Noah Haynes Swayne

“ It is a matter of regret that terms so uncertain and vague in so important a point are to be found in the Constitution. We shall seek in vain for any antecedent settled legal meaning to the respective terms. There is none. We shall be as much at a loss to find any disposition of either which can satisfactorily determine the point.' There being many carriages in some of the States, and very few in others, he points out the preposterous consequences if such a tax be laid and collected on the principle of apportionment instead of the rule of uniformity. ”

“ Because it appears now that that tribunal has reversed its long-established rulings? Had the question been presented to you one year ago to-day, you would not have hesitated an hour on the proposition, for then there was no diversity of rulings anywhere. Because the Supreme Court of Iowa has chosen thus to disregard its own precedents, are millions of property, treasured on the banks of the Delaware, the Hudson, the Thames, the Seine, and the Rhine; are the decisions of this State of Iowa itself, as of all the States; the reputation of that people, as of Americans generally, to be swept away? ”

“ It is a punishment rather than a remedy. It is right for fraud, but wrong for misfortune. It breaks the spirit of the honest debtor, detroys his credit, which is a form of capital, and dooms him, while it lasts, to helpless idleness. Where there is no fraud, it is the opposite of a remedy. Every right-minded man must rejoice when such a blot is removed from the statute-book. ”

“ The union of the States, for all the purposes of the Constitution, is as perfect and indissoluble as the union of the integral parts of the States themselves; and nothing but revolutionary violence can, in either case, destroy the ties which hold the parts together. ”

“ Does the act of the legislature creating the monopoly in question abridge the privileges and immunities of the plaintiffs in error as citizens of the United States? Does it deprive them of liberty or property without due process of law, or deny them the equal protection of the laws of the State, they being persons "within its jurisdiction?" ”

“ It is our business to execute the law as we find it, and not to make or modify it. In the disposition of property among creditors, equality is equity. It was the genius and purpose of the statute to secure this result as far as possible from the moment its aid was invoked, whether by debtor or creditor. The power of amendment is incident to all judicial administration. ”

“ The 16th section of the Judicial Act of 1789 provides, 'that suits in equity shall not be sustained in either of the Courts of the United States in any case where plain, adequate, and complete remedy can be had at law.' This is merely declaratory of the pre-existing rule, and does not apply where the remedy at law, is not 'plain, adequate, and complete,' or, in other words, where it is not 'as practical and as efficient to the ends of justice and to its prompt administration as the remedy in equity.' 3 Pet., 215. ”

“ If bonds are not property, then half the wealth of the nation, now so liberally invested in the bonds of the government, both State and national, and in bonds of corporations, must be considered as having no claim to be called property. And when the construction of a constitution is brought to bear upon the questions of property or no property, contract or no contract, I can see no sound reason for any difference in the rule for determining the question. ”

“ Rights of commerce give no authority to their possessor to invade the rights of property. He cannot use a bridge, a canal, or a railroad without paying the fixed rate of compensation. He cannot use a warehouse or vehicle of transportation belonging to another without the owner's consent. No more can he invade the ferry franchise of another without authority from the holder. The vitality of such a franchise lies in its exclusiveness. The moment the right becomes common, the franchise ceases to exist. ”

“ A treaty cannot be the supreme law of the land, that is, of all the United States, if any act of a State legislature can stand in its way. If the Constitution of a State (which is the fundamental law of the State and paramount to its legislature) must give way to a treaty and fall before it, can it be questioned whether the less power, an act of the State legislature, must not be prostrate? ”

“ As regards all courts of the United States inferior to this tribunal, two things are necessary to create jurisdiction, whether original or appellate. The Constitution must have given to the court the capacity to take it, and an act of Congress must have supplied it. Their concurrence is necessary to vest it. It is the duty of Congress to act for that purpose up to the limits of the granted power. They may fall short of it, but cannot exceed it. To the extent that such action is not taken, the power lies dormant. It can be brought into activity in no other way. ”

“ But the question whether a statute is public or private, is judicial. No question of interpretation is more purely so. The constitution of Wisconsin, in common with most of our American constitutions, exhausts the judicial power; and it is not competent for the legislature to vest it in persons or officers, other than such as the constitution prescribes. Here, the duty of classification is given to ministerial officers. And their action is not only not binding, but is of no weight in the courts. It is for the judicial department to declare their acts right or wrong ”

“ On a great public highway like the Mississippi, supporting an immense commerce and bearing it to every part of the globe, purchasers must have obtained lands for the beneficial use of the river as well as for the land. Can it be presumed that the United States would make grants of lands bordering upon this river, with its turbulent current, and subject to constant change in its banks by alluvion upon the one side and avulsions upon the other, and then claim all accretion formed by the gradual deposition of sand and soil, and deprive the grantee of his river front? ”

“ To require more would, in effect, abrogate the rule that lets in the reproduction of the testimony of a deceased witness. The uncertainty of human life renders the rule, as we have defined it, not unfrequently of great value in the administration of justice. The right to cross-examine the witness when he testified shuts out the danger of any serious evil, and those whose duty it is to weight and apply the evidence will always have due regard to the circumstances under which it comes before them, and rarely overstimate its probative force. ”

“ But an income tax can be apportioned as easily as any other direct tax; first, by determining the amount to be raised from incomes throughout the United States, and then by ascertaining the proportion to be paid by the people of each State. An income tax, in the matter of its apportionment, is not embarrassed by any other difficulties than those which grow out of apportionment, in the admitted cases of poll taxes and land taxes.
It was clearly the object of the act, to compel parties to pay the legal percentage on their incomes, estimating them at their value in legal tender currency. ”

“ That the framers of the Constitution did not intend to restrain the States in the regulation of their civil institutions, adopted for internal government, and that the instrument they have given us is not to be so construed, may be admitted. The provision of the Constitution never has been understood to embrace other contracts than those which respect property, or some object of value, and confer rights which may be asserted in a court of justice. It never has been understood to restrict the general right of the legislature to legislate on the subject of divorces. ”

“ Georgia, after her rebellion and before her representation was restored, has no more power to grant a title of nobility, to pass a bill of attainder, an ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or to do anything else prohibited to her by the Constitution of the United States, than she had before her rebellion began, or after her restoration to her normal position in the Union. It is well settled by the adjudications of this court, that a State can no more impair the obligation of a contract by adopting a constitution than by passing a law. ”

“ A party cannot, by setting up an unfounded claim of title, compel us, after deciding the claim against him, to take to ourselves a jurisdiction which, but for such claim, we could not have exercised. Such a result would make the jurisdiction depend, not upon the nature and merits of the case, but upon what the party may choose to allege. In this way, in every case where the title is derived from the United States, and a question of boundary is involved, this court might be constrained to do what it has uniformly held to be beyond the sphere of its power. ”

“ We are not unmindful that penal laws are to be construed strictly. It is said that this rule is almost as old as construction itself. But whenever invoked it comes attended with qualifications and other rules no less important. It is by the light which each contributes that the judgment of the court is to be made up. The object in construing penal, as well as other statutes, is to ascertain the legislative intent. That constitutes the law. If the language be clear it is conclusive. There can be no construction where there is nothing to construe. ”

“ Legislative power and control over the public revenue, over the entire subject of taxation, is a fundamental element of sovereignty which must ever remain with the State; a political power to be exercised consistently with the public interests, or necessities, and over which the courts have no jurisdiction. No contract, binding or controlling the legislature as to the collection or appropriation, under revenue laws, of future taxes, can, consistently with the sovereignty of the State, exist. ”

“ Where an office is created, the law usually fixes the compensation, prescribes its duties, and requires that the appointee shall give a bond with sureties for the faithful performance of the service required. To do all this, if the employment were an office, by a contract with the officer and without his bond would, to say the least, be a singular anomaly. ”

“ The obligation of a contract includes every thing within its obligatory scope. Among these elements nothing is more important than the means of enforcement. This is the breath of its vital existence. Without it, the contract, as such, in the view of the law, ceases to be, and falls into the class of those 'imperfect obligations,' as they are termed, which depend for their fulfilment upon the will and conscience of those upon whom they rest. The ideas of right and remedy are inseparable. 'Want of right and want of remedy are the same thing.' 1 Bac. ”

“ We think Seymour took the legal title in trust for the purposes specified. A trust is where there are rights, titles, and interests in property distinct from the legal ownership. In such cases, the legal title, in the eye of the law, carries with it, to the holder, absolute dominion; but behind it lie beneficial rights and interests in the same property belonging to another. These rights, to the extent to which they exist, are a charge upon the property, and constitute an equity which a court of equity will protect and enforce whenever its aid for that purpose is properly invoked. ”

“ There was reason why the rate of interest should be governed by the law of the State where the bank is situated; but there is none why usury should be visited with the forfeiture of the entire debt in one State, and with no penal consequence whatever in another. This, we think, would be unreason, and contrary to the manifest intent of Congress.
Where a statute prescribes a rate of interest, and simply forbids the taking of more, and more is contracted for, the contract is good for what might be lawfully taken, and void only as to the excess. ”

“ An entire failure of the power to fulfil by one of the parties, as in cases of permanent insanity, does not release the other from the pre-existing obligation. In view of the law it is still as binding as if the parties were as they were when the marriage was entered into. Perhaps the only element of a contract, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, that exists is that the consent of the parties is necessary to create the relation. It is the most important transaction of life. The happiness of those who assume its ties usually depends upon it more than upon anything else. ”

“ The equity appealed to-while it scans the transaction with the severest scrutiny-looks at all the facts, and giving to each one its due weight, deals with the subject before it according to its own ideas of right and justice. In some instances it visits the buyer with the same consequences which would have followed in an action at law. In others, it allows a security to stand for the amount advanced upon it. In others, it compels the buyer to account only for the difference between the under price which he paid and the value of the property. ”

“ In this labyrinth of conflicting statements, one leading fact appears to guide us, and that is, while the one class of witnesses seeks by oral evidence not only to create a valid title, in the absence of archive evidence, but contrary to it, the testimony of the other class, on the contrary, is fortified by archive evidence, and is in harmony with it from beginning to end. ”

“ The feudal policy of tying up estates in the hands of a landed aristocracy, which had much to do with the shifting of descents as recognized by the English canons of descent, is contrary to the spirit of our laws and the genius of our institutions. It has been the policy, in this State, and in this country generally, not only to let estates descend to heirs equally, without reference to sex or primogeniture, but also to make titles secure and safe to those who may purchase from heirs upon whom the descent may be cast. ”

“ We do not overlook the point that there must be jurisdiction to give the judgment rendered, as well as to hear and determine the cause. If a magistrate having authority to fine for assault and battery should sentence the offender to be imprisoned in the penitentiary, or to suffer the punishment prescribed for homicide, his judgment would be as much a nullity as if the preliminary jurisdiction to hear and determine had not existed. Every act of a court beyond its jurisdiction is void. ”

“ If he should lose his entire grant by the washing of the river he must bear the loss, and he should be permitted to enjoy any gain which the ever-varying channel may bring to him. If a great government were to undertake under such circumstances to dispossess its grantee of his river front, the attempt would be akin to fraud, and it would lose the respect to which beneficent laws and the protection of the citizen would entitle it. ”