Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/142

Rh the common-law theories of public servants in America, and their conflict with our Constitution, but your mind is as yet confused upon the subject. The common law is not the law of the government of the United States: we have decided to the contrary. The Constitution and the acts of Congress passed in pursuance thereof are the laws which govern the United States of America, where there is a conflict between them and the common law."

"It would seem to me, a mere layman, Mr. Chief Justice," said the student, "if the common law is not the law of the United States, as you have explained, and if the supreme law of the nation is the Constitution, together with the acts of Congress passed in pursuance thereof, that the pretensions of the public servants are so much the more extravagant; for they seek to place the Amendments underneath and the common law uppermost, when they assert that the civil rights of these citizens are not to be judged by the Constitution as amended, but rather by their paramount authority."

"There can be no conflict," replied the Chief Justice, "between our constitutional law and the common law. The Constitution furnishes the inviolable and standard rule of right over the States and their citizens; it is the supreme law of this country, and it imposes such restraints on the States, and on the actions of individuals, as are necessary for the safety and good order of the community at large. The States have manufactured their laws by Acts of Assembly, or they have adopted the English common-law and chancery principles; and for the suitors in the State courts (and in the United States courts, by statutes of the United States, in common-law cases) these statutes and the common law furnish the artificial rules and precedents regulating the rights of persons and things which are founded on the law of reason, natural justice, and equity. By the common law no man is so low as not to be within the law's protection. That apparently is right reason. But this doctrine of the common law was not in force in America prior to the