So too the stenographic report of testimony given in court, supported by the oath of the stenographer that it is a correct transcript of his notes and of the testimony of a deceased witness is competent evidence, is admissible, and does not conflict with the provision of the Constitution that an accused person shall have the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”[494] The principle here is essentially one of sovereignty,—the court declaring: “the rights of the public shall not be wholly sacrificed in order that an incidental benefit may be preserved to the accused.”[495] The sovereign right of a State, or of the United States with respect to citizenship, is sufficient, in either, to effect the purposes for which either exists; but in the American dual system of government, citizenship has fundamental rights, which are guaranteed, and political privileges, which are conferred and protected. 174. Civil rights and their guarantees, both in the States and in the United States, are formulated as limitations on government,—as fundamentals reserved “and above any constitutional sanction.” These rights include those of religious liberty, personal security, security of dwellings, papers, and property, personal freedom, due process of law, jury trial, and equal protection of the laws. The line of demarcation between these fundamental rights is not easily drawn, nor even drawn with precision. These rights, being fundamental rights, exist independent of the government which the people of a State, or the people of the United States ordain and establish. That sovereignty—the people themselves—has power to alter, to modify, or even to destroy these rights, or any of them, must be admitted, but that sovereignty ever, under a republican form of government, will alter, modify, or destroy these rights, may with equal assurance be denied.