In Bank of Columbia v. Okely (1819) 17 U.S. 235, the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking of the seventh amendment to the Federal constitution, said: "Had the terms been that 'the trial by jury shall be preserved,' it might have been contended that they were imperative, and could not be dispensed with. But the words are that 'the right of trial by jury shall be preserved,' which places it on the foot of a lex pro se introducto, and the benefit of it may therefore be relinquished." The Supreme Court said in reference to the 21st article of the Declaration of Rights of the State of Maryland: "No freeman ought to be taken or imprisoned, etc., or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land," that: "As to the words from Magna Charta, incorporated into the constitution of Maryland, after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at length settled down to this: that they were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private rights and distributive justice." "The provision (of Magna Charta) was designed to protect the citizen against all mere acts of power, whether flowing from the legislative or executive branches of the government." The principal and true meaning of the phrase has never been more tersely or accurately stated than by Mr. Justice Johnson, in Bank of Columbia v. Okely: "As to the words from Magna Charta, incorporated into the Constitution of Maryland, after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at last settled down to this: that they were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private right and distributive justice."