Page:Borden v. State ex rel. Robinson.pdf/51

Rh is acquired against the person by the service of process or voluntary appearance, a court of general jurisdiction will settle the matter in controversy between the parties." (9 How. U. S. Rep. 348.) "No  principle is more vital to the administration of justice than that no man shall be condemned in his person or property without notice and an opportunity to make his defence." Id. 350. And again it is said "Jurisdiction is not to be assumed and exercised in such cases upon the general ground that the subject matter of the suit is within the power of the court." Id. 350. Lord  said, "If a judgment could thus be recovered against one behind his back, a man would have nothing more to do but to go to Tobago, there sue us to any amount and then return to this country to put his judgment in force against us." 1 Campbell's Rep. 66. Chief Justice  said in 2 B. Mon. 455, "In a legal or available sense no person is a party to a suit without either an appearance or a judicial notice of some sort."

In view of these authorities (and so far as regards proceedings against the person there is not one within the range of my research to the contrary) I think I may safely say, that the right to be heard and defend life, liberty, property and reputation is a natural, inherent right of universal obligation; that it is an inherent, indefeasible, constitutional right, and that it is a common law right commencing with the earliest history and never dispensed witll in any government, where these rights are recognized or protected by the government: that before a judicial tribunal can render any judgment whatever binding on either, it is indispensably necessary that the court, either by its process or by voluntary appearance, should first have acquired jurisdiction of the person Of the defendant as well as of the subject matter. And that a judgment rendered by any court without a concurrence of these is absolutely void.

It is to the writ and the return upon it (unless in cases of statutory notice by publication, as to the effect of which I need not now pause to consider) that the court must look for jurisdiction of the person, or to the record, for a voluntary appearance.