George Shiras, Jr.

“ There could be nothing else but this distinct grade of crime known as murder, because self-defense, as I have before defined to you, contemplates the doing of something upon the part of the one slain, or the ones acting with him, that was either actually and really so apparently of a deadly character, or which threatened great violence to the person, or that which seemed to do so. ”

“ At the same time it must not be forgotten that the right of private contract is no small part of the liberty of the citizen, and that the usual and most important function of courts of justice is rather to maintain and enforce contracts than to enable parties thereto to escape from their obligation on the pretext of public policy, unless it clearly appear that they contravene public right or the public welfare. ”

“ Can anything be conceived which more thoroughly destroys the sacredness of contract obligations? One holding a mortgage debt upon a railroad has the same right to demand and expect of the court respect for his vested and contracted priority as the holder of a mortgage on a farm or lot. So, when a court appoints a receiver of railroad property, it has no right to make that receivership conditional on the payment of other than those few unsecured claims which, by the rulings of this court, have been declared to have an equitable priority. ”

“ Whether, under the constitutional provisions of the United States and of the several states, which declare that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, it is necessary that property should be absolutely taken, in the narrowest sense of that word, to bring the case within the protection of the provision, is a question that has often arisen, and upon which there has not been entire uniformity of decision. ”

“ By refraining from action, congress, in effect, adopts as its own regulations those which the common law, or the civil law where that prevails, has provided for the government of each business, and those which the states, in the regulation of their domestic concerns, have established affecting commerce, but not regulating it, within the meaning of the constitution. In fact, congressional legislation is only necessary to cure defects in existing laws, as they are discovered, and to adapt such laws to new developments of trade. ”

“ We do not understand this law to require the owner of a warehouse, built and used by him only to store his own grain, to receive and store the grain of others. Such a duty only arises when he chooses to enter upon the business of elevating and storing the grain of other persons for profit. Then he becomes subject to the statutory regulations, and he cannot escape them by asserting that he also elevates and stores his own grain in the same warehouse. ”

“ In the absence of a bill of exceptions disclosing, at least, the substance of the evidence, and of an assignment of error, we are permitted to suppose that the evidence was trivial, and that it did no injury to the defendant. ”

“ On principle, a point not in litigation in one action cannot be received as conclusively settled in any subsequent action upon a different cause, because it might have been determined in the first action. ”

“ The power of taxation has always been regarded as a necessary and indispensable incident of sovereignty. A government that cannot, by self-administered methods, collect from its subjects the means necessary to support and maintain itself in the execution of its functions, is a government merely in name. ”

“ It must, under our Constitution, be lawfully done. But that does not mean, nor does the phrase 'due process of law' mean, by a judicial proceeding. The nation from whom we inherit the phrase 'due process of law' has never relied upon the courts of justice for the collection of her taxes, though she passed through a successful revolution in resistance to unlawful taxation. We need not here go into the literature of that constitutional provision, because in any view that can be taken of it the statute under consideration does not violate it. ”

“ If they are satisfied from the law and the testimony that the deceased was not doing anything that amounted to a deadly attack, or there is no question in their minds as to what the attitude of the deceased was, previous threats cannot be considered by them; they cannot enter into their consideration of the case by the way of justifying any act that resulted in the death of Charles Hermes from the act of defendant; they cannot be considered, I say, because you cannot kill a man because of previous threats. You cannot weigh in the balance a human life against a threat. ”

“ When, then, the Constitution declares the jurisdiction, in cases where a state shall be a party, to be original, and in all cases arsing under the Constitution or a law to be appellate, the conclusion seems irresistible that its framers designed to include in the first class those cases in which jurisdiction is given because a state is a party ”

“ Nor, as we have already seen, is it for us to say that the court of appeals of Kentucky erred in so construing that enactment as to forbid a railroad company from justifying a voluntary disregard of its command by claiming that competition between its road and other modes of transportation created substantially dissimilar circumstances and conditions.
It does not call for argument that railroad companies are incorporated to perform a public service, and that it is for the state to define their powers and to control their exercise of such powers. ”

“ Can it be possible that, after congress, in recognition of the constitutional provision and of the repeated suggestions of this court, has provided a legal remedy, a subordinate legal functionary can by a plea, either of matter of fact or of law, defeat the beneficient purpose of congress, deprive the plaintiff of his remedy, and convert the United States, against their will, as expressed in the constitution and the act of congress, into a wrongdoer? ”

“ Indeed, we think that the reasons which disqualify a national bank from investing its money in the stock of another corporation are quite as obvious when that other corporation is a national bank as in the case of other corporation. The investment by national banks of their surplus funds in other national banks, situated, perhaps, in distant states, as in the present case, is plainly against the meaning and policy of the statutes from which they derive their powers, and evil consequences would be certain to ensue if such a course of conduct were countenanced as lawful. ”

“ Where the patented invention consists of an improvement of machines previously existing, it is not always easy to point out what it is that distinguishes a new and successful machine from an old and ineffectual one. But when, in a class of machines so widely used as those in question, it is made to appear that at last, after repeated and futile attempts, a machine has been contrived which accomplishes the result desired, and when the patent office has granted a patent to the successful inventor, the courts should not be ready to adopt a narrow or astute construction, fatal to the grant. ”

“ It is impossible, we think, to read the charge, without perceiving that the leading thought in the mind of the learned judge was that evidence of good character could only be considered if the rest of the evidence created a doubt of defendant's guilt. ”

“ For, after all, what is an inheritance tax but a debt exacted by the state for protection afforded during the lifetime of the decedent? It is often impracticable to secure from living persons their fair share of contribution to maintain the administration of the state, and such laws seem intended to enable to secure payment from the estate of the citizen when his final account is settled with the state. Nor can it be readily supposed that such obligations can be evaded or defeated by the particular form in which the property of the decedent was invested. ”

“ The executive, in approving laws, is really acting as a part of the legislature, and the president and the legislature constantly decide many questions judicial in their character. The legislative and judicial branches of the government have the right to make appointments to many offices. Indeed, the power of appointment to office is not a function so intrinsically executive that it necessarily belongs to that department, although its nature is executive, whether it be exercised by a court or by the legislature or the president. ”

“ We are now asked to extend the doctrine of indisputable citizenship so that, if a corporation of one state, indisputably taken, for the purpose of federal jurisdiction, to be composed of citizens of such state, is authorized by the law of another state to do business therein, and to be endowed, for local purposes, with all the powers and privileges of a domestic corporation, such adopted corporation shall be deemed to be composed of citizens of the second state, in such a sense as to confer jurisdiction on the federal courts at the suit of a citizen of the state of its original creation. ”

“ Courts created by statute can have no jurisdiction but such as the statute confers. No one of them can asser a just claim to jurisdiction exclusively conferred on another, or withheld from all. The constitution has defined the limits of the judicial power of the United States, but has not prescribed how much of it shall be exercised by the circuit court. ”

“ As every one must be sensible what sudden impressions and unaccountable prejudices we are apt to conceive upon the bare looks and gestures of another, and how necessary it is that a prisoner (when put to defend his life) should have a good opinion of his jury, the want of which might totally disconcert him, the law wills not that he should be tried by any one man against whom he has conceived a prejudice, even without being able to assign a reason for such his dislike. ”

“ While we are to determine the legal import of these provisions according to their own terms, it may be well to briefly recall certain well-settled rules in this branch of the law. One is that if a party by his contract charge himself with an obligation possible to be performed, he must make it good, unless his performance is rendered impossible by the act of God, the law, or the other party. Difficulties, even if unforeseen, and however great, will not excuse him. If parties have made no provision for a dispensation, the rule of law gives none, nor, in such circumstances, can equity interpose. ”

“ We cannot infer delinquency on the part of Colburn when there is no more proof than is contained in this record that, by his abandonment of his trust, or by his negligence in the supervision of it, he had put it in the power of his cotrustee to prove faithless in his duty. Abandonment of discretionary power by a trustee to his cotrustee is a fact to be proved by him who alleges it, and so likewise is negligence in the supervision of a trust. ”

“ Unless you can point to some other law which defines what shall be held to be reasonable or unreasonable, it must be, and is, a mere question, not of law, but of fact.'
'The lord chancellor there points out that the mere circumstance that there is an advantage does not, of itself, show that it is an undue preference, within the meaning of the act, and, further, that whether there be such undue preference or advantage is a question of fact, and of fact alone. No rule is given to guide the court or the tribunal in the determination of cases or applications made under this second section. ”

“ If a recorded confession of every material everment of an indictment puts the confessor upon the country, the institution of jury trial and the legal effect and nature of a plea of guilty have been very imperfectly understood, not only by the authors of the constitution and their successors down to the present time, but also by all the generations of men who have lived under the common law. ”

“ There is abundant authority for the proposition that, while no man can be deprived of his property, even in the exercise of the right of eminent domain, unless he is compensated therefor, yet that the property holder, if cognizant of the facts, may, by permitting a railroad company, without objection, to take possession of land, construct its track, and operate its road, preclude himself from a remedy by an action of ejectment. ”

“ So far as the policy of the government in reference to national banks is concerned, it is indifferent how the states may choose to tax such corporations as those just mentioned, or the interest of individuals in them, or whether they should be taxed at all. Whether property interests in railroads, in manufacturing enterprises, in mining investments and others of that description are taxed or exempted from taxation, in the contemplation of the law, would have no effect upon the success of national banks. ”

“ It is not sufficient to say that the attorney general, or the governor, or even the legislature of the state, can be conclusively deemed to represent the public interests in such a controversy as that presented by the bill. Even a state, when she voluntarily becomes a complainant in a court of equity, cannot claim to represent both sides of the controversy. ”

“ A machine is a thing. A process is an act, or a mode of acting. The one is visible to the eye,-an object of perpetual observation. The other is a conception of the mind, seen only by its effects when being executed or performed. Either may be the means of producing a useful result. * * * Perhaps the process is susceptible of being applied in many modes, and by the use of many forms of apparatus. The inventor is not bound to describe them all in order to secure to himself the exclusive right to the process, if he is really its inventor or discoverer. ”

“ Percheman, 7 Pet. 51, 86, Chief Justice Marshall said:
'It may not be unworthy of remark that it is very unusual, even is cases of conquest, for the conqueror to do more than to displace the sovereign, and assume dominion over the country. The modern usage of nations, which has become law, would be violated; that sense of justice and of right which is acknowledged and felt by the whole civilized world would be outraged,-if private property should be generally confiscated, and private rights annulled. ”

“ The verdict of a jury is either general or special. A general verdict is that by which they pronounce generally upon all or any of the issues, either in favor of the plaintiff or defendant. A special verdict is that by which the jury finds the facts only. It must present the facts as established by the evidence, and not the evidence to prove them, and they must be so presented as that nothing remains to the court but to draw from them conclusions of law. ”

“ It is settled that allowing and signing a bill of exceptions is a judicial act, which can only be performed by the judge who sat at the trial. What took place at the trial, and is a proper subject of exception, can only be judicially known by the judge who has acted in that capacity. Such knowledge cannot be brought to a judge who did not participate in the trial or to a judge who has succeeded to a judge who did, by what purports to be a bill of exceptions, but which has not been signed and allowed by the trial judge. ”

“ The value of life and liberty, and of the social and family rights and privileges, cannot be measured by any pecuniary standard; and, by the general consent of civilized nations, income or the sources of income are almost universally made the basis upon which the ordinary taxes are estimated. This is upon the assumption, never wholly true in point of fact, but sufficiently near the truth for the practical operations of government, that the benefit received from the government is in proportion to the property held, or the revenue enjoyed under its protection ”

“ It is not the railroads themselves that are regulated by this act of the Illinois legislature so much as the charge for transportation; and if each one of the states through whose territories these goods are transported can fix its own rules for prices, for modes of transit, for times and modes of delivery, and all the other incidents of transportation to which the word 'regulation' can be applied, it is readily seen that the embarrassments upon interstate transportation, as an element of interstate commerce, might be too oppressive to be submitted to. ”