PREFACE. As the author has observed through many years, it is almost daily, in the federal and state courts, that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is appealed to. All those, whether citizens or denizens, who are, or allege themselves to be, unjustly affected in the great rights and privileges and immunities of citizenship, life, liberty, property or equality, invoke that Amendment for their safety and shield against the action of officers and courts under state authority, and against federal governmental authority as forbidden by like principles found in the Fifth Amendment. More particularly is this so where those cardinal rights are prejudiced by the exercise of public authority by the tribunals or officers of the states, or their municipalities; then the federal courts are called upon to assert their jurisdiction for the vindication of those rights guaranteed against state infraction by the Fourteenth Amendment. The supreme importance of that Amendment, from its presence in the federal Constitution, with its paramount obligation, is at iii 102006 |