That which brings martial law closely into relation with military law is the fact that it is administered by the armed forces of the State, and that it partakes, in a measure at least, of its absolute character. That is to say, under its control, certain of the guarantees to the individual against personal injury on the part of those in authority, furnished by the civil law, are in abeyance. But in all other respects, as we shall see, martial law belongs in the field of civil rather than that of the military law. Indeed, martial law is essentially but a branch of the police law of the State, and its exercise is governed by the same principles as those which control the exercise of the so-called Police Powers of the State.

The great fundamental principle of American jurisprudence may be said to be the sanctity of the personal and property rights of the individual. To secure these our written constitutions have been adopted. The obverse of this principle is that nowhere in our governments has there been vested absolute power, that is, authority the limits and definition of which the person expressing it himself fixes, and for the improper exercise of which, or for an ultra vires act, he may not be held civilly and criminally responsible. As the Supreme Court in United States v. Lee,2 speaking through Justice Miller, declared:

"No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance, with impunity. All the officers of the Government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man, who by accepting office, participates in its functions, is only the more strongly bound to submit to the supremacy, and to observe the liabilities which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives."

Not only is this the general principle of our system of law and government, applicable to the military as well as to the civil arms of the State, but our Constitutions, state and federal, specify particularly that property shall not be taken without due process of law, nor used for a public purpose without due compensation being given, and that the individual illegally deprived of liberty may, by writ of habeas corpus, obtain his release.

2 106 U. S. 196; 1 Sup. Ct. Rep. 240; 27 L. ed. 171.

Yet more fundamental than the right of the private individual is the right of the public person, the State, and more important than the convenience or even the existence of the citizen are the welfare and life of the civic whole, and thus we find that, fundamentally, no system of political and legal philosophy, save that of pure anarchism, can start with the individual. It is true that all governments have an ethical right to be only in so far as, by their existence, they promote the welfare of their citizens, but, for this very reason, it is necessary that the State, whatever the origin or form of the governmental organization, should possess the power in all cases of need to subordinate private rights to public necessities. Thus every State has the power to exact in the form of taxes contributions from its citizens for its support. It has the power to compel them to serve in its armies, and to lay down their lives that its life, or its real or imagined interests may be protected. It may take private property for a public use, without the consent of its owner. It may declare what shall constitute a crime, and affix and enforce penalties for its commission. It may decline to enforce contracts which it may deem contrary to public policy, and even penalize the entering into of them. It may control all so-called public employments, and fix the rule for services and commodities which they may charge; and, since the decision of the famous case of Munn v. Illinois3 our courts hold that the State may exercise a similar oversight over all industries which become for any reason "affected with a public interest." Finally, and without reference to whether or not an employment is public, or affected with a public interest, the State may see to it that the individual in the use of his freedom of action, of contract, or of property, does not unduly prejudice the interests of others or society at large. This last comprehensive authority is denominated the Police Power.

3 94 U. S. 113; 24 L. ed. 77.

In a general, and yet essentially correct sense, all of the legal control exercised by a State over persons and property, whatever form it may take, is an exercise of the State's Police Power. In American constitutional law, however, characterized as it is by the existence of written constitutional limitations upon the legal powers of governmental organs, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, the phrase Police Power is ordinarily limited in its ap-plication to the general power which the State, in cases of need, may employ without reference to the ordinary private rights of person and property of the individual.