John Catron

“ Is it not a rule in equity, that where the party to a contract not only neglects to perform it, but, by his conduct, evinces a determination not to perform it, that the opposite party is at liberty to put an end to it; and that where the purchaser neglects for an unreasonable length of time, although often requested, to pay the purchase-money, and in the mean time, as in the present-case, the land has increased in value tenfold, that a court of equity will not interpose in his behalf, by compelling the specific execution of the contract? ”

“ We must meet the question, whether Congress had the power to declare that a citizen of a State, carrying with him his equal rights, secured to him through his State, could be stripped of his goods and slaves, and be deprived of any participation in the common property? If this be the true meaning of the Constitution, equality of rights to enjoy a common country ( equal to a thousand miles square) may be cut off by a geographical line, and a great portion of our citizens excluded from it. ”

“ Goddard could not have supposed that the language of the plaintiffs was adopted simply to express an opinion founded on such a miserable basis as they now allege. Are not men to be held responsible for such reckless and wanton disregard of the rights of others as is shown in this case, even when considered in the most favorable aspect for the plaintiffs?
Where the legitimate consequence of a positive assertion, false in fact, is to cause an injury to an innocent party, every principle of morality and every rule of law, forbids its being made with impunity. ”

“ Half the personal quarrels between seamen in the coasting trade and our vast shore fisheries, and timber-men on rafts, and gundalo men, and men in flat boats, workmen in the seacoast marshes, and half the injuries to their property, are where the tide ebbs and flows in our rivers, creeks, and ports, though not on the high seas. But they never were thought to be cases of admiralty jurisdiction when damages are claimed,-much less when prosecuted for crimes; never in creeks, though the tide ebbs and flows there through half of our seaboard towns,-never in rivers. ”

“ In Kentucky, slaves are real property for some purpose, and personal for others. The common law has not been the woman's friend. Society has placed her in a higher position than the law. Under a flattering pretence of unity between husband and wife, the woman has been considered as annihilated, stripped of her property, and in widowhood, allowed only a scanty pittance of the very property which she may have brought. This law of Mississippi is a wise and just law, and we hope it will receive such a construction as will carry out the benign intentions of the legislature. ”

“ Now if there be aught essentially characteristic of religious liberty, it is the exemption of ecclesiastical discipline (defined by the learned Hooker, 'church order,') from secular control; and this, because the external forms and practices of religion are all that temporal power can directly invade. Faith, doctrine, are beyond its reach; objects of the understanding and the heart. Discipline is the sensible law which regulates the manifestation of our belief or opinion, in our public and social devotional intercourse with our Creator. Faith is the soul of religion ”

“ If it be said, as it has often been said, that the government can waive any such forfeiture, I am free to admit that the United States are competent to waive any advantage which they might claim under such enactments, but I deny, that the claimant, having neglected to comply with the terms of a law, and being thus barred, 'at law and in equity,' can, as against an individual citizen, be restored to any right of action by any act of the United States. ”

“ He who buys an imperfect title pays a proportionate price for it. He has no right to look to his vendor to complete it. He takes it for what it is worth; no more. I admit that the same rule of relation applies to sheriff's deeds, and to others acting in a fiduciary or executive capacity, where the title to the property has passed by the sale, and the deed is a mere formal execution of the power. In some states, Maryland for instance, the deed from the sheriff is not necessary, nor is it in cases of chancery sales ”

“ A claimant, disappointed in obtaining a patent himself, and his adversary having got it, forthwith brings an action of ejectment, and transfers the question to a jury, and reopens it again, with a view of having the patent annulled, in a forum where no issue can be made upon it, nor parties in interest brought before the court. I say again, the whole thing is absurd. If a patent is to be impeached or annulled, it can only be done by a direct proceeding in chancery for that purpose, and where all parties in interest can be brought, and their respective rights ascertained and protected. ”

“ Has the constitution of Ohio withheld from the legislature the authority to grant, by contract with individuals, the sovereign power; and are we bound to hold her constitution to mean as her Supreme Court has construed it to mean? If the decisions in Ohio have settled the question in the affirmative that the sovereign political power is not the subject of an irrepealable contract, then few will be so bold as to deny that it is our duty to conform to the construction they have settled ”

“ It being a well-settled principle that the power of a State to levy taxes, to create a revenue for any specified object, is an incident of sovereignty, and only restricted by constitutional inhibitions; and there being no such constitutional prohibition the sense of honor, justice, and equity, of a State alone defining the limits within which that power shall be exercised-what feature of the law in question can be said to exceed the authority of the State? ”

“ At New Orleans, and at most other places fronting rivers where the tide ebbs and flows, as well as on the ocean and great lakes, navigation is facilitated by similar means; without their employment few city fronts could be formed, at all accommodated to navigation and trade. To this end private ownership is indispensable and universal; and some one must make title. If the United States have no power to do so, who has? I repeat, can Alabama grant the soil? She disavowed all claim and title to and in it, as a condition on which Congress admitted her into the union. ”

“ If Desgrange could overthrow his marriage with Zulime by confessions, at one time, so he could at any other time; and on this assumption, his confession of a previous marriage could have been admitted at any time before the trial, or at the trial, when he stood by, and might be examined as a witness.
The great basis of human society throughout the civilized world is founded on marriages and legitimate offspring; and to hold that either of the parties could, by a mere declaration, establish the fact that a marriage was void, would be an alarming doctrine. ”

“ Justice Kent, I will now conclude, taking to myself no little shame for the great length and the too immethodical character of the observations I have made on this case,-a case, I confess, that has greatly interested me, because of the shameful delays that have been produced by the London Aspens,-a case, too, in which no legal alchemy, even, could extract a scintilla of evidence of right on their part! 'Every person is bound,' says Judge Kent, 'to take care of his own rights, and to vindicate them in due season, and in proper order. ”

“ He who purchases unsound property, with knowledge of the unsoundness at the time cannot maintain an action. So if one compounds a debt, or makes any other contract, with a full knowledge of all the facts, acting at arm's length upon his judgment, and fails to guard against loss; he must abide the consequences. Neither fraud nor mistake can be imputed to such an agreement.
The inequality alone in his various compositions with his creditors, (all the other circumstances of fraud being out of the question,) is a fraud, per se, both at law and equity ”

“ This is the conveyance under which alone the plaintiffs can claim title. They may accept of it or not, as they please, but they cannot make it any thing that it is not.
Out of the statute, if they choose to go out of it for a title, they have nothing on which ejectment can be sustained,-they have no title.
It matters not how strong or how weak may be their right to claim a grant of the very land from the United States. They have got no such grant, and without it they can maintain no action. They are left to their humble petition and remonstrance. ”

“ If Sarah, the mother, Richard, the brother, and Eliza, the sister, were the slaves of Kirby at his death, and acquired their freedom under his will, does this circumstance furnish evidence from which a jury might infer, in connection with other evidence, that the petitioner was also the slave of Kirby when he died, and entitled to her freedom on arriving at thirty years of age? It is immaterial whether the evidence offered and rejected was weak or strong to prove the fact. ”

“ Possession of itself is, in the nature of men and things, an indiceum of ownership. If all persons acquiesce in the possession, the acquiescence tends to prove property in the possessor; and after the lapse of thirty years the probabilities so increase, that courts of justice, for the safety of society, hold an adverse claim to be without foundation. He who thirty years ago may have been abundantly able to show regularity of proceedings and evidence of ownership, may be unable to do so now. ”

“ But when courts of law go behind conflicting patents, and contest the equities on which they are founded, it has never been held that the patent aided the equitable title; it must come in support of the grant, and stand on its own merits. So in this case; the plaintiff admits her grant, of itself, is insufficient to authorize a recovery, and that she must go behind it;-and there she is met by the objection, that her claim had no standing in a court of equity or of law, up to the date of its confirmation, and depended on the political power. ”

“ Congress cannot do indirectly what the Constitution prohibits directly. If the slaveholder is prohibited from going to the Territory with his slaves, who are parts of his family in name and in fact, it will follow that men owning lawful property in their own States, carrying with them the equality of their State to enjoy the common property, may be told, you cannot come here with your slaves, and he will be held out at the border. ”

“ Thus Catholic charity ceases not with the last and offices rendered to these fainting frames. When eyes that beamed on us with kindness are closed for ever, when the intellectual light that blazed about and guided us is darkened, when the hearts that loved and trusted us are cold and stil, then are we stimulated to new demonstrations of affection, by the very agony of our bereavement. ”

“ The great rule of all contracts, from the most humble parol one to treaties, is the intent of the parties. Look at the injustice and inconsistency which would be charged to Virginia. But suppose I am wrong in all this, and the Cherokees were alone excepted; commissioners were appointed at that or the previous session, by Virginia, to purchase this very land. What was the object of Virginia? to protect the Cherokees as such? for their personal benefit? or to describe a tract of country to be free from Treasury warrant? ”

“ No laws of relief would be more effectual in times of pressure by foreign creditors; nor more likely to be adopted. If one state adopted such a measure, it would fornish a fair occasion for others to do the same, on the plausible pretext of self-defence; others would be forced into a similar bad policy, until discredit and ruin would overspread the entire land, by an extinction of all debts; and a consequent prostration of morals, public and private, on the subject of contracts. This evil had to a certain extent occurred, and was fresh in the minds of the framers of the Constitution ”

“ Above the ebb and flow of the tide, no river of England is navigable at all. In inquiring into the definition of navigable streams in that country, therefore, it was found that they were correctly described to be those in which the tide ebbed and flowed. But navigability is the principal thing; the flowing of the tide is a mere incident. When, therefore, we find that there are navigable waters in America, or elsewhere, not flowed by the tide, we seek other definitions of navigable water, the flowing of the tide being no longer a test. ”

“ It is when thus confined to that great highway and its concerns, that admiralty law deserves the just tribute sometimes paid to it of expansive wisdom and elevated equity. [1] , [2] Then only there is an excellence in such regulations as to navigation over those for rights and duties on land; the last being often more for a single people, and their limited territory, while the former are on most matters more expanded, more liberal,-the gathered wisdom of and for all maritime ages and nations. They are also what has been approved by all rather than a few, and for the territory of all in common. ”

“ If a writ of error is a mere mode of removing the record, and if the mode of removal is form and not substance; if it gives no jurisdiction to the court, but is a mere instrument to facilitate the exercise of the appellate power, then we contend that any defect in the writ itself, or any irregularity in issuing it, is immaterial. ”

“ Nor do we doubt the power of the states to pass laws authorizing purchasers of lands from the United States, to prosecute actions of ejectment, upon certificates of purchase, against trespassers on the lands purchased; but we deny that the states have any power to declare certificates of purchase of equal dignity with a patent. Congress alone can give them such effect. ”

“ The evidence of a legal United States survey is not a mere plat, without any written description of the land by metes and bounds; neither the plat, nor less proof than a written description, will make a record on which a patent can issue. ”

“ At common law the fee in lands by a fieri facias is not subject to sale; the sheriff's authority to sell in this country is in the nature of a naked power conferred by statute; he takes no title in the land by the levy, as he does in goods, and can confer none on the purchaser, if power to sell is wanting. We admit if the words of a law are doubtful, the sale should be supported, and the benefit of any obscurity in the statute be given to the purchaser, lest he should be misled in cases where a general power is given to the sheriff to sell, and this is limited by indefinite restrictions ”

“ It is as if the plaintiff had said to defendant, 'We know all about the pecuniary circumstances and credit of West & Daby; they are well worthy of credit, and good for what they wish to purchase.'
The plaintiffs did not undertake to assert a mere opinion, but they stated a fact as of their own knowledge. That statement was grossly untrue.
It is as false and fraudulent to state positively as true, as a fact, what one knows nothing about, as what one knows to be false. ”

“ Lucas, 12 Pet., 454: 'That a grant may be made by a law as well as a patent pursuant to a law, is undoubted, and a confirmation by a law is as fully, to all intents and purposes, a grant, as if it contained, in terms, a grant de novo.' And as, according to the laws of Missouri, an action of ejectment could be prosecuted on Chouteau's title, by force of the confirmation, the construction of the acts of Congress, under which the respective parties claim, will decide the controversy. ”

“ The courts in Mississippi say that the right of the husband is perfect without reducing them into possession. How can property in possession be a chose in action? Sessions had these slaves in possession, and has them now. He undoubtedly had a life-estate in them. The case is badly brought up, because the verdict of the jury includes both land and slaves. In Mississippi property taken in execution may be replevied, but this will not apply to land. The statute only meant to put a wife's personal property in the same condition where the common law places her real estate. ”

“ Now, it is unnecessary to advert particularly to the New York statutes of limitation; they have been read to the court. It may be as well, however, to remark, that the statutes of limitation in their terms apply only to suits at law, and that equity, by analogy, extends their provisions to suits in chancery. That these statutes prescribe different terms of limitation to suits of different characters, one period is fixed as a bar to an account, another to an ejectment, &c. There is no one applicable to each and every of the claims of complainant. ”

“ In the case of an actual and perfect patent, there is no remedy but to set it aside in a court of equity, or in some direct proceeding having that for its direct end and object. It cannot be done in the ordinary progress of a trial at law, on evidence which the party had no means to know would be relied on, and therefore could not be prepared to meet. In other words, you cannot go behind a patent in a trial at law. The patent alone must prevail. ”

“ Will you put it into the power of parties to possess themselves of the public domain or the public money under grants which they themselves have shaped so as to make them unintelligible? That would be throwing the door wide open to the most dangerous and most demoralizing species of fraud. ”

“ What Congress may not forbid Massachusetts to do, it may not forbid Louisiana to do. If Congress may not extend over Massachusetts the provisions of the ordinance of 1787, or any portions thereof, neither can it over Louisiana, or retain them there after Louisiana became Massachusetts's equal, and had the power to decide for herself. If they are retained there they derive their exclusive obligation and force from Louisiana's adoption, and not from the authority of Congress. They have thus become laws of Louisiana, and have ceased to be laws of the United States. ”

“ The question now is, is the plea in bar sufficient, assuming its averments to be proved. We do not come here to dispute any general principle as to the conclusiveness of competent foreign judgments. It is a doctrine, in its general application, of 'repose,' and hence of high morality. It is not technical, as distinguished from reasonable. On the other hand, its application is sometimes exquisitely technical. A decree in chancery, dismissing a bill 'for want of evidence,' is a bar. A decree dismissing a bill 'for want of prosecution,' is no bar. ”

“ Admitting, then, as we must, that the doctrine I have laid down as to torts was the established law in England at our Revolution, and was not a mere technical doctrine, but rested on great principles, dear to the subject and his rights and liberties, should it not be considered as the guide here, except where altered, if at all, by our colonial laws or constitutions, or acts of Congress, or analogies which are binding, or something in it entirely unsuitable to our condition? The best authorities require that it should be. ”

“ Whenever the holder of a legal title encourages a purchaser to deal with another for his estate, or invests another person with the means of imposing upon others as the true owner, or is silent when a purchaser is dealing with another for his estate, a court of equity will never allow him afterwards to assert that legal title against the purchaser.
In a court of equity, when the conscience of the party is not affected, the holding of the legal title is every thing. A satisfied mortgage, an outstanding term, a deed surreptitiously obtained, are equally available ”