the freedom of speech or of the press, pass bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, suspend the writ of habeas corpus, impose cruel and unusual punishments, deny to the individual accused of crime the right to a jury-trial or even any hearing at all, confiscate private property without compensation, and impair the obligation of contracts? Let us, for example, suppose that Congress or a state legislature saw fit to imprison those who did not profess the religion of the majority, or observe its forms and tenets. Who could then protect the minority against such tyrannical enactments except the courts, and how could the courts shield them save by declaring the statute unconstitutional and void and refusing to enforce it? We have only to go back a few generations to find just such laws in England and in the American colonies, and it is the repetition of them that our constitutions seek to prevent. Suppose again that Congress or a state legislature should pass a statute abridging the freedom of speech or of the press and making those who violated the statute subject to criminal prosecution and imprisonment. How could the individual be then protected except by the judiciary, and how could the judiciary protect him unless by exercising the power to declare the statute unconstitutional? Do the agitators who are attacking our constitutional system explain to their listeners that in the foreign governments with which they are making comparisons the legislative power could compel workmen in any trade to work as many hours a day, at such rates of wages, and under such conditions as the majority saw fit to enact? Suppose that the Pennsylvania legislature should pass a statute compelling laborers in coal mines to labor twelve or more hours a day for a compensation fixed by it and providing that refusal should constitute a crime. Or similarly in the case of railroad employees. In doing so, the legislature would find a precedent in the famous English Statute of Labourers as well as in numerous other European enactments. The Pennsylvania legislature might pass an act, similar to that enacted by the British parliament in 1720 and again in 1800, making it a crime for laborers to combine to obtain an advance of wages or to lessen or alter their hours of work. Is it inconceivable that the time may come when the majority of the voters in Pennsylvania will believe that it is imperative thus to regulate labor in coal mines and on the railroads, both of which industries are indispensable, serve every household in the state, affect every individual, rich or poor, and compel all to pay tribute? Might not prejudice and self-interest tempt or impel to such a statute, and might not the majority enact it, particularly if those affected were aliens without political power? Is it inconceivable that the owners of the coal mines and the railroads may some day control a majority in the legislature? But how could these miners and railroad