by the Courts. In the case of Crane v. Meginnis,1 decided in 1829 by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, Justice Earle said:

The enactment of the third section of the act of 1823 [granting a divorce], being in our opinion an exercise by the legislature of judicial power, our attention will now be engaged . . . with the enquiry, whether the exercise by the legislature of judicial power in the passage of the law, is repugnant to the constitution. The decision of this point must depend upon the sound construction of the sixth section of the bill of rights [of the Maryland Constitution], which says, "that the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of government, ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other." This political maxim made its appearance, in some form, in all the state constitutions formed about the time of the war of the revolution, and is Isaid to have been borrowed by them of the celebrated Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, vol. 1, p. 181. . . upon a full consideration of each of them, it seems to us to have been the intent to ingraft this invaluable maxim of political science on their respective systems, only as far as comported with free government, and to prohibit the exercise by one department of the powers of another department, or to confine each department to the exclusive exercise of its own powers. This last is admirably expressed in the Constitution of Massachusetts, and evinces a perfect acquaintance of its framers with the pages and doctrines of Baron Montesquieu. It is worded thus: "That the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers or either of them." The inhibition goes to the practical exercise of powers conferred by the con

II Gill and Johnson (Md.) Rep.. 463, 475.

stitution, and to be used after it is in operation, and does not apply singly to the original distribution of powers among the departments of the government. In the same sense we construe the sixth article of our bill of rights, which has the same objects in view with the Constitution of Massachusetts, although somewhat different terms are used to express them. The one imitates the language, and the other dives into and expresses the meaning of the venerated author from which they both copied. Their common purpose is to confine in practice, the action of each department to its own appropriate sphere, by forbidding to it the use of powers allotted to the co-ordinate departments.

In the case of Kilbourn v. Thompson,' decided in 1880 by the U. S. Supreme Court, Justice Miller said:

It is believed to be one of the chief merits of the American system of written constitutional law, that all the powers entrusted to government, whether State or national, are divided into three grand departments, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. That the functions appropriate to each of these branches of government shall be vested in a separate body of public servants, and that the perfection of the system requires that the lines which separate and divide these departments shall be broadly and clearly defined. It is also essential to the successful working of this system that the persons entrusted with power in any one of these branches shall not be permitted to encroach upon the powers confided to the others, but that each shall by the law of its creation be limited to the powers appropriate to its own department and to no other. . . . That instrument [the Constitution], the model on which are constructed the fundamental laws of the States, has blocked out with singular precision, and in bold lines, in its three primary articles, the allotment of power to the executive,

1103 U. S. Rep., 168, 190.

the legislative, and the judicial departments of the government. It also remains true, as a general rule, that the powers confided by the Constitution to one of these departments cannot be exercised by another.

CHAPTER VI

CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTIES

Permanence of Constitutional Guaranties.

I

The constitutions of the States and the Constitution of the United States contain provisions that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Constitution of the United States provides that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts2 or any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States3 and declares that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 4

These provisions in the form of limitations upon the powers of the State legislatures and of the Congress of the United States, guarantee the rights of liberty and property of citizens of the United States. Although social and economic conditions have changed with the growth of the nation, these guaranties mean now what they meant when they were made. The constitutional grants of legislative power and the provisions of con

'Bills of Rights of State Constitutions; U. S. Const. Amendment V. 2 Art. I., Sec. 10.

3 U. S. Const. Art. I., Sec. 10., Amendment XIV.

4 U. S. Const. Amendment XIV.

stitutional guaranties of rights are made in general terms which cover all new social conditions that come within their scope. They apply from generation to generation to all things to which they are in their nature applicable. The makers of the constitutions intended to provide for the welfare of the people, not only under existing social and economic conditions but under any new conditions that might afterward arise. Consequently, the courts, in determining cases under statutes dealing with new social conditions, have ruled that the constitutional guaranties of liberty and property are not limited to rights of liberty and property under social conditions, existing when the constitutions were made, but extend to such rights existing under subsequent social conditions.

The United States was at first a farming nation in which every farm was an industrial center. The farmer with his sons or relatives tilled the soil, made farming tools in his blacksmith shop, made his meal and flour, and carried on a number of other trades. The farmer's wife and daughters wove cloth with yarn spun by themselves from wool clipped from his sheep. The only things he had to buy were sugar, molasses, and salt. Living healthy outdoor lives, working in a leisurely way except when planting and harvesting, the farmer asked from the State governments nothing more than protection from violence and robbery, and justice in the determination of his rights.

Mining and manufacturing, then and for many years afterward, were carried on in such a small way that no special State laws for the protection of miners and factory operatives were needed.

1 See opinion of Justice Brewer in So. Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. Rep., 437.