The sheriff and the governor. The militia. At ordinary times, local officers furnish all the force necessary to maintain order. If, however, they fail to do so, then the responsibility falls on the sheriff of the county. If the sheriff with his usual subordinates cannot cope with the disturbance, he may call on the citizens to help him.1 The Illinois statute provides that in any such time of disorder, the sheriff may compel as many persons as he thinks necessary to serve under his orders as deputy sheriffs. When, as has frequently happened in recent years, the sheriff cannot or will not keep order, the remedy is an appeal to the governor who, as commander-in-chief, has the right to call out the militia whenever necessary to execute the laws, as well as "to suppress insurrection and repel invasion." In theory, all able-bodied male citizens of the State between the ages of sixteen and forty-five years, are liable to military duty and are said to belong to the State militia. In time of danger, all such persons may be called into the service of the State or of the Union. Under ordinary circumstances, however, militia duty is performed by men who voluntarily enroll themselves. and receive training in the use of arms. Such volunteers are regularly organized on the model of the United States Army, and are known as the Illinois National Guard. The governor is commander-inchief, but he acts ordinarily through the adjutant general. The higher officers are appointed by the governor; other commissioned officers are elected, but the choice must be approved by him. There is a similar 1Hurd, Revised Statutes, ch. 125. Cf. Hare, American Constitutional Law, Lecture XLI. 2 Hurd, Revised Statutes, ch. 38, § 256h. organization of volunteers for naval service known as the Illinois Naval Reserve.1 Finally, if the civil and military power of the State Federal cannot enforce the law, the general assembly, or, when support. that is not in session, the governor may call upon the President of the United States. It is then the duty of the President to use the armed forces of the Union for the defense of the State government. Thus, although a few policemen may in most instances furnish all the force necessary to compel obedience, they have behind them, pledged to their support, if necessary, the full military power, not only of the State, but of the Union. 1 1 Constitution of Illinois, 1870, Art. V. § 14; Military and Naval Code of Illinois (Act approved May 14, 1903) in Hurd, Revised Statutes, ch. 129; ibid., ch. 38, § 256e-256n. 2 Constitution of the United States, Art. IV. § 4. ΙΟ The rules of law. CHAPTER XI THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 56. REFERENCES Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, chs. 10, 11; Black, Handbook of American Constitutional Law, §§ 134, 212-223, ch. 20; Hare, American Constitutional Law, especially Lecture 39; Holmes, The Common Law, especially Lectures 1-3; Robinson, Elements of American Jurisprudence; McKinney, Encyclopaedia of Pleading and Practice; Bispham, The Principles of Equity; Eaton, Handbook of Equity Jurisprudence, especially ch. 1; Bigelow, The Law of Torts; Puterbaugh, Common Law Pleading and Practice, especially chs. 1-3, 25, 30-37. Documents: Hurd, Revised Statutes, especially chs. 13, 22, 38, 78, 110, with notes on the same chapters and on the Constitution, Art. II., in Starr and Curtis, Annotated Statutes. 57. LAW AND EQUITY Since the State, in protecting the community, exercise great power over the liberty, the property, and even the lives of individuals, it is clearly necessary to make sure that this power shall be justly used. For this purpose the constitution has established the courts of law, charged with the duty of determining what the right and the law are in each individual case. In the doing of this important business, the judges are not free to choose their own methods, but are bound by elaborate and well-established rules which, though sometimes criticised as useless technicalities, really serve in the main the great purpose for which they were intended, namely, to do justice "decently and in order." mon law. The most important of these rules are those of the The comcommon law, made up of a great mass of legal customs and principles inherited by the American people from their English ancestors and applied by English courts for centuries before the founding of the American colonies. To a certain extent these principles of the common law have been formally stated in acts of parliament or congress or State legislatures. Many of them, however, are to be found, not in such acts of the law making body, but in the reported decisions of the courts. These decisions, in turn, have been constantly interpreting and applying to new conditions precedents set by many generations of judges on both sides of the Atlantic. The courts are bound also by acts of the law-making Statute body. Although this statute law often merely restates law. the principles of the common law, it has other and more important purposes. Since the judges are expected to apply, not the law as it ought to be, but the law as it is, the law-making body must make such changes and additions as are required to meet the needs of different times and places. In Illinois this statute law includes acts of Congress and acts of the General Assembly. Even the Federal and State constitutions may be included as fundamental statutes enacted by the highest law-making authority, the people themselves. Besides following the rules of the common and the Equity. statute law, the courts of Illinois are also governed in certain cases by what are known as the rules of "equity." To understand what is meant by "equity” in distinction from "law" we must again go far back into English history. It was then found that the rules of the common law as applied by the ordinary courts were sometimes too narrow, or too hard and fast, to Examples of equity proceedings. give justice. In such cases, men could go to a special courts. In It is difficult to explain in a few words, the character of the cases to which these principles of "equity" are now applied. In general, however, it may be said that there are certain kinds of title or right which the common law does not recognize and certain other rights for which it does not provide a satisfactory remedy or means of enforcement. The first principle is illustrated by the case of property held by trustees for religious or other purposes. Though the legal title is in the trustees, the rules of equity may be applied to prevent them from diverting the property to their private uses. The second principle may be illustrated by the use of injunctions. In some cases in which the ordinary common law proceedings would not promptly prevent a threatened injury, the rules of equity allow the issue of an injunction enjoining or forbidding such injurious action. Disobedience to such an injunction may then |