Samuel Freeman Miller

The value of a decision as a precedent is very much enhanced by the care with which it has been considered, and if the opinion itself shows that other decisions of the same court, or of other courts upon the same point, have been reviewed and examined, it adds to the value of the decision made on each consideration.

A constitution, in the American sense of the word, is a written instrument by which the fundamental powers of the government are established, limited, and defined, and by which these powers are distributed among several departments, for their more safe and useful exercise, for the benefit of the body politic.