The next Chief Justice, while far from being of Marshall's
school, was not one to attempt to overthrow what he had done. In
Ableman _v._ Booth,[Footnote: 21 Howard's Reports, 506.] he
insisted on the supremacy of the courts of the United States over
those of the States with the utmost firmness, and defended the
doctrine on principle with force and ability. The Supreme Court,
however, under Taney, was not looked on with much favor by the
survivors of the old Federalists. "I do not," wrote Chancellor
Kent in 1845 to Justice Story, "regard their decisions (yours
always excepted) with much reverence, and for a number of the
associates I feel habitual scorn and contempt."[Footnote:
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2d Series,
XIV, 420.]

Our State constitutions generally guarantee the citizen against
deprivation of his rights without "due process of law" or "due
course of law." A similar provision was made for the United
States by the fifth amendment to their Constitution, and since
1868 the fourteenth amendment has established the same rule
inflexibly for every State. What is due process of law? It is
for the courts to say, and while they have cautiously refrained
from assuming to give any precise and exhaustive definition, they
have, in many instances, enforced the guaranty at the cost of
declaring some statute which they held incompatible with it to be
no law. They have also, and much more frequently, supported some
act of government claimed to contravene it, and which, according
to the ancient common law of England, would contravene it,
because in their opinion this ancient law had been outgrown.