Joseph P. Bradley

“ No man ceases to be a citizen of the United States by being an officer under the State government. I cannot accede to the doctrine that the general government is to be regarded as in any sense foreign or antagonistic to the State governments, their officers, or people; nor can I agree that a presumption can be admitted that the general government will act in a manner hostile to the existence or functions of the State governments, which are constituent parts of the system or body politic forming the basis on which the general government is founded. ”

“ It is absurd to affirm that, because the rights of life, liberty, and property (which include all civil rights that men have) are by the amendment sought to be protected against invasion on the part of the state without due process of law, congress may, therefore, provide due process of law for their vindication in every case; and that, because the denial by a state to any persons of the equal protection of the laws is prohibited by the amendment, therefore congress may establish laws for their equal protection. ”

“ It should never be made to override the plain and manifest dictates of the Constitution itself. We cannot yield to such a transcendental view of state sovereignty. The Constitution and laws of the United States are the supreme law of the land, and to these every citizen of every State owes obedience, whether in his individual or official capacity. There are very few subjects, it is true, in which our system of government, complicated as it is, requires or gives room for conjoint action between the State and national sovereignties. ”

“ I hold, therefore, that the law of North Carolina, in allowing the jury to estimate the real value of the consideration in cases where it is impossible to get at the true value of the money named in the contract, is a most sensible and just law.
By what authority do we scale down the price named in the contract at all? Is it not on the ground that the value of the money named by the parties is not a true criterion of the value of the contract? When once we admit this, we make that money a mere commodity, and endeavor to find its true value. How, then, is its true value to be measured? ”

“ The bank is not considered as a private corporation, whose principal object is individual trade and individual profit, but as a public corporation, created for public and national purposes. That the mere business of banking is, in its own nature, a private business, and may be carried on by individuals or companies, having no political connection with the government, is admitted; but the bank is not such an individual or company. It was not created for its own sake, or for private purposes. It has never been supposed that Congress could create such a corporation. ”

“ Indeed, it is not easy to see, says Benedict, how any difference can exist in principle; if one is a ship or vessel, so is the other; if one is a maritime contract, so must be the other; and the same law and the same reason which give the rule in the one case give it in the other. In both it is for service, labor, materials, and supplies furnished, which, when used for the purpose, become a part of the vessel, and a lien attaches to her because the repairs and supplies were for her benefit, which is just as true of a domestic ship as of a foreign ship. ”

“ For example, although the Constitution declares only that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, and does not expressly declare that it shall not be taken for private use without compensation, or, in other words, does not declare that the property of one person shall not be taken from him and given to another without compensation, yet no one can reasonably doubt that a law which should do this would be unconstitutional, because the prohibition to do it is within the spirit of the prohibition that is given, it being the greater enormity of the two. ”

“ Now it is elementary knowledge that one cardinal rule of the court of chancery is never to decree a discovery which might tend to convict the party of a crime, or to forfeit his property. [6] And any compulsory discovery by extorting the party's oath, or compelling the production of his private books and papers, to convict him of crime, or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an Englishman; it is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. ”

“ It has frequently been laid down by this court that the power of congress over interstate commerce is as absolute as it is over foreign commerce. Would any one pretend that a state legislature could prohibit a foreign corporation-an English or a French transportation company, for example-from coming into its borders, and landing goods and passengers at its wharves, and soliciting goods and passengers for a return voyage, without first obtaining a license from some state officer, and filing a sworn statement as to the amount of its capital stock paid in? ”

“ If it were not for a rule of public policy against wagers, requiring insurance to be for indemnity merely, he could just as well take out insurance on another's property as on his own, and it is manifest that this would give him no interest in the property. He would have an interest in the event of its destruction or non-destruction, but no interest in the property. A man's interest in property insured is so distinct from the insurance that unless he has such an interest independent of the insurance his policy will be void. ”

“ In our judgment there is no solid distinction. If the State, as a consideration of the franchise, had stipulated that it should have all the passenger-money, and that the corporation should have only the freight for the transportation of merchandise, and the corporation had agreed to those terms, it would have been the same thing. It is simply the exercise by the State of absolute control over its own property and prerogatives.
The exercise of power on the part of a State is very dirferent from the imposition of a tax or duty upon the movements or operations of commerce between the States. ”

“ When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. ”

“ The business of insurance is founded on the law of averages; that of life insurance eminently so. The average rate of mortality is the basis on which it rests. By spreading their risks over a large number of cases, the companies calculate on this average with reasonable certainty and safety. Any thing that interferes with it deranges the security of the business. If every policy lapsed by reason of the war should be revived, and all the back premiums should be paid, the companies would have the benefit of this average amount of risk. ”