[436] The rights of the person, and his or her rights of property are the essential subject of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments. Similar provisions are included in the Bills of Rights in the State constitutions.
[437] Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Washington C. C., 371; Slaughter House Cases 16 Wallace, 36.
[438] This act of sovereignty is so rare as almost to be unknown. In America the act takes the form of an amendment to the Constitution.
[439] The forty-eight States have had, in the aggregate, some one hundred and twenty-five constitutions, and to these have been added some three hundred amendments (1776–1917). The federal Constitution has been amended seventeen times (1787–1913).
[440] Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S., 244 (1901).
[441] Pfeiffer v. Board of Education of the City of Detroit, 77 N. W. Rep., 250 (1898).
[442] Reynolds v. United States, 89 U. S., 145 (1878).
[443] Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S., 616 (1886). (Important historical data given in this case.)
[444] Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S., 275 (1897).
[445] Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, 353; Ex parte Wall, 107 U. S., 265 (1883). Murray’s Lessee v. The Hoboken Land and Improvement Company, 18 Howard, 272 (1855), considered the leading case.