade the administration of justice is inherent in courts of chancery and other superior courts, as essential to the execution of their powers and to the maintenance of their authority, and is part of the law of the land, within the meaning of Magna Charta and of the twelfth article of our Declaration of Rights."

And this court, in Terry's case, held that a summary proceeding of the Circuit Court of the United States without a jury, imposing upon Terry imprisonment for the term of six months, was a valid exercise of the powers of the court, and that the action of the Circuit Court was also without error in refusing to grant him a writ of habeas corpus. The case of Terry came into this court upon application for a writ of habeas corpus, and presented, as the case now before us does, the question of the authority of the Circuit Court to impose this imprisonment on a summary hearing without those regular proceedings which include a trial by jury which was affirmed. The still more recent cases of Ex parte Savin, 131 U. S. 267, and Ex parte Cuddy, 131 U. S. 280, assert very strongly the same principle. In Ec parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 510, this court speaks in the following language:

"The power to punish for contempts is inherent in all courts. Its existence is essential to the preservation of order in judicial proceedings, and the enforcement of the judgments, orders and writs of the courts, and consequently to the due administration of justice. The moment the courts of the United States were called into existence and invested with jurisdiction over any subject, they became possessed of this power. But the power has been limited and defined by the Act of Congress of March 2d, 1831. 4 Stat. 487."

The statute, now embodied in § 725 of the Revised Statutes, reads as follows: "The power of the several courts of the United States to issue attachments and inflict summary punishments for contempts of court shall not be construed to extend to any cases except the misbehavior of any person or persons in the presence of the said courts or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, the mis

behavior of any of the officers of the said courts in their official transactions, and the disobedience or resistance by any officer of the said courts, party, juror, witness, or any other person or persons to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the said courts."

It will thus be seen that even in the Act of Congress, intended to limit the power of the courts to punish for contempts of its authority by summary proceedings, there is expressly left the power to punish in this summary manner the disobedience of any party, to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree or command of said court. This statute was only designed for the government of the courts of the United States, and the opinions of this court in the cases we have already referred to show conclusively what was the nature and extent of the power inherent in the courts of the States by virtue of their organization, and that the punishments which they were authorized to inflict for a disobedience to their writs and orders were ample and summary, and did not require the interposition of a jury to find the facts or assess the punishment. This, then, is due process of law in regard to contempts of courts; was due process of law at the time the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution was adopted; and nothing has ever changed it except such statutes as Congress may have enacted for the courts of the United States, and as each State may have enacted for the government of its own courts.

So far from any statute on this subject limiting the power of the courts of Iowa, the Act of the Legislature of that State, authorizing the injunction which these parties are charged with violating, expressly declares that for violating such injunction a person doing so shall be punished for the contempt by a fine of not less than five hundred or more than a thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not more than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court. So that the proceeding by which the fine and imprisonment imposed upon these parties for contempt in violating the injunction of the court, regularly issued in a suit to which they were parties, is due process of law, and always has been due process of law, and is the process or proceeding by which courts have from time immemorial enforced the execution of their orders and decrees, and cannot be said to deprive the parties of their liberty or property without due process of law.

The counsel for plaintiffs in error seek to evade the force of this reasoning by the proposition that the entire statute under which this injunction was issued is in the nature of a criminal proceeding, and that the contempt of court of which these parties have been found guilty is a crime for the punishment of which they have a right to trial by jury.

We cannot accede to this view of the subject. Whether an attachment for a contempt of court, and the judgment of the court punishing the party for such contempt, is in itself essentially a criminal proceed

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ing or not, we do not find it necessary to decide. We simply hold that, whatever its nature may be, it is an offence against the court and against the administration of justice, for which courts have always had the right to punish the party by summary proceeding and without trial by jury; and that in that sense it is due process of law within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. We do not suppose that that provision of the Constitution was ever intended to interfere with or abolish the powers of the courts in proceedings for contempt, whether this contempt occurred in the course of a criminal proceeding or of a civil suit.

We might rest the case here; but the plaintiffs in error fall back upon the proposition that the statute of the Iowa Legislature concerning the sale of liquors, under which this injunction was issued, is itself void, as depriving the parties of their property and of their liberty without due process of law. We are not prepared to say that this question arises in the present case. The principal suit in which the injunction was issued, for the contempt of which these parties have been sentenced to imprisonment and to pay a fine, has never been tried so far as this record shows. We do not know whether the parties demanded a trial by jury on the question of their guilty violation of that statute. We do not know that they would have been refused a trial by jury if they had demanded it. Until the trial of that case has been had they are not injured by a refusal to grant them a jury trial. It is the well-settled doctrine of this court that a part of a statute may be void and the remainder may be valid. That part of this statute which declares that no person shall own or keep, or be in any way concerned, engaged or employed in owning or keeping any intoxicating liquors with intent to sell the same within this State, and all the prohibitory clauses of the statute, have been held by this court to be within the constitutional powers of the State Legislature, in the cases of Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, and Powell v. Pennsylvania,

127 U. S. 678.

If the objection to the statute is that it authorizes a proceeding in the nature of a suit in equity to suppress the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors which are by law prohibited, and to abate the nuisance which the statute declares such acts to be, wherever carried on, we respond that, so far as at present advised, it appears to us that all the powers of a court, whether at common law or in chancery, may be called into operation by a legislative body for the purpose of suppressing this objectionable traffic; and we know of no hindrance in the Constitution of the United States to the form of proceedings, or to the court in which this remedy shall be had. Certainly it seems to us to be quite as wise to use the processes of the law and the powers of the court to prevent the evil, as to punish the offence as a crime after it has been committed.

We think it was within the power of the court of Plymouth County to issue the writs of injunction in these cases, and that the disobedience

to them by the plaintiffs in error subjected them to the proceedings for contempt which were had before that court.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Iowa is

Affirmed.

IN Carleton v. Rugg, 149 Mass. 550 (1889), on a petition in equity, for the abatement of a nuisance, and an injunction restraining the continuance of it, the court (KNOWLTON, J.) said: "The St. of 1887, c. 380, § 1, is as follows: The Supreme Judicial Court and Superior Court shall have jurisdiction in equity upon information filed by the district attorney for the district, or upon the petition of not less than ten legal voters of any town or city, setting forth the fact that any building, place, or tenement therein is resorted to for prostitution, lewdness, or illegal gaming, or is used for the illegal keeping or sale of intoxicating liquors, to restrain, enjoin, or abate the same as a common nuisance, and an injunction for such purpose may be issued by any justice of either of said courts.'

"The first question reported for our decision is, whether this statute is constitutional. The respondents contend that it is in conflict with Article XII. of the Declaration of Rights, which provides that no subject shall be arrested, imprisoned, despoiled, or deprived of his property, immunities, or privileges, . . . but by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land.' . . .

...

"We do not understand the respondents to contend that the provisions of the Pub. Sts., c. 100, which regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors, or those of the Pub. Sts., c. 101, § 6, which declare that all buildings, places, or tenements used for the illegal keeping or sale of intoxicating liquor shall be deemed common nuisances,' are unconstitutional. But the argument is, that, by a process in equity for the abatement of an alleged common nuisance of the kind named in this statute, they are liable to be deprived of their property, immunities, and privileges otherwise than by the judgment of their peers or the law of the land.

"The fallacy of the argument lies in part in disregarding the distinction between a proceeding to abate a nuisance, which looks only to the property that in the use made of it constitutes the nuisance, and a proceeding to punish an offender for the crime of maintaining a nuisance. These two proceedings are entirely unlike. The latter is conducted under the provisions of the criminal law, and deals only with the person who has violated the law. The former is governed by the rules which relate to property, and its only connection with persons is through property in which they may be interested. That which is declared by a valid statute to be a nuisance, is deemed in law to be a nuisance in fact, and should be dealt with as such. The people, speaking through their representatives, have proclaimed it to be offensive and injurious to the public, and the law will not tolerate it. The fact that keeping a nuisance is a crime, does not deprive a court of