Every thing which may pass under the
form of an enactment is not therefore to be considered the law of the
land. If this were so, acts of attainder, bills of pains and penalties,
acts of confiscation, acts reversing judgments, and acts directly
transferring one man's estate to another, legislative judgments,
decrees, and forfeitures in all possible forms, would be the law of the
land.
Such a strange construction would render constitutional provisions of
the highest importance completely inoperative and void. It would tend
directly to establish the union of all powers in the legislature. There
would be no general, permanent law for courts to administer or men to
live under. The administration of justice would be an empty form, an
idle ceremony. Judges would sit to execute legislative judgments and
decrees; not to declare the law or to administer the justice of the
country. "Is that the law of the land," said Mr. Burke, "upon which, if
a man go to Westminster Hall, and ask counsel by what title or tenure he
holds his privilege or estate _according to the law of the land_, he
should be told, that the law of the land is not yet known; that no
decision or decree has been made in his case; that when a decree shall
be passed, he will then know _what the law of the land is_? Will this be
said to be the law of the land, by any lawyer who has a rag of a gown
left upon his back, or a wig with one tie upon his head?"
That the power of electing and appointing the officers of this college
is not only a right of the trustees as a corporation, generally, and in
the aggregate, but that each individual trustee has also his own
individual franchise in such right of election and appointment, is
according to the language of all the authorities.
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