My Mama's Mustache & Other Inherited Stuff  

What was I being convicted of by the "family system?"

"In the early years of the United States the terms law of the land and due process were used somewhat interchangeably. The 1776 Constitution of Maryland, for example, used the language of Magna Carta, including the law of the land phrase.^[16] In New York, a statutory bill of rights was enacted in 1787, and it contained four different due process clauses.^[17] Alexander Hamilton commented on the language of that New York bill of rights: "The words 'due process' have a precise technical import...."^[18]

New York was the only state that asked Congress to add "due process" language to the U.S. Constitution. New York ratified the U.S. Constitution and proposed the following amendment in 1788: "[N]o Person ought to be taken imprisoned or disseised of his freehold, or be exiled or deprived of his Privileges, Franchises, Life, Liberty or Property but by due process of Law."^[19]

In response to this proposal from New York, James Madison drafted a Due Process Clause for Congress.^[20] Madison cut out some language, and inserted the word without, which had not been proposed by New York. Congress then adopted the exact wording that Madison proposed, after Madison explained that the Due Process Clause would not be sufficient to protect various other rights:

Although I know whenever the great rights, the trial by jury, freedom of the press, or liberty of conscience, come in question in that body [Parliament], the invasion of them is resisted by able advocates, yet their Magna Charta does not contain any one provision for the security of those rights, respecting which the people of America are most alarmed.^[20]