The Territorial Bill of Rights as set forth in the Constitution is exceedingly brief--perhaps the shortest Bill of Rights on record. It consists of a single sentence and reads as follows: "The inhabitants of the said Territory shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities heretofore granted and secured to the Territory of Wisconsin and to its inhabitants." On its face this guarantee of the fundamental rights of man and of the citizen seems vague and unsatisfactory. But it is, nevertheless, large in implication. If we turn to the Constitution of the Territory of Wisconsin to see what rights, privileges, and immunities were therein guaranteed, we find "that the inhabitants of the said Territory shall be entitled to, and enjoy, all and singular the rights, privileges, and advantages, granted and secured to the people of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, by the articles of the compact contained in the ordinance for the Government of the said Territory, passed on the thirteenth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven; and shall be subject to all the conditions and restrictions and prohibitions in said articles of compact imposed upon the people of the said Territory." In other words, the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 are by implication made a part of the Constitution of the Territory of Iowa. Thus the people of Iowa inherited through the Territorial Constitutions of 1836 and 1838 the political principles of the great Ordinance of 1787 as a Bill of Rights. Great was the legacy. Mark the classical expression of that instrument in enumerating the immemorial rights, privileges, and principles of Anglo-Saxon polity. "No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments . . . . The inhabitants of the said Territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of _habeas corpus_, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capital offences, where the proof shall be evident, or the presumption great. All fines shall be moderate; and no cruel or unusual punishments shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land, and should the public exigencies make it necessary, for the common preservation, to take any person's property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same. And in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever, interfere with, or affect private contracts or engagements, _bona fide_, and without fraud previously formed."