In my research I have found more cases where it has seemed to me the courts have construed constitutional guaranties too strictly, than where they have construed them too liberally. The tendency has been rather away from the enforcement of constitutional guaranties and to allow legislative encroachments upon them. I regard this as a very dangerous tendency. Perhaps the encroachments have not been at first perceived, but I think courts should be vigilantly on the watch for them, otherwise individual rights guaranteed to the people by the constitution may be gradually weakened and finally destroyed. This duty of the courts was declared in the case of _Boyd_ v. _United States_, 116 _U. S._ 616 at page 641--where in refusing effect to a statute requiring the production of his books and papers by a defendant in proceedings for forfeiture, the court said: "Though the proceeding in question is devested of the aggravating effects of actual search and seizure, yet it contains their substance and essence, and effects their substantial purpose. It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure. This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy and leads to gradual depreciation of the right as if it consisted more in sound than in substance. It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen and against any stealthy encroachments thereon. Their motto should be _obsta principiis_." A review of the cases in which the courts have been called upon to decide whether a statute breaks over the constitutional limitation will demonstrate to any dispassionate person that upon questions of expediency, of the general welfare, or even of justice, the judges rarely if ever oppose their opinion to that of the legislators. The courts do not obstruct the current of progress; they only keep it from overflowing its banks to the devastation of the constitutional rights of the people. CHAPTER IX THE NECESSITY OF MAINTAINING UNDIMINISHED THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS AND THE POWER OF THE COURTS TO ENFORCE THEM.--CONCLUSION