Horace Harmon Lurton

“ It has been urged that the tax is not imposed as a license upon the doing of business, but is laid upon the goods produced, and is therefore arbitrary and discriminatory as one not imposed upon all other like kinds of liquor, whether produced in or out of the state. This contention, if good, would only carry the case back to the underlying objection that the classification is arbitrary and unreasonable, and therefore void, as denying the equal protection of the law,-a question which at last must be answered, whether the tax be an occupation or a property tax. ”

“ If the only constitutional right secured is the right to a trial by jury in the district where the crime was committed, there is obviously no invasion of either right by the election of the government to prosecute the offense in any district and 'court of the United States as by law has cognizance of the offense.' If the same accusation has been made by grand juries of different jurisdictions, it would be manifestly the duty of the prosecuting officer of the United States to determine in which the offense was most probably committed, and bring the offender to trial there. ”

“ The power of government extends to the denial of liberty of contract to the extent of forbidding or regulating every contract which is reasonably calculated to injuriously affect the public interests. Undoubtedly the United States is a government of limited and delegated powers, but in respect of those powers which have been expressly delegated, the power to regulate commerce between the states being one of them, the power is absolute, except as limited by other provisions of the Constitution itself. ”

“ The conflict created between duty and interest is utterly vicious, unspeakably pernicious, and an unmixed evil. Justice, morality, and public policy unite in condemning such contracts, and no court will tolerate any suit for their enforcement.'
'Any profit made by an agent in the execution of his agency must be accounted for to the principal, who may claim it as a debt for money received to his use. ”

“ But could it be said that the doctrine of contributory infringement operates to extend the monopoly of the patent over subjects not within it because one subjects himself to the penalties of the law when he sells unpatented things for an infringing use? If a patentee says, 'I may suppress my patent if I will. I may make and have made devices under my patent, but I will neither sell nor permit anyone to use the patented things,' he is within his right, and none can complain. ”

“ There is not the slightest suggestion that the new corporation shall not succeed to the contracts and obligations of the old corporation. Laying out of view any question of the constitutional guaranty against impairment of the obligation of contracts, there is, in the absence of express legislative declaration of a contrary purpose, no reason for supposing that the reincorporation of an old municipality is intended to permit an escape from the obligations of the old, to whose property and rights it has succeeded. ”

“ Due process implies a tribunal both impartial and mentally competent to afford a hearing. But to say that due process is denied when a competent state court refuses to set aside the verdict of a jury because the sanity of one of its members was established by only a preponderance of evidence would be to enforce an exaction unknown to the precedents of the past, and an interference with the discretion and power of the state not justified by the demands of justice, nor recognized by any definition of due process. ”

“ The imposition of absolute liability upon the community when property is destroyed through the violence of a mob is not, therefore, an unusual police regulation. Neither is it arbitrary, as not resting upon reasonable grounds of policy. Such a regulation has a tendency to deter the lawless, since the sufferer must be compensated by a tax burden which will fall upon all property, including that of the evil doers as members of the community. ”

“ The constitutional limitation upon the power of eminent domain possessed by the United States is that 'private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.' The 'just compensation' thus guaranteed obviously requires that the recompense to the owner for the loss caused to him by the taking of a part of a parcel, or single tract of land, shall be measured by the loss resulting to him from the appropriation. ”

“ The constitutional provision concerning the admission of new states is not a mandate, but a power to be exercised with discretion. From this alone it would follow that Congress may require, under penalty of denying admission, that the organic law of a new state at the time of admission shall be such as to meet its approval. A Constitution thus supervised by Congress would, after all, be a Constitution of a state, and as such subject to alteration and amendment by the state after admission. Its force would be that of a state Constitution, and not that of an act of Congress. ”

“ While there are resemblances between the right of the author to 'vend' his copyrighted production, and of the patentee to 'vend' the patented thing, the inherent difference between the production of an author, be it a book, music, or a picture, and that of an inventor, be it a machine, a process, or an article, is so manifest that the exclusive right of one to multiply and sell was declared sufficient to give him that exclusive right to his writings purposed by the Constitution. ”

“ Assuming, as we have, for it has not been challenged, that this statistical side of the Department of Agriculture is the exercise of a function within the purview of the Constitution, it must follow that any conspiracy which is calculated to obstruct or impair its efficiency and destroy the value of its operations and reports as fair, impartial, and reasonably accurate, would be to defraud the United States by depriving it of its lawful right and duty of promulgating or diffusing the information so officially acquired in the way and at the time required by law or departmental regulation. ”

“ If the changing or repealing statute leaves the parties a substantial remedy, the legislation does not exceed its authority. Rights and remedies shade one into the other so that it is sometimes difficult to say that a particular act creates a right or merely gives a remedy. So, also, a statute, under the form of taking away or changing a particular remedy, may take away an existing property right, or impair the obligation of a contract. ”

“ The city does not therefore object to valuing the supply station and mains extending to the city, as within the contemplated purchase. But it is said that the authority is limited to a distributing system wholly within the corporate limits. That the primary purpose was to supply the people of Omaha with water for public and private purposes is clear. But does that forbid that those who live outside may not be also supplied from the main plant, and, if necessary, by such extensions, not inconsistent with the primary object, as may prove desirable as suburbs grow up around the city? ”

“ There is no reason for declaring the trust invalid. There is no higher duty which rests upon a court than to carry out the intentions of a testator when the provision is not repugnant to settled principles of public policy and is otherwise valid. ”

“ First, by the positive legislation of the Philippine Codes, civil and criminal, a distinction is drawn between a civil liability which results from the mere negligence of the defendant and a liability for the civil consequences of a crime by which another has sustained loss or injury. ”

“ It is not enough for one occupying a confidential relation to another, who is shown to have secretly received a benefit from the opposite party, to say, 'You cannot show any fraud, or you cannot show that you have sustained any loss by my conduct.' Such an agent has the power to conceal his fraud and hide the injury done his principal. It would be a dangerous precedent to lay down as law that unless some affirmative fraud or loss can be shown, the agent may hold on to any secret benefit he may be able to make out of his agency. ”

“ If you are obliged to use the services of independent carriers in the continuance of the transit, you must use them as your own agents, and not as agents of the shipper.' It is therefore not the case of making one pay the debt of another. The receiving carrier is, as principal, liable not only for its own negligence, but for that of any agency it may use, although, as between themselves, the company actually causing the loss may be primarily liable. ”

“ To justify the exercise of such a power it is only necessary that it shall appear that the means are reasonably adapted to conserve the general public interest, and are not an arbitrary interference with private rights of contract or property. ”

“ That the grant is made upon the reasonable expectation that he will either put his invention to practical use, or permit others to avail themselves of it upon reasonable terms, is doubtless true. This expectation is based alone upon the supposition that the patentee's interest will induce him to use, or let others use, his invention. The public has retained no other security to enforce such expectations. A suppression can endure but for the life of the patent, and the disclosure he has made will enable all to enjoy the fruit of his genius. ”

“ I am unable to agree to the judgment of the court. I regret that time does not serve to give adequate expression to my views or to consider opposing ones. Some of the elements of dissent I can only hastily give. The question of the interpretation of a statute is, however, seldom in broad compass. The purpose is to get at the meaning of the words, and fortunately there are wellknown rules to assist the process. The first of these is the motive of the law. Whatever construction advances that carries a presumption of truth. ”

“ As already hinted, this was not a board of arbitrators. An arbitration implies a difference, a dispute, and involves ordinarily a hearing and all thereby implied. The right to notice of hearings, to produce evidence and cross-examine that produced, is implied when the matter to be decided is one of dispute and difference. But when, as here, the parties had agreed that one should sell and the other buy a specific thing, and the price should be a valuation fixed by persons agreed upon, it cannot be said that there was any dispute or difference. ”

“ The argument that Congress derives from the duty of 'guaranteeing to each state in this Union a republican form of government,' power to impose restrictions upon a new state which deprive it of equality with other members of the Union, has no merit. ”

“ When the essential elements of a court having jurisdiction in which an opportunity for a hearing is afforded are present, the power of a state over its methods of procedure is substantially unrestricted by the due process clause of the Constitution. ”