Levi Woodbury

“ Because the legislature knew that all individuals had the right, and where a corporation was created, it would necessarily have it also. One great duty of a corporation is to pay its debts. Will it be said on the other side, that it cannot do so unless expressly authorized in its charter? Under what law can it make a general assignment? A corporation has no faculty to do wrong. If it can use any other species of property to pay its debts, much more can it use that kind which is most readily applicable, most convenient, and most proper, namely, its own evidences of debt. ”

“ In no other way can the subject-matter of an invention be distinctly brought out, so as to warn the public against undesigned infringements. If several machines can be mixed up in one specification, and several improvements on each, and then patented in the name of one of those machines, it is respectfully, but earnestly, insisted, that the patent-office cannot fail to become the source of more oppression and outrage than will be long tolerated by a people who are masters of their own institutions. ”

“ That the power to admit new States is a political power to be exercised by Congress alone, and that all questions touching its exercise are political questions, not confided to the judicial power by the constitution and laws. ”

“ I am even disposed to go further, and say, that if any property of any kind is not so situated as to be either in the direct path for a public highway, or be really needed to build it, the inclination of my mind is, that it cannot be taken against the consent of the owner. Because, though the right of eminent domain exists in some cases, it does not exist in all, nor as to all property, but probably as to such property only as, from its locality and fitness, is necessary to the public use. ”

“ In this very case, therefore, the defence seems to be by the State, and at its expense. It shows the beautiful harmony of our system, not to let private damage be suffered wrongfully without redress, but, at the same time, not to let a public agent suffer, who, in a great crisis, appears to have acted honestly for the public, from good probable cause, though in some degree mistaking the extent of his powers, as well as the rights of others. ”

“ Is the original grant to the town of Hartford to be presumed from the user, by which alone it is proved, to have been made for any longer period than the public convenience might require? Is it to be presumed that a public corporation, itself created for the promotion of the public interest, subject to be divided or dissolved at the pleasure of the General Assembly, was vested with a power of perpetuating a ferry after it had become prejudicial to the public, and against the will of the supreme power of the state?
Towns are not established by contract with the inhabitants. ”

“ The power itself, in its essential character, is a practical power of government. It is part and parcel of the executive power, as applicable to the navy, and belonging to its officers. Without its certain exercise, there could be no authority or discipline. It is impossible that the grounds of the order should be submitted to a jury before it be known whether it is to be obeyed. Nor can they be submitted to a jury upon evidence. It would not be practicable to prove them. No one knows what those grounds are, except the officer who makes the order. ”

“ It is true, that the opinion given in the State court in support of its judgment is not entirely free from some grounds for misconception, yet the judgment itself appears right, and, if erroneous, resting as it does wholly on the State laws, it is not competent for us, under this writ of error, to reverse it. We can reverse it only when wrong, and wrong, too, for deciding improperly against some claim under a United States law or treaty. ”

“ In considering this question, no peculiar liberality of construction in favor of a corporation, so as to render that an encroachment on its rights which is not clearly so, seems to be demanded of us by any more sacredness in the character of a corporation or its rights than in that of an individual; but rather, that its charter as a public grant is not to be construed beyond its natural import. ”

“ No length of time, during which property is so used, can deprive an owner of his title, nor give to the community a right to enjoin or abate the owner's fences over it as a nuisance, on the ground that they have acquired a legal easement in it. Finally, it is to be recollected that an injunction is what is termed a transcendent or extraordinary power, and is therefore to be used sparingly, and only in a clear and plain case. ”

“ If, then, the joint judgment had been more clearly a technical merger of the joint and several debt here, and no several action would afterwards lie at law on the note, would it not be just and right on principle to grant this separate aid in chancery? So strong is this principle, we have already seen, that sometimes it is provided by express legislation that at law a suit may still be prosecuted against the surviving debtor and the executor of the deceased debtor together on a joint obligation, or, if existing in a judgment, be enforced against the property of either. ”

“ It is equally true that it is the duty of every government, especially of the United States, to provide some mode for the ascertainment and liquidation of the claims of the citizen against the government. ”

“ Looking, then, to the beneficient design of the eighteenth section, to enforce the Constitution, by advancing science and the arts, and protecting useful inventions, through the security for a longer term to men of genius of a property in their own labors, in cases where they had not been already remunerated for their time and expenses, I cannot but fear that the construction given by the majority of the court will prove most unfortunate. ”

“ Thus, for example, when a state is admitted to be formed out of a territory, the property in the land is in the United States and its grantees, the eminent domain is in the state; or, in other words, the right of civil government. The right is as absolute as the necessity which calls for its exercise. The duty to make compensation is to be regulated by the sense of justice of the sovereign power, or by the constitution of the state. ”

“ The omission of the clerk to enter on the record the judgment upon the demurrer, or to state its waiver, if it was abandoned, would be merely a clerical mistake; and it is well settled at common law, that a misprision by a clerk, if the case be clearly that alone, though it consist of the omission of an important word or expression, is not a good ground to reverse a judgment, where substance enough appears to show that all which was proper and required was properly done. ”

“ And the only ground on which that corporation, private in interest, was entitled in any view originally to condemn land or collect tolls was, that the use of its bridge was public,-was open to all and at rates of fare fixed by the legislature and not by itself, and subject to the revision and reduction of the public authorities.
It may be, and truly is, that individuals and the public are often extensively benefited by private roads, as they are by mills, and manufactories, and private bridges. But such a benefit is not technically nor substantially a public use, unless the public has rights. ”

“ A new mode of operating or a new composition to produce better results is the daily ground for a patent. All which the act of Congress itself requires is that the invention be for 'any new and useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter,' &c. ”

“ It is not to be lost sight of, however, and will be explained more fully hereafter, that, while the chief agent of the government, in so important a trust, when conducting with skill, fidelity, and energy, is to be protected under mere errors of judgment in the discharge of his duties, yet he is not to be shielded from responsibility if he acts out of his authority or jurisdiction, or inflicts private injury either from malice, cruelty, or any species of oppression, founded on considerations independent of public ends. ”

“ And if the judiciary at times seems to fill the important station of a check in the government, it is rather a check on the legislature, who may attempt to pass laws contrary to the Constitution, or on the executive, who may violate both the laws and Constitution, than on the people themselves in their primary capacity as makers and amenders of constitutions. ”

“ How far the provisions of the ordinance of 1787 would have executed themselves, if the government of the confederation had continued; and, if Congress had determined the number of the new States, and defined their boundaries, how far, by the mere force of the stipulations in question, each new State, as it should successively have acquired the requisite population, would have become a member of the Union without the further action of Congress, it is, perhaps, unnecessary to inquire. It may be remarked, however, that to admit a State into the Union implies the performance of some political act ”

“ But if the United States sue, and the defendant holds its negotiable paper, the amount of it may be claimed as a credit, if after presentation to the accounting officer it has been disallowed, and it should be allowed by a jury as a credit against a debt claimed by United States.' Suppose a suit in which the United States present a claim for five thousand dollars, and the defendant exhibits a valid bill of exchange for ten thousand dollars, upon which the government are liable, upon what part of this bill are the court to pass? ”

“ It is a peculiar excellence in chancery, on many occasions, that it goes behind writings, and even sealed instruments and judgments, to ascertain how the original transaction stood, and what were its true obligations, in order to enforce them. The joint judgment here did not create the original liability to pay, and hence equity can as properly go back of it to see what the original liability was, and if several no less than joint; as it goes back of a joint bond when 'it was not the bond which first created the liability to pay.' 2 Williams on Executors, 1370. ”

“ Some estimate can be formed of the usefulness of the present patent, and its title to favor, when one machine is computed to perform the labor of planing and grooving in one day that would require fifty days by a man, and which is supposed to reduce near seven tenths the expense of such work in every building where the improved method is used,-as it ere long will be by the many millions of our own population, and in time over the civilized world. Every honest social system must shield such inventions, and every wise one seeks undoubtedly to encourage them. ”

“ Before an inventor shall receive a patent, he is required, 'in case of any machine, fully to explain the principle and the several modes in which he has contemplated the application of that principle or character, by which it may be distinguished from other inventions, and shall particularly specify and point out the particular improvement or combination which he claims as his own invention or discovery.' The requisition of the English law is similar in this respect. ”

“ Our power begins after theirs ends. Constitutions and laws precede the judiciary, and we act only under and after them, and as to disputed rights beneath them, rather than disputed points in making them. We speak what is the law, jus dicere, we speak or construe what is the constitution, after both are made, but we make, or revise, or control neither. The disputed rights beneath constitutions already made are to be governed by precedents, by sound legal principles, by positive legislation, clear contracts, moral duties, and fixed rules ”

“ The limitation of the power to issue would be effectually destroyed if the bank could sell and indorse notes, because there is no limit to such a proceeding. It is true, that the liability is contingent; but still it has ruined many corporations.
Is the power to transfer notes essential to the proper business of banking? On the contrary, it is entirely subversive of it. It is indorsing other people's paper,-mere brokerage. When the paper is assigned, interest upon it ceases to the bank. No well-conducted bank is ever reduced to such an emergency as to be obliged to sell paper. ”

“ The principle under which the Judiciary Act of 1789 allows this interference of ours in the relations between the two governments, always of so sensitive and responsible a character, is, that no government can be efficient or just without the means of self-protection; and hence, that those who act under it or claim rights beneath the shield of its laws should, within its own territory, be able to appeal to its own tribunals for relief whenever their claims under it are decided against in the courts of the States. ”

“ And it is manifest that unless such a course can be pursued, the means of social and commercial intercourse might be petrified, and remain for ages, like the fossil remains in sandstone, unaltered, and the government, the organ of a progressive community, be paralyzed in every important public improvement. ”

“ On the second part of the instruction prayed, the court said: 'I think it is not a sufficient justification to find that the punishment was according to the rules and regulations of the navy. In the petty offences which by those rules are punishable by flogging, there is a limit within which the officer has a discretion, which should be exercised soundly and reasonably; and, in order to justify the officer, the jury must be satisfied that it was so exercised. In the case of such petit offences I think each punishment settles all previous offences of that kind. ”

“ Because Congress alone, and not the States, is invested with power to use the great means for all wars,-'to raise and support armies,' 'to provide and maintain a navy,' 'to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions,' and 'to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia.' The largest powers of taxation, too, were conferred on Congress at the same time, and in part for this cause, with authority to borrow money on the credit of the Union, and to dispose of the public lands. ”

“ The patent act contemplates, that every thing to be done by an inventor, with respect to his specification and drawings, is to be done before the patent issues. There is no such thing as correcting the record of a specification or drawing by mere substitution of some other specification or drawing. After the patent issues, the patentee cannot, by merely depositing a new drawing, on any plea whatever, make it a part of his patent, or any evidence whatever of his invention, as originally patented, so as to cover cases of alleged infringement prior to such change in the record. ”

“ Thus, where a new law has taken the property of a corporation for highways under the right of eminent domain, which reaches all property, private or corporate, on a public necessity, and on making full compensation for it, and under an implied stipulation to be allowed to do it in all public grants and charters, no injury is committed not atoned for, nothing is done not allowed by pre existing laws or rights, and consequently no part of the obligation of the contract is impaired. ”

“ It is to be hoped we have some national ambition and pride, under our boasted dominion of law and order, to preserve them by law, by enlightened and constitutional law, and the moderation of superior intelligence and civilization, rather than by appeals to any of the semibarbarous measures of darker ages, and the unrelenting, lawless persecutions of opponents in civil strife which characterized and disgraced those ages. ”

“ The true rule of construction in respect to patents and specifications, and the doings generally of inventors, is to apply to them plain and ordinary principles, as we have endeavoured to on this occasion, and not, in this most metaphysical branch of modern law, to yield to subtilties and technicalities, unsuited to the subject and not in keeping with the liberal spirit of the age, and likely to prove ruinous to a class of the community so inconsiderate and unskilled in business as men of genius and inventors usually are. ”

“ But if I err in this, and certain rights of war may exist with one of our States in a civil strife like the present, in some extreme stage of it, independent of any act of Congress or the President recognizing it, another inquiry would be, whether, in the state of affairs existing at this time, such rights had become perfected, and were broad enough, if properly pleaded, to cover this measure of martial law over the whole State, and the acts done under it, in the present instance. The necessities of foreign war, it is conceded, sometimes impart great powers as to both things and persons. ”

“ Under such an understanding of the law, letters-patent will be regarded by the public as mere charters of iniquity, and the whole system must be swept away. It must be as impracticable to sustain such an institution in the United States as it would be to establish the Inquisition here, or vest in the government those odious prerogatives the abuse of which led to the English statute of monopolies. ”

“ Again, if only to repeal or suspend the habeas corpus requires a permissive clause in the Constitution, how much more should the repeal or suspension of all municipal laws? Indeed, the Mutiny Act itself, as for instance that of 53 George 3, ch. 18, sec. 100, does not allow the military to break open a house to arrest so bad a culprit as a deserter without a warrant and under oath. ”

“ The genius of our liberties holds in adhorrence all irregular inroads upon the dwelling-houses and persons of the citizen, and with a wife jealousy regards them as sacred, except when assailed in the established and allowed forms of municipal law. Three of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States were adopted, under such influences, to guard against abuses of power in those modes by the general government, and evidently to restrict even a modified 'martial law' to cases happening among military men, or the militia when in actual service. ”