It must not be understood, however, that whatever is enacted by the legislative department is a part of the law of the land in such sense that compliance therewith necessarily constitutes the due process of law which is guaranteed in the constitution. The law-making power may modify the common law, may repeal its rules as applicable to a particular subject and substitute other rules, or it may add to the common law such rules as to personal and property rights not recognized in the common law as it sees fit, but it cannot in so doing override the general restrictions found in the common law for the protection of personal and property rights, nor deprive the individual of beneficial remedies for the maintenance of such rights and for securing redress for their breach. The language of Webster in his argument in the Dartmouth College Case has frequently been quoted as a sound exposition of the true principle to be borne in mind in determining whether statutory provisions are open to the objection that they deprive a person of his property without due process of law: " By the law of the land is most clearly intended the general law; a law which hears before it condemns, which proceeds upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after trial. The meaning is, that every citizen shall hold his life, liberty, property, and immunities under the protection of the general rules which govern society. Everything which may pass under the form of an enactment is not, therefore, to be considered the law of the land. If this were so, acts of attainder, bills of pains and penalties, acts of confiscation, acts reversing judgments, and acts directly transferring one man's estate to another, legislative judgments, decrees, and forfeitures, in all possible forms, would be the law of the land. Such a strange construction would render constitutional provisions of the highest importance completely inoperative and void. It would tend directly to establish the union of all powers in the legislature. There would be no general permanent law for courts to administer or for men to live under. The administration of justice would be an empty form and idle ceremony. Judges would sit to execute legislative judgments and decrees, not to declare the law or to administer the justice of the country." Methods of procedure in courts may be changed, new rights may be given, privileges not essential to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property or which are not inconsistent with the general public welfare may be taken away, but the substantial protection afforded by common-law rules of procedure for the administration of justice cannot be abrogated.