property of its citizens at all times subject to the absolute disposition and unlimited control of even the most democratic depository of power, is, after all, but a despotism. It is true it is a despotism of the many, of the ma jority, if you choose to call it so, but it is none the less a despotism. It may well be doubted, it a man is to hold all that he is accustomed (to call his own, all in which he has placed his happiness, and the security of which is essen tial to that happiness, under the unlimited dominion of others, whether it is not wiser that this power should be exercised by one titan than by many. The theory of our gov ernments, State and National, is opposed to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere. The executive, the legislative and the judicial branches of these governments are all of lim ited and denned powers. There are limita tions on such power which grow out of the essential nature of all free governments— implied reservations of individual rights, with out which the social compact could not exist and which are respected by all governments entitled to the name. ... To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private for tunes, is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation." But while Justice Miller was thus valiant in protecting the just rights of the citizen in life, liberty and property, he was seldom an extremist. His views are characterized by a wise reasonableness which led him, while giving due attention to the rights of the indi vidual, to uphold with equal firmness the just rights of the State and of the government as established in the fundamental law. It is not within the province of the Supreme Court, as he pointed out in the course of his luminous statement of the origin and history of the con stitutional provision wth respect to due pro cess of law, in Davidson v. New Orleans, 96
U. S. 97, to redress all the ills of society. Probably no better illustration of this sanity and balance of judgment can be found than his opinion in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616. An act of Congress had author ized the court, in revenue cases, to require a defendant or claimant to produce in court his private books and papers, in default of which the allegations of the public prosecutor were to be taken as confessed. The court Iheld that the procedure was in conflict with the Fifth Amendment in so far as it required a party to incriminate himself; but Justice '.Miller was of the opinion that where the court, by an order, required the production of specific papers, therein named, this proceed ing was not in conflict with the Fourth Amendment. "While the framers of the Con stitution," he said, had their attention drawn, no doubt, to the abuses of this power of searching private houses and seizing private papers, as practised in England, it is obvious that they only intended to restrain the abuse, while they did not abolish the power. Hence it is only unreasonable searches and seizures that are forbidden, and the means of securing this protection was by abolishing searches under warrants which were called general warrants, because they authorized searches in any place, for any thing." Illustrations of this wise conservatism might.be indefinitely multiplied. In Bridge Proprietors <•. Hoboken Company, i Wall. 116, the obligation of contracts, within the meaning of the constitutional provision, was wisely restrained. Hie believed that it was not within the constitutional power of a legis lature to limit the taxing power of a succeed ing legislature. Washington Universitv ' z>. Rouse, 8 Wall. 439; New Jersey v. Ward, 95 U. S. 104. Compare his opinions in Gaines v. Thompson, 7 Wall. 347, and United States v. Schurz, 1 02 U. S. 378, concerning the ex ercise of control over executive officers. His opinion in United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375, is an exhaustive review of the
