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CHIEF JUSTICE BOGGS.

The liberty and security, however, of the citizen demands the governed shall be the judge of what is wise and just and shall not be left unprotected against a possible unwise and despotic ruler.

A free people can not therefore be said to be those who live where good and wholesome laws exist and are equitably administered, but those who live under a government so constitutionally guarded and limited that oppressive laws cannot be enacted or arbitrary power exercised by those in authority.

A written constitution guaranteeing freedom and justice to every person and placing limitations upon the power of every department of the government and upon the haste and passion of the people themselves and an independent judiciary empowered to support the organic law against every contravening enactment, every attempted violation of the limitation placed on official power, every outbreak of popular clamor, is the surest safeguard of the life, liberty and property of any people that the brain or conscience of man has ever devised.

The necessity for preserving inviolate the organic law of the nation and of the respective states, each state being sovereign except in so far as its sovereign power has been delegated to the national union of the states, can not be too strongly impressed on the mind of the citizen, the executive, the law maker and the judiciary.

Worthy to be treasured are these words, the utterances of the late Judge Cooley: "The habit of mind which consents to the doing of constitutional wrong, even when it is supposed some temporary good may be accomplished, should be recog nized as a foe to constitutional limitations and securities and therefore at any cost must be corrected."

How naturally, under the influence of this occasion, the mind recurs to the marvelous growth of the principles of human freedom under the conserving force of our system of

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written constitutions, and with what conscious and laudable pride do we contemplate the contributions of the American people to the principles on which are bottomed the rights and liberties of the race.

It was our forefathers who overturned the dogma which prevailed in all monarchies that each human being owed perpetual allegiance to the reigning family of the land of his or her birth, and introduced into the law of nations and caused to be firmly intrenched and established there the doctrine that every person possessed the indefeasible and inalienable right to absolve himself or herself, at will, from all obligations of loyalty to king or crown and transfer his fealty to the free institutions of our republic.

In this land of ours, for the first time, a general government was founded on a written constitution granting to each department of the government such power of any character or degree as it is permitted to cxercise, and here it is we find in the different states the people as the repository of all power to govern, causing to be set forth in written state constitutions the restrictions and limitations on both the legis lative and executive branches of the local government that they have in their own wisdom deemed essential to protect the public against encroachments on the part of those in authority.

We were the first among the powers of the earth to abandon the kingly dogma that governments were established among men through gracious power divinely vested in some vaunted "defender of the faith," and to declare and effect a complete and permanent separation of church and state and to establish religious freedom as an article of organic law.

The honest debtor has been freed from the possibility of imprisonment by the creditor, the wife emancipated from oppressive domination of the husband. An act not unlawful when committed can not be declared to be a crime and made

CHIEF JUSTICE BOGGS.

punishable by future enactment; the obligations of lawful contracts are preserved from all that would impair them; private property is protected against seizure for public use, except upon just compensation; the undue severity of the old criminal laws prescribing punishments often capricious and always cruel, has given way to more humane provisions, and we have entered, experimentally at least, on the policy of pronouncing indeterminate sentences and granting paroles to many of those who have been convicted of violating the provisions of our criminal code; the youthful offender finds the place of his confinement a home and a school and his punishment only such as tends to correct and reform him.

Lands have been made freely alienable and the ownership of the soil and a home encouraged. Beneficent enactments. protect the homestead of the householder and his family, the household goods, personal apparel and the implements of his occupation from forced sale. Schools are maintained free and convenient to the pupils, and the nation contains a smaller proportion of illiterates and a larger proportion of those who read and write than any other government. The insane, the deaf and dumb, the blind and those of feeble mind have sub-. stantially been adopted as the wards of the State and the public treasury is charged with the burden of ameliorating, if it may, their afflictions.

Freedom of the press and of speech has been assured save only as to restrictions necessary to the right and reputation of the citizen. And it may safely be predicted the problems arising out of the control, ownership and operation of all public utilities will be adjusted with due regard to the rights of the public in every business impressed with the public use, and in harmony with the constitutional principle that every person, natural or artificial, is entitled in person and property, to the equal protection of the law and to the

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benefit of every organic provision for the protection of the rights of property.

All this and much more that time will not permit to be adverted to has been accomplished to add to the liberty and happiness of man. More remains to be done, for the reason the development of civilization must continue,-perhaps is infinite, but our fundamental laws provide for their own enlargement by amendments to meet the varying or increasing advancement of the race.

A disposition to make frequent changes in our constitutions is unfortunately ever present. The visionary reformer who is swift to substitute Utopian dreams for the actual experience of ages, the restless agitator, who exalts unrestricted license above liberty under the law, those who under the stress of adverse circumstances weakly and rashly chafe at every obstacle to temporary relief, those who cherish schemes which contemplate the exaction of burdensome and uneonstitutional rates of taxation, he who is ready to tear down for the mere pleasure he finds in rebuilding, he who finds pleasure in tearing down without any thought of restoring and those who refuse to recognize that real reforms can not be crytallized into law until their merits have secured lodg ment in the public mind, are all ready to lead an assault on the existing organic law of the State.

But the bulwark of safety is the practical, conservative sound sense, intelligence and patriotism of the masses of our people. Trained to govern themselves, proud of their institutions, the common plain people may be safely trusted to consider prudently and determine with caution and wisdom when and whether the further development of our citizenship shall require that amendment be made to the organic law in the Union or in the States and to effect any needed changes without violence to social order, the destruction or impairment of personal or property rights, or in any manner disturbing the established institutions that constitute the

CHIEF JUSTICE BOGGS.

foundation on which now so securely rest the best hopes, desires and ambitions of mankind.

Hon. George T. Page, of Peoria, addressed the Court as follows:

May it please the Court:

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when our nation, with its untried constitution, was confronted with many perplexing and difficult questions, the people of this country were more fortunate than they knew, in seeing John Marshall become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

And, too, at the beginning of the twentieth century, when new and important questions are again confronting us; when new policies are being tried, the nation is again fortunate in seeing the bench and bar of every state engaged in the study of the life and works of the great Chief Justice, and in the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of his appointment.

About two years ago, the Hon. Isaac N. Phillips, now the official reporter of this Court, in an address upon John Marshall, said: "Whoever shall popularize the fame of John Marshall will do an inestimable service to the history of this country."

It seems to me that this celebration will do much to bring into popular favor the name and works of John Marshall, and for the purpose of further accomplishing this object, and of perpetuating the able and interesting address, we suggest that these proceedings be spread upon the records of this Court, and published in the official reports of this Court.

In accordance with the motion of Mr. Page, it was ordered that the proceedings of the day be spread upon the records of the Court and published in its official reports.

At the conclusion of the exercises before the Supreme

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