Morrison Waite

“ But the power of Congress in respect to legislation for the preservation of inter-state commerce is just as free from State interference as any other subject within the sphere of its legislative authority. The action of Congress is supreme, and overrides all that the States may do. When, therefore, Congress in a proper way declares a bridge across a navigable river of the United States to be an unlawful structure, no legislation of a State can make it lawful. Those who act on State authority alone necessarily assume all the risks of legitimate congressional interference. ”

“ Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?
So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? ”

“ The controlling fact is the power to regulate at all. If that exists, the right to establish the maximum of charge, as one of the means of regulation, is implied. In fact, the common-law rule, which requires the charge to be reasonable, is itself a regulation as to price. Without it the owner could make his rates at will, and compel the public to yield to his terms, or forego the use.
But a mere common-law regulation of trade or business may be changed by statute. A person has no property, no vested interest, in any rule of the common law. ”

“ 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 such 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 can see no abuse of authority on the part of the court in directing that the order to show cause should be served on an attorney, since it is made to appear that the defendant, by reason of his own acts, could not be served personally. The process was 'suitable,' and the mode adopted by the court 'conformable to the Code."
The good sense of this rule is manifest. A corporation can only be served with process through some officer or agent. It is certainly competent for a state to determine who this officer or agent shall be, or how he shall be designated by the corporation. ”

“ The question we have to decide is not whether the State is liable for the debts of the bank to the railroad company, but whether it can be sued in its own courts to enforce that liability. The principle is elementary that a State cannot be sued in its own courts without its consent. This is a privilege of sovereignty. It is conceded that when this suit was begun the State had withdrawn its consent to be sued, and the only question now to be determined is whether that withdrawal impaired the obligation of the contract which the railroad company seeks to enforce. ”

“ No one will pretend that the suit in Pennsylvania, or the indictment in Massachusetts, could be maintained if brought or found after the expiration of the year, and it would seem to be clear that, if the admiralty adopts the statute as a rule of right to be administered within its own jurisdiction, it must take the right subject to the limitations which have been made a part of its existence. It matters not that no rights of innocent parties have attached during the delay. Time has been made of the essence of the right, and the right is lost if the time is disregarded. ”

“ To allow a small minority of bondholders, representing a comparatively insignificant amount of the mortgage debt, in the absence of any pretence even of fraud or unfairness, to defeat the wishes of such an overwhelming majority of those associated with them in the benefits of their common security, would be to ignore entirely the relation which bondholders, secured by a railroad mortgage, bear to each other. Railroad mortgages are a peculiar class of securities. ”

“ One may be its representative when in active operation, and in full possession of all its powers, and another if it has forfeited its charter and has no lawful existence except to wind up its affairs. No State need allow the corporations of other States to do business within its jurisdiction unless it chooses, with perhaps the exception of commercial corporations; but if it does, without limitation, express or implied, the corporation comes in as it has been created. Every corporation necessarily carries its charter wherever it goes, for that is the law of its existence. ”

“ I am of the opinion that it is the duty of every railroad company to provide such conveyance by special cars, or otherwise, attached to their freight and passenger trains, as are required for the safe and proper transportation of this express matter on their roads, and that the use of these facilities should be extended on equal terms to all who are actually and usually engaged in the express business. If the number of persons claiming the right to engage in this business at the same time, on the same road, should become oppressive, other considerations might prevail ”

“ To deprive the Federal courts of jurisdiction by a partial community of citizenship between the opposite parties would, in many instances, actually defeat the very object which the Constitution and the law have in view. ”

“ It is not alone the publicity of the act, or the noise and clamor which attends it, that fixes the nature of the crime, but the act itself. If that is of a character to awaken public interest when it becomes known, it is a 'disorder,' the nature of which is to affect the community at large, and consequently to invoke the power of the local government whose people have been disturbed by what was done. ”

“ A perfect record of a perfect patent proves the grant; but a perfect record of an imperfect patent, or an imperfect record of a perfect patent, has no such effect. In such a case, if a perfect patent has in fact issued, it must be proved in some other way than by the record. It is undoubtedly true, that, when a right to a patent is complete and the last formalities of the law in respect to its execution and issue have been complied with by the officers of the government charged with that duty, the record will be treated as presumptive evidence of its delivery to and acceptance by the grantee. ”

“ The offense for which the condemnation may be decreed is one that inheres in the property itself, and grows out of the fact that the property has become, or is intended to become, with the approval of its owner, an instrument for the promotion of the ends of the insurrection. To justify a judicial sentence of condemnation, the consent of the owner to the hostile use of his property must be proven, but if it be proven condemnation is decreed, not because the owner has subjected himself to punishment, but because the property has been devoted to the insurrection and must suffer the consequences. ”

“ The single question we have now to consider is whether a bill passed by both Houses, and presented to the governor before the legislature adjourns, becomes a law when signed by the governor after the session of the legislature has been terminated by an adjournment, but within ten days from its presentation to him. We have no hesitation in saying it does. There is certainly no express provision of the Constitution to the contrary. All that instrument requires is that, before any bill, which has passed the two Houses, can become a law, it shall be presented to the governor. ”

“ There is nothing which even in the remotest degree indicates that a by-law fixing rates is to be of a different character from those regulating the other business of the company. When, therefore, in a section of the charter which expressly declares that no by-law shall be made that is in conflict with the laws of the state, we find that the rates of charge to be levied and collected for the conveyance of persons and property are to be regulated by by-laws, the conclustion is irresistible that only such charges can be collected as are allowed by the laws of the state. ”

“ In the distribution of the powers of government in this country into three departments, the power of taxation falls to the legislative. It belongs to that department to determine what measures shall be taken for the public welfare, and to provide the revenues for the support and due administration of the government throughout the State and in all its subdivisions. Having the sole power to authorize the tax, it must equally possess the sole power to prescribe the means by which the tax shall be collected, and to designate the officers through whom its will shall be enforced. ”