is, estates which have no limitation, except to heirs generally. Estates tail have been abolished by other statutes. 1 R. S. of N. Y. 172, § 3. The general rules and results of the allodial system : FIRST: It makes every tenant in fee of lands the immediate tenant of the State. He holds his estate by the contract of the State, and as absolute property. His estate is thus placed fully within the provisions of the constitution, that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."—(Art. 1, Sec. 6, Const. N. Y. 1846.) That provision is common to the constitutions of all the States, and to the constitution of the United States. It was borrowed from magna charta. The provision in that instrument was, in its original language, as follows: "Nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur vel disseisietur de libero tenemento suo nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terræ." In English: "No free man shal be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his freehold, except by the regular judgment of his peers, or the law of the land." Crabb's History of English Law, 139; 4 Bl. Com. 424. . It is obvious that, at common law, the tenant of a freehold estate had property, within the meaning of that provision, in regard to every one except the reversioner of the estate. Chancellor Kent says: "To all other persons he was a free man, and as against them he had rights of property." 2 Kent's Com. 250, 251. But the tenant in fee of the State, under the American allodial system, has property in his estate as against the State, as well as against individuals, in the full sense of the term property, of which the State cannot deprive him without due process of law. Upon this point there is no doubt. The only other general question is, what is due process of law, within the meaning of the constitution? This general question subdivides itself into three particular questions: 1st. For what cause can a tenant in fee be deprived of his estate? 2d. At whose suit, or in whose favor? 3d. By what process? We have a statute which provides that when a person shall be outlawed upon a conviction for treason, the judgment thereupon shall produce a forfeiture of every freehold estate of which such person was seised, during the lifetime of such person.-(2 R. S. 656, § 3.) And there is a further provision in another section, that no conviction for any other offence whatever, shall work a forfeiture. 2 R. S. 701, § 22. Both these sections substantially existed before the adop tion of the Revised Statutes (1 R. L. 145, § 9; id. 495, § 3), and were taken from the English statutes. See 26 Hen. VIII, ch. 13, § 5; 5 and 6 Edw. VI, ch. 11, §9; 34 Chancellor Kent says: "Besides the forfeiture of property to the State for the conviction of crimes, estates less than a fee may be forfeited to the party entitled to the residuary interest, by a breach of duty in the owner of the particular estate." 4 Kent's Com. 427. With what is therein expressed, and what is implied, the rule upon the subject is correctly and concisely stated: 1st. That by the common law, estates might be forfeited to the owner of the reversion, by a breach of duty in the owner of the particular estate; that is, for condition broken. 2d. That they could not be forfeited for such cause to any person other than the owner of the reversion. 3d. That the estates in fee, which are allodial, cannot be made subject to forfeiture for condition broken; or, in other words, can not be subjected to the exigencies of the feudal law in that respect; and the tenant can be dispossessed by forfeiture only upon conviction for crime at the suit of the State. The particular questions before put, are thus answered: The cause must be crime; the process, indictment, trial and conviction; the party prosecuting must be the State. The general result then follows, that when it is determined that a person is the tenant in fee of the State, the State has no power to deprive him of his estate, or of the possession of the premises, except upon conviction for crime, or by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, with the payment of a full compensation. Any statute of the State which should attempt to take from him his estate in any other manner, or should attempt to make it lawful for any individual to intrude upon him, would be void and inoperative. A few examples will help to illustrate this subject. In the case of Wynehamer v. The People, 13 N. Y. 387, a statute which undertook to deprive men of that kind of property known as intoxicating liquors, by punishing them for keeping or selling it, and by forcibly taking it from them, was pronounced unconstitutional and void. The court declared that intoxicating liquors "were property, in the most absolute and unqualified sense of the term; and, as such, as much entitled to the protection of the constitution as lands, houses, or chattels of any description."—(Page 384.) And they very properly say, in defining what is property, that it is "an institution of law, and not a result of speculations in science, in morals or economy" (Id. 385); and that "where rights of property are admitted to exist, the legislature can not say they shall exist no longer; nor will it make any difference, although a process and a tribunal are appointed to execute the sentence." Id. 393. In Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill, 140, the court pronounced an act, which undertook to authorize the taking from a tenant in fee the possession of his land for a private road, to be void and it was said that "the legislative power of the State does not reach to such an unwarrantable extent. Neither life, liberty, nor property, except when forfeited by crime, or when the latter is taken for public use, falls within the scope of the power." Id. 145. It was decided in Westervelt v. Gregg, 12 N. Y. 202, in regard to the statutes of 1848 and 1849, extending the rights of married women, that the legislature had no power to take from the husband his right in the wife's property, before that time vested. In the case of Norman v. Heist, 5 Watts & Serg. 193, it was said that "the right of property has no foundation or security but the law; and when the legislature shall successfully attempt to overturn it, even in a single instance, the liberty of the citizen is no more." In Taylor v. Porter, before cited, it was said by Chief Justice Bronson, while passing upon the rights of property secured to individuals, that "if the legislature can take the property of A, and transfer it to B, they can take A himself, and either shut him up in prison, or put him to death.” The provisions in force in this country, securing to individuals their property, are but little more than the provisions of the common law as they have been for a long time established in England. 1 Bl. Com. 139. "So great," says Blackstone in the authority cited, "is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community. If a new road, for instance, were to be made through the grounds of a private person, it might perhaps be extensively beneficial to the public; but the law permits no man or set of men to do this, without consent of the owner of the land." It is truly remarked, that "the public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights, as modeled by the municipal law." And it may be truly said, that the first marked advance of civilization consists in securing to individuals the rights of property. That step is taken by establishing fixed rules upon that subject, and by enforcing a fixed adherence to those rules. The country which has no such rules, or has not provided for a fixed adherence thereto, has not arrived at the first stage of civilized progression. And when the tribunals of civilized society corruptly disregard those rules in their administrations between individuals, the first . step backwards towards barbarism has been taken; and unless society is better than its tribunals, and has the energy to correct them, there is not much to be hoped for in the future. SECOND: Tenants in fee of the State are a class of citizens to whom the laws and constitution of the State have secured certain distinct rights and privileges, namely, of holding their lands as absolute lords and proprietors. They are thus provided with the highest and most independent rights and privileges which any government can bestow upon a citizen. Their estates are not only institutions of property, but institutions of civil rights and privileges. It may be justly said that those rights and privileges lie at the foundation of our free institutions. The humblest tenant in fee of the State therein enjoys a right more absolute than the proudest nobleman of England can claim. Tenants in fee of the State are the real nobility of this country; but they are a class without any of the obnoxious and odious features of caste, which distinguish the nobles of other countries; for the class here is open to any one who has industry, and a degree of intelligence sufficient to accumulate enough to make himself the owner, by purchase, of a piece of land. They are secured in their rights and privileges by a provision of the constitution as follows: "No member of this State shall be disfranchised, or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law, or the judgment of his peers." Art. 1, sec. 1, Const. of 1846. A similar provision exists in most if not all the State constitutions. Tenants in fee of the State are thus, as a class, placed in the security of their rights and privileges beyond the reach of the State legislatures. There is no power in any branch of the several State governments to degrade them to the condition of serfs or vassals, or to do anything towards the introduction of such conditions. They cannot be compelled to pay rents, or to do service even to the State, of which they |