Much of the court's opinion pertains to the history of warrants, and the constitutional interest in preventing warrants that are too broad in scope. Justice Stewart felt it would be a “needless exercise in pedantry to review again the detailed history of the use of general warrants as instruments of oppression from the time of the Tudors, through the Star Chamber, the Long Parliament, the Restoration, and beyond.” Nevertheless, the Court's discussion of this history comprises more than half of the unquoted text of the opinion.