cases.

The doubt might also arise whether a regulation made for any one class of citizens, entirely arbitrary in its character, and restricting their rights, privileges, or legal capacities in a manner before unknown to the law, could be sustained, notwithstanding its generality. Distinctions in these respects should be based upon some reason which renders them important, like the want of capacity in infants, and insane persons; but if the legislature should undertake to provide that persons following some specified lawful trade or employment should not have capacity to make contracts, or to receive conveyances, or to build such houses as others were allowed to erect, or in any other way to make such use of their property as was permissible to others, it can scarcely be doubted that the act would transcend the due bounds of legislative power, even if it did not come in conflict with express constitutional provisions. The man or the class forbidden the acquisition or enjoyment of property in the manner permitted to the community at large would be deprived of liberty in particulars of primary importance to his or their "pursuit of happi

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. The State, it is to be presumed, has no favors to bestow, and designs to inflict no arbitrary deprivation of rights. Special privileges are obnoxious, and discriminations against persons or classes are still more so, and as a rule of construction are always to be leaned against as probably not contemplated or designed. It has been held that a statute requiring attorneys to render services in suits for poor persons without fee or reward was to be confined strictly to the cases therein prescribed; and if by its terms it

1 Burlamiqui (c. 3, § 15) defines natural liberty as the right which nature gives to all mankind of disposing of their persons and property after the manner they judge most consonant to their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and so as not to interfere with an equal exercise of the same rights by other men. See 1 Bl. Com. 125. Lieber says: "Liberty of social man consists in the protection of unrestrained action in as high a degree as the same claim of protection of each individual admits of, or in the most efficient protection of his rights, claims, interests, as a man or citizen, or of his humanity manifested as a social being." Civil Liberty and Self-Government.

expressly covered civil cases only, it could not be extended to embrace defences of criminal prosecutions.1 So where a constitutional provision confined the elective franchise to "white male citizens," and it appeared that the legislation of the State had always treated of negroes, mulattoes, and other colored persons, in contradistinction to white, it was held that although quadroons, being a recognized class of colored persons, must be excluded, yet that the rule of exclusion would not be carried further. So a statute making parties witnesses against themselves cannot be construed to compel them to disclose facts which would subject them to criminal punishment.3 And a statute which authorizes a summary process in favor of a bank against debtors who have by express contract made their obligations payable at such bank, being in derogation of the ordinary principles of private rights, must be subjected to a strict construction.4

There are unquestionably cases in which the State may grant privileges to specified individuals without violating any constitutional principle, because, from the nature of the case, it is impossible they should be possessed and enjoyed by all; and if it is important that they should exist, the proper State authority must be left to select the grantees. Of this class are grants of the franchise to be a corporation. Such grants, however, which confer upon a few persons what cannot be shared by the many, and which, though supposed to be made on public grounds, are nevertheless frequently of great value to the corporators and therefore sought with avidity, are never to be extended by construction beyond the plain terms in which they are conferred. No rule is better settled than that charters of incorporation are to be construed strictly against the corporators.5 The just presumption in

1 Webb v. Baird, 6 Ind. 13.

2 People v. Dean, 14 Mich. 406. In Ohio it has been held that the term "white" might be held to include all persons having a preponderance of white blood. Gray v. State, 4 Ohio, 354; Jeffries v. Ankeny, 11 Ohio, 372; Thacker v. Hawk, Ibid. 376; Anderson v. Millikin, 9 Ohio, N. S. 568. The decisions elsewhere are different, as they probably would be now in Ohio, if the question were new. See Van Camp v. Board of Education, 9 Ohio, N. S. 406.

Broadbent v. State, 7 Md. 416. See People v. Thomas, 9 Mich. 314; Knowles v. People, 15 Mich. 408.

* Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 241.

' Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514; Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 544; Perrine v. Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Co. 9 How. 172;

every such case is, that the State has granted in express terms all that it designed to grant at all. "When a State," says the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, "means to clothe a corporate body with a portion of her own sovereignty, and to disarm herself to that extent of the power that belongs to her, it is so easy to say so, that we will never believe it to be meant when it is not said. . . . In the construction of a charter, to be in doubt is to be resolved; and every resolution which springs from doubt is against the corporation. If the usefulness of the company would be increased by extending [its privileges], let the legislature see to it, but remember that nothing but plain English words will do it."1

Richmond, &c., R. R. Co. v. Louisa R. R. Co., 13 How. 71; Bradley v. N. Y. & N. H. R. R. Co., 21 Conn. 294; Parker v. Sunbury & Erie R. R. Co., 19 Penn. St. 211; Wales v. Stetson, 2 Mass. 143; Chenango Bridge Co. v. Binghamton Bridge Co., 27 N. Y. 87, and 3 Wal. 51.

1

Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Canal Commissioners, 21 Penn. St. 22. And see Commonwealth v. Pittsburg, &c. R. R. Co., 24 Penn. St. 159; Chenango Bridge Co. v. Binghamton Bridge Co., 27 N. Y. 93, per Wright, J. We quote from the Supreme Court of Connecticut in Bradley v. N. Y. & N. H. R. R. Co., 21 Conn. 306: "The rules of construction which apply to general legislation, in regard to those subjects in which the public at large are interested, are essentially different from those which apply to private grants to individuals, of powers or privileges designed to be exercised with special reference to their own advantage, although involving in their exercise incidental benefits to the community generally. The former are to be expounded largely and beneficially for the purposes for which they were enacted; the latter liberally, in favor of the public, and strictly as against the grantees. The power in the one case is original and inherent in the State or sovereign power, and is exercised solely for the general good of the community; in the other it is merely derivative, is special if not exclusive in its character, and is in derogation of common right, in the sense that it confers privileges to which the members of the community at large are not entitled. Acts of the former kind, being dictated solely by a regard to the benefit of the public generally, attract none of that prejudice or jealousy towards them which naturally would arise towards those of the other description, from the consideration that the latter were obtained with a view to the benefit of particular individuals, and the apprehension that their interests might be promoted at the sacrifice or to the injury of those of others whose interests should be equally regarded. It is universally understood to be one of the implied and necessary conditions upon which men enter into society and form governments, that sacrifices must sometimes be required of individuals for the general benefit of the community, for which they have no rightful claim to specific compensation; but, as between the several individuals composing the community, it is the duty of the State to protect them in the enjoyment of just and equal rights. A law, therefore, enacted for the common good, and which there would ordinarily be no inducement to pervert from that purpose,

And this rule is not confined to the grant of a corporate franchise, but it extends to all grants of franchises or privileges by the State to individuals, in the benefits of which the people at large cannot participate. "Private statutes," says Parsons, Ch. J., "made for the accommodation of particular citizens or corporations, ought not to be construed to affect the rights or privileges of others, unless such construction results from express words or from necessary implication." And the grant of ferry rights, or the right to erect a toll-bridge, and the like, is not only to be construed strictly against the grantees, but it will not be held to exclude the grant of a similar and competing privilege to others, unless the terms of the grant render such construction imperative.2

is entitled to be viewed with less jealousy and distrust than one enacted to promote the interests of particular persons, and which would constantly present a motive for encroaching on the rights of others."

1 Coolidge v. Williams, 4 Mass. 140. See also Dyer v. Tuscaloosa Bridge Co., 2 Port. (Ala.) 296. In Sprague v. Birdsall, 2 Cow. 419, it was held that one embarking upon the Cayuga Lake six miles from the bridge of the Cayuga Bridge Co., and crossing the lake in an oblique direction so as to land within sixty rods of the bridge, was not liable to pay toll under a provision in the charter of said company which made it unlawful for any person to cross within three miles of the bridge without paying toll. In another case arising under the same charter, which authorized the company to build a bridge across the lake or the outlet thereof, and to rebuild in case it should be destroyed or carried away by the ice, and prohibited all other persons from erecting a bridge within three miles of the place where a bridge should be erected by the company, it was held, after the company had erected a bridge across the lake and it had been carried away by the ice, that they had no authority afterwards to rebuild across the outlet of the lake, two miles from the place where the first bridge was built, and that the restricted limits were to be measured from the place where the first bridge was erected. Cayuga Bridge Co. v. Magee, 2 Paige, 116; Same case, 6 Wend. 85. In Chapin v. The Paper Works, 30 Conn. 461, it was held that statutes giving a preference to certain creditors over others should be construed with reasonable strictness, as the law favored equality. In People v. Lambier, 5 Denio, 9, it appeared that an act of the legislature had authorized a proprietor of lands lying in the East River, which is an arm of the sea, to construct wharves and bulkheads in the river, in front of his land, and there was at the time a public highway through the land, terminating at the river. Held, that the proprietor could not, by filling up the land between the shore and the bulkhead, obstruct the public right of passage from the land to the water, but that the street was, by operation of law, extended from the former terminus over the newly made land to the water.

2 Mills v. St. Clair County, 8 How. 569; Mohawk Bridge Co. v. Utica & S. R. R. Co., 6 Paige, 554; Chenango Bridge Co. v. Binghamton Bridge Co. 27 N. Y. 87; Same case, 3 Wal. 51.

The Constitution of the United States contains a provision that is important in this connection; which is, that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States. Although the precise meaning of "privileges and immunities" is not very definitely settled as yet, it appears to be conceded that this provision secures in each State to the citizens of all other States the right to remove to and carry on business therein; the right by the usual modes to acquire and hold property, and to protect and defend the same in the law; the right to the usual remedies for the collection of debts and the enforcement of other personal rights, and the right to be exempt, in property and person, from taxes or burdens which the property or persons of citizens of the same State are not subject to.2 To this extent, at least, discriminations could not be made by State laws against them. But it is unquestionable that many other rights and privileges may be made-as they usually are to depend upon actual residence: such as the right to vote, to have the benefit of exemption laws, to take fish in the waters of the State, and the like. And the constitutional provision is not violated by a statute which allows process by attachment against a debtor not a resident of the State, notwithstanding such process is not admissible against a resident.3

Judicial Proceedings.

Individual citizens require protection against judicial action as well as against legislative; and perhaps the question, what constitutes due process of law, is as often made in regard to judicial proceedings as in any other cases. But it is not so difficult here to arrive at satisfactory conclusions, since the bounds of the judicial authority are much better defined than those of the legislative, and each case can generally be brought to a definite and well-settled test.

The proceedings in any court are void if it wants jurisdiction of the case in which it has assumed to act. Jurisdiction is, first, of

1 Const. of U. S. art. 4, § 2. See ante, p. 15, 16.

* Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. 380; Campbell. v. Morris, 3 H. & McH. 554 ; Crandall v. State, 10 Conn. 343; Oliver v. Washington Mills, 11 Allen, 281.

8

Campbell v. Morris, 3 H. & McH. 554; State v. Medbury, 3 R. I. 141. And see generally the cases cited, ante, p. 16, note.