Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/504

 464, private vengeance, and popular cruelty. But in a free government it lies at the very basis of all its institutions. Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence. No one can doubt, therefore, that the establishment of justice must be one main object of all our state governments. Why, then, may it be asked, should it form so prominent a motive in the establishment of the national government?

§ 483. This is now proposed to be shown in a concise manner. In the administration of justice, foreign nations, and foreign individuals, as well as citizens, have a deep stake; but the former have not always as complete means of redress as the latter; for it may be presumed, that the state laws will always provide adequate tribunals to redress the grievances and sustain the rights of their own citizens. But this would be a very imperfect view of the subject. Citizens of contiguous states have a very deep interest in the administration of justice in each state; and even those, which are most distant, but belonging to the same confederacy, cannot but be affected by every inequality in the provisions, or the actual operations of the laws of each other. While every state remains at full liberty to legislate upon the subject of rights, preferences, contracts, and remedies, as it may please, it is scarcely to be expected, that they will all concur in the same general system of policy. The natural tendency of every