This is a government of laws, which prescribes a rule of action as obligatory upon the governor as upon the most obscure officer. The character and purposes of the habeas corpus are greatly misunderstood by those who suppose that it does not review the acts of an executive functionary. All who are familiar with English history must know that it was extorted from an arbitrary monarch, and that it was hailed as a second Magna Charta; and that it was to protect the subject from arbitrary imprisonment by the king and his minions, which brought into existence that great palladium of liberty in the latter part of the reign of Charles the Second. It was indeed a magnificent achievement over arbitrary power. Magna Charta established the principles of liberty--the habeas corpus protected them. It matters not how great or obscure the prisoner, how great or obscure the prison-keeper, this munificent writ, wielded by an independent judge, reaches all. It penetrates alike the royal towers and the local prisons, from the garret to the secret recesses of the dungeon. All doors fly open at its command, and the shackles fall from the limbs of prisoners of state as readily as from those committed by subordinate officers. The warrant of the king and his secretary of state could claim no more exemption from that searching inquiry, "The cause of his caption and detention," than a warrant {226} granted by a justice of the peace. It is contended that the United States is a government of granted powers, and that no department of it can exercise powers not granted. This is true. But the grant is to be found in the second section of the third article of the Constitution of United States:--"The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law or equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, and which shall be made under their authority."