Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/668

 660 FEDBEAL EBPOBTEB. �ernment under a distresa warrant issued by the soliciter of the treasury, pursuant to an act of congress, was not depriv- ing the owner of his property without "due process of law," within the meaning of the fifth amendment to the constitu- tion. It was held that "due proceess" was not necessarily and exclusively judicial process ; that the term included pro- cess for the collection of taxes, and that the process for col- lection of a balance due from a tax collector by such a war- rant was sustained as due process by the practice of the government in these states, and in England before the adop- tion of the constitution. �Mr. Justice Curtis, in giving the opinion of the court, says : "Tested by the common and statute law of England prior to the emigration of our ancestors, and by the laws of many of the states at the time of the adoption of the amendment, the proceedings authorized by the act of 1820 cannot be denied to be due process of law when applied to the ascer- tainment and recovery of balances due to the government from a collector of customs, unless there exists some other pro- vision which restrains congress from authorizing such pro- ceedings. For, though 'due process of law' generally im- plies and includes actor, reua, judex, regulat allegations, opportunity to answer, and a triai according to some settled course of judicial proceedings, yet this is not universally true. There may be, and we have seen that there are, cases under the law of England after Magna Charta, and as it was brought to this country and acted on here, in which process, in its nature final, issues against the body, lands and goods of certain public creditors without any such trial." �But, perhaps, as full, precise and well considered an expo- sition of this constitutional guaranty as has been made is f urnished by the supreme court of the state of New York in the case of Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill, 145. Mr. Justice Bron- son there says : "The words ' by the law of the land,' as here used, (i. e., in the state constitution,) do not mean a statute passed for the purpose of working the wrong. That con- struction would render the restriction abiolutely nugatory, and turn this part of the constitution into nonsense. The ��� �