8.

441. hatever difficulty may be experienced in giving to those terms a definition which will embrace every permissible exertion of power affecting private rights, and exclude such as is forbidden, there can be no doubt of their meaning when applied to judicial proceedings. They then mean a course of legal proceedings according to those rules and principles which have been established in our systems of jurisprudence for the enforcement and protection of private rights. To give such roceedings any validity, there must be a triunal competent by its constitution—that is, by the law. of its creation—to pass upon the subject-matter of the suit; and, if that involves merely a determination of the personal liability of the defendant, he must be brought within its jurisdiction by service of process within the state, or his voluntary appearance. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 733, 24 L. Ed. 565. Due process of law implies the right of the person. affected thereby to be present before the tribunal which pronounces judgment upon the question of life, liberty, or property, In its most comprehensive sense; to be heard, by testimony or otherwise, and to have ‘the right of controverting, by proof, every material fact which bears on the question of right in the matter involved. f any question of fact or liability be conclusively presumed against him, this is not due process of law. Zeigler v. Railroad Co., 58

1. , One of the component commonwealths or states of the United States of America. The people of a state, in their collective capacity, considered as the party wronged by a criminal deed; the public; as in the title of a cause, “The State va. A. B.” The section of territory occupied by one of