Robert Cooper Grier

“ If it is a contract, how are its terms to be ascertained? The charter is the formal and deliberate act of both parties, reducing to literal stipulations what they mutually agree to; laws not introduced form no part of it, except so far as they are general municipal laws regulating all property; the laws that govern contracts between man and man govern this; in such a case, would not the written instrument made by and between the parties be taken as the declaration of their liability? Nothing is better settled than that it would be. ”

“ Courts should be careful to avoid a wrong use of the word 'mistake,' and, by making it synonymous with mere error of judgment, assume to themselves an arbitrary power over awards. The same result would follow if the court should treat the arbitrators as guilty of corrupt partiality, merely because their award is not such an one as the chancellor would have given. We are all too prone, perhaps, to impute either weakness of intellect or corrupt motives to those who differ with us in opinion. ”

“ If, in the apparently instant wreck, in which everything is likely to be lost, a mariner should embezzle a box of jewels, would he be treated as appropriating a thing of no value? If the convict doomed to execution tomorrow on the gallows be stabbed to-night, will it cease to be murder, because he has but a short remnant of a doomed life? ”

“ How can he call on the plaintiffs to prove how much he claims, or the jury to find a separate verdict as to his separate holding, when he will neither by his pleading nor evidence signify how much he claims? This was a fact known only to himself, and one with which the plaintiff had no concern and the jury no knowledge. If a general verdict leaves each one liable for all the costs, it is a necessary consequence of their own conduct, and no one has a right to complain. ”

“ The power of one legislature to bind themselves and their posterity, and all future legislatures, from authorizing a bridge absolutely required for public use, might well be denied by the courts of New York; and as a construction of their own constitution, we would have no right to sit in error upon their judgment. But assuming a power for one legislature to restrain the power of future legislatures, those who assert that it has been exercised should prove their assertion beyond a doubt. ”

“ Where an inventor finds it profitable to exercise his monopoly by selling licenses to make or use his improvement, he has himself fixed the average of his actual damage, when his invention has been used without his license. If he claims any thing above that amount, he is bound to substantiate his claim by clear and distinct evidence. When he has himself established the market value of his improvement, as separate and distinct from the other machinery with which it is connected, he can have no claim in justice or equity to make the profits of the whole machine the measure of his demand. ”

“ The laws of war, as established among nations, have their foundation in reason, and all tend to mitigate the cruelties and misery produced by the scourge of war. Hence the parties to a civil war usually concede to each other belligerent rights. They exchange prisoners, and adopt the other courtesies and rules common to public or national wars.
"A civil war," says Vattel,
breaks the bands of society and government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies and acknowledge no common judge. ”

“ Where does Congress get the power or authority to deprive the courts of the United States of the judicial power with which the Constitution has invested them? Congress may create the courts, but they are clothed with their powers by the Constitution, and we submit that the provision of the act of Congress materially conflicts with the provisions of the Constitution, and is void. It has been settled, that an act of Congress, enlarging the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court beyond the terms of the Constitution, is void. ”

“ It is in vain to search the annals of equity jurisprudence for a precedent of an injunction granted on such bald pretences.
'There is no power, the exercise of which is more delicate, which requires greater caution, deliberation, and sound discretion, or more dangerous in a doubtful case, than the issuing an injunction. It is the strong arm of equity, that never ought to be extended, unless to cases of great injury, where courts of law cannot afford an adequate and commensurate remedy in damages. ”

“ They cannot compel the human mind not to distinguish between things that differ. The distinction between the different forms of actions for different wrongs, requiring different remedies, lies in the nature of things; it is absolutely inseparable from the correct administration of justice in common-law courts.
The result of these experiments, so far as they have come to our knowledge, has been to destroy the certainty and simplicity of all pleadings, and introduce on the record an endless wrangle in writing, perplexing to the court, delaying and impeding the administration of justice. ”

“ If to claim a 'method' or mode of operation in the abstract, explained in the description of certain machinery, be a claim for a machine, as was adjudged in Blanchard v. Sprague, is not the claim of preparing puddlers' balls, by the operation of certain machinery, much more a claim of a machine? In other words, is the claim of a particular result before known, from the operation of a machine claimed to be new, any thing else than a claim for the peculiar construction of the machine itself, by which that result is effected? ”

“ But it is a well-settled principle of law, that, 'unless there be some express stipulation to the contrary, whenever an entire sum is to be paid for the entire work, the performance or service is a condition precedent; being one consideration and one debt, it cannot be divided.' It was error, therefore, to instruct the jury that the plaintiffs were entitled to recover on the first count, if their machine was used by the defendants, and was beneficial to them, without regard to the fact of the rescission, or continuance, or fulfilment, of the contract on the part of the plaintiffs. ”

“ The mere discovery of a new element, or law, or principle of nature, without any valuable application of it to the arts, is not the subject of a patent. But he who takes this new element or power, as yet useless, from the laboratory of the philosopher, and makes it the servant of man; who applies it to the perfecting of a new and useful art, or to the improvement of one already known, is the benefactor to whom the patent law tenders its protection. The devices and machines used in the exercise of it may or may not be new ”

“ Hence, color of title, even under a void and worthless deed, has always been received as evidence that the person in possession claims for himself, and of course, adversely to all the world. A person in possession of land, clearing, improving, and building on it, and receiving the profits to his own use, under a claim of title, is not bound to show a forcible ouster of the true owner in order to evade the presumption that his possession is not hostile or adverse to him. ”

“ A State has a right to borrow money; it may pass a law authorizing its executive to do so on the faith of the State; if in so doing he should issue 'bills of credit,' and the highest court of the State should sustain their legality as founded on that law, would this court refuse to revise that judgment, on the ground that the law itself was constitutional, and that its application to the particular case was a mere act of the court, not contemplated by the State legislature, and therefore not violating the constitutional prohibition? ”

“ The law requires that the specification 'should set forth 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 point out the part, improvement, or combination which he claims as his own invention or descovery.' We find here no authority to grant a patent for a 'principle' or a 'mode of operation,' or an idea, or any other abstraction. A machine is a concrete thing, consisting of parts, or of certain devices and combination of devices. ”

“ The Richmond interest is ever present and ever pressing; her associates of the railroad and canal are at hand, and equally active. You have no counteracting influence, and hence the success and triumph of your opponents. If I am right in these views, your claims, resting alone on justice, sectional necessity, or even high State policy, will be urged in vain, and must become as mere sounding clamor in the hall, unless you meet your opponents with the weapons they use so successfully against yourselves. Experience shows that something beyond what you have heretofore done is necessary to success ”

“ When suit is brought on a contract, it becomes merged in the judgment; if the defendant claims a right to pay it in any thing else than money, he must plead it and set it up on the trial; for the court, on an action for money, can give judgment only for the payment of money. If, after trial, verdict, and judgment, the plaintiff on motion could raise a new question as to set-off, tender, or a right to satisfy his debt in some other way than by payment of money, the judgment of a court, instead of being the end of controversy, would be but the beginning of litigation. ”

“ There is no other volition, no other voluntary act. Refining criticism may waste itself in calling this a compulsory choice, a compulsory voyage to the shore, a selecting of a safer exposure,-in denying it to be a sacrifice. It is, nevertheless, all the voluntary act which remains to the master to perform. On its being performed with coolness, courage, and discretion, the whole property and the lives of all depend; that this small amount of volition may be exercised freely and without hesitation, the policy of the law tenders to the officer the indemnity of a general contribution. ”

“ The duties of fasting and prayer are voluntary, and not of compulsion, and holiday is a privilege, not a duty. In almost every State in the Union a day of thanksgiving is appointed in the fall of the year by the Governor, because there is no ecclesiastical authority which would be acknowledged by the various denominations. It is an excellent custom, but it binds no man's conscience or requires him to abstain from labor. Nor is it necessary to a literal compliance with the recommended fast day that all labor should cease, and the day be observed as a Sabbath, or as a holiday. ”

“ At the conclusion of the trial, the court, at the request of defendant's counsel, instructed the jury 'that there was not sufficient evidence in the cause to authorize the jury to find the rights claimed by the plaintiff.'
As it is the duty of the jury to decide the facts, the sufficiency of evidence to prove those facts must necessarily be within their province. The jury cannot assume the truth of any material averment without some evidence; and it is error in the court to instruct the jury that they may find a material fact of which there is no evidence. ”

“ The only pretence of legal rule which can be offered in vindication of this claim of the defendant to litigate the original cause of action in this case over again is, that, as between the defendant with whom it was contested in the State of Mississippi, and this defendant in Louisiana, there is no privity; and hence the judgment is not evidence against him.
But we deny the fact that there is no privity. There is, in all truth, and in the rationale of the thing, a clear privity of estate. On Lee's death, his estate, everywhere throughout the United States, was liable to payment of his debts. ”

“ We hold it to be both law and universal practice, that when any controversy arises between parties, in settling a bill of exceptions, an application can only be made to the court to correct the bill, according to the facts, which the court is always presumed to possess and retain. The bills become a part of the record of the court, and are always under its control, and the court is as much bound, as an important part of its duty, to see its bills correctly made out, as it is to inspect and correct any other portion of its records and proceedings. ”

“ That, under and in virtue of the Constitution of the United States, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority, in every State in the Union, to seize and recapture his slave, wherever he can do it without illegal violence or a breach of the peace. ”

“ No frivolous issue is raised; no technical rule of law is invoked, to defeat substantial rights; no attempt is made to force rules adapted to other circumstances into strange meanings, in order to wrest private property from the citizens of a subjugated province. Nothing of the sort. This grant and the papers connected with it are denounced as false and simulated. Forgery is the charge, and, by consequence, perjury; for how can the two be disconnected?
And the cause will be fully argued, without any surprise to the claimants. ”

“ Consequently, the lien of a judgment obtained before defendant's death cannot be affected by a declaration of insolvency subsequently made by his administrator. But if, at the time of the death, the fund from which each of the creditors has an equal right to claim satisfaction is insufficient to pay all, equity requires that one should not be permitted, by a mere race of diligence, to seize satisfaction of his whole debt, at the expense of another. Hence, a declaration of insolvency must relate back to the death, in order that this equitable principle may have its effect. ”

“ We are not, for that reason, to be astute in searching for reasons to confiscate a man's property because he has too much. Believing, therefore, that in the case before us the claimant has presented a genuine grant for a consideration paid, which the Mexican Government would never have disturbed for any of the reasons now offered for confiscating it, I must express, most respectfully, my dissent from the opinion of the majority of the court, with the hope that Congress will not suffer the very numerous purchasers to forfeit the millions expended on the faith of treaty obligations. ”

“ But it is said, in answer to this great lapse of time, that it goes for nothing, for the reason that the statute of limitations, in consequence of non-residence, &c., would not bar the complainants if they had a legal title.
Very clearly it would bar them, if a legal title had descended to the children of Lawson instead of an equity, unless we pile one disability upon another. But there is no question of any statute of limitations as to the complainants. They never had the right to bring an action at law, for they have never had a legal title. No such cause of action has ever accrued to them. ”

“ A mortgage is a conveyance of the fee simple of real estate, liable to be defeated subsequently by payment of money, to secure the payment of which it was made. It is in no sense a chose in action, which is a thing in action, a right of action, a thing recoverable in action, a debt, a demand, a promissory note, a right to recover damages. A chose in action was originally a right of action not assignable at law. It was a cause of suit for a debt due or a wrong. The bond with the mortgage may be a chose in action; but the estate conveyed by the mortgage is not. It is a realty. ”

“ It is only where, from the peculiar circumstances of the case, no other rule can be found, that the defendant's profits become the criterion of the plaintiff's loss. Actual damages must be actually proved, and cannot be assumed as a legal inference from any facts which amount not to actual proof of the fact. What a patentee 'would have made, if the infringer had not interfered with his rights,' is a question of fact and not 'a judgment of law.' The question is not what speculatively he may have lost, but what actually he did lose. ”

“ In trials at law, whilst it is invariably true that the decision of questions upon the weight of evidence belongs exclusively to the jury, it is equally true that, whenever instructions upon evidence are asked from the court to the jury, it is the right and duty of the former to judge of the relevancy, and by necessary implication, to some extent, of the certainty and definiteness of the evidence proposed. ”

“ An alleged grant is produced, of which no evidence exists in the archives now, and which, it is demonstrated, never had any mention or record in any of those public registries, where, had it been genuine, it must have been found. With the signature of the grantor forged, with the attesting seal of State forged, what can it avail the claimants, then, that men should have been found careless or reckless enough to swear to its genuiness and validity, and to speak of their own connection with it as a cotemporaneous transaction? ”