1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 431 
“This is purely a question of legislative power under the fundamen- 
tal law. It is needless to say that the court has no concern with the 
wisdom or expediency of the enactment to accomplish the ends indi- 
cated by the title. The police of this government from its foundation 
certainly vindicates the political necessity and economy of stringent 
laws circumscribing the sale of spirituous liquors. 
‘“‘T entertain no doubt of the constitutional competency of the state 
legislature to prohibit entirely the commerce within the state in liquors 
as a beverage by laws prospective in their operation..... The 
police power is of necessity despotic in its character commensurate 
with the sovereignty of the state, and individual rights of property be- 
yond the express constitutional limits must yield to its exercise, and in 
emergencies it may be exercised to the destruction of property without 
compensation to the ownerand without the formality of a legal investiga- 
tion... . . 1 knowof no limits to the exercise of the police power vested in 
the legislature except the restrictions contained in the written constitution. 
.... The grant of power in that instrument is generally of all the 
legislative power of the state; what this expressly is cannot well be 
defined.” 
He finds in the legislature all the power of that nature in the state 
subject to the restrictions in the bill of rights, and affirms that 
-there is no right in the courts to set any higher-law limits. He 
finds the law under consideration bad, as acting upon existing prop- 
erty rights and not merely a regulation governing future transac- 
tions. He finds that due process of law means by a judicial pro- 
ceeding, and that the statute in declaring all liquors held for use 
as beverages a nuisance and subjecting them to forfeiture as a de- 
privation without due process of law and is a despotic act, inas- 
much as the liquor is not, fer se, a nuisance. 
This, together with the abolishing of all right of sale within the 
state, makes it, in his opinion, an act of confiscation. He also 
holds the law bad as denying a regular jury of twelve men, which 
he holds to be guaranteed to every man charged with an offense for 
which he may be deprived of his liberty. Two of the judges, how- 
ever, thought the law was valid. 
This law has been given as an extreme instance of severe legislation 
prevalent at that time and the strongest upholding of constitu- 
tional property rights which is any longer cited with any approval, 
and this case is generally disapproved. The decisions of about 
the same time upholding such laws of other states not quite so strin- 
gent in their terms do not generally show much regard for any 
