Samuel Nelson

“ The State tax, under this act of Congress, involves no question as to the pledged faith of the government. The tax is the condition for the new rights and privileges conferred upon these associations.
But, in addition to this view, the tax on the shares is not a tax on the capital of the bank. The corporation is the legal owner of all the property of the bank, real and personal; and within the powers conferred upon it by the charter, and for the purposes for which it was created, can deal with the corporate property as absolutely as a private individual can deal with his own. ”

“ By the law as it was before the statute was passed, injury to the person might be compensated in damages if it was less than fatal: if death resulted, no action for damages would lie. There was a remedy for the lesser evil, but none for the greater. The object of the statute clearly was to declare that a provision of law so unreasonable should no longer exist. The statute embraces no new idea or theory in reference to damages. It only extends the right of action for the purpose of securing compensation for the same kind of injuries, and imposing penalties for the same character of negligence ”

“ For we find there that to constitute a civil war in the sense in which we are speaking, before it can exist in contemplation of law, it must be recognized or declared by the sovereign power of the State, and which sovereign power by our Constitution is lodged in the Congress of the United States — civil war, therefore, under our system of government, can exist only by an act of Congress, which requires the assent of two of the great departments of the Government, the Executive and Legislative. ”

“ If procuring a decree by false allegations, known by the party making them to be untrue, and also by availing himself of false testimony, knowing that it was not true, be not, in judgment of law, such a fraud on the other party as to subject the decree to nullification or event review, why should the fact that the same party, who knowingly alleged the falsehood, induced the false witness to prove it, make a case of remediable fraud? ”

“ It is apparent that the power, function, or means, however important and vital, are at the mercy of that Government. And it must be always remembered, if the right to impose a tax at all exists on the part of the other Government, 'it is a right which in its nature acknowledges no limits.' And the principle is equally true in respect to every other power or function of a Government subject to the control of another.
In our complex system of government it is oftentimes difficult to fix the true boundary between the two systems, State and Federal. ”

“ It is not true that a corporation cannot bind the corporators beyond what is expressly authorized in the act of incorporation. There is power to make policies of insurance; and if a series of such contracts, based on a cash premium, have been made, openly and palpably within the knowledge of the corporators, the public have a right to presume that they are within the scope of the authority granted, unless it can be established that cash in hand is not as good as a premium note. ”

“ Sufficient notice is given in both cases by the sheriff's going upon the property, taking possession, and advertising. Is hardship a sufficient reason for setting aside a legal process? Must the law guard against possibilities, and is not an injury done to creditors by annulling the sale? Are sales, fairly made, to be declared null and void, upon the bare suspicion that a wrong may be done? When a lien is created by the judgment, it is as if public proclamation were made that the property is bound by that judgment. ”

“ One machine is so light, or its motion so violent, that it must be steadied by some fastening to the floor; the next is heavy enough to keep in place by its own weight. Now there is no reason in saying that one machine will, and the other will not, pass with the freehold. Both are essential to the same business, one is useless without the other, and both are in the mind of the purchaser when he buys the establishment. It seems absurd to say that, to be sure of getting all the machinery, he must nail it down to the floor, when perhaps fifty men could not start it a hair. ”

“ Can a reason be assigned why the jurisdiction of the American admiralty should not be as broad and beneficial as that of any system of cultivated justice? We are not bound in fetters, by the constitution, to the English rule. If we breack the constitution by departing from the English rule, we have already broken it into atoms. We broke it when we suffered the jurisdiction to penetrate into the body of a county. So we broke it when the limit of tide-water was discarded, with the sovereign arbitrament of the moon. And we broke it again, when admiralty jurisdiction was applied to revenue cases. ”

“ Under the laws of nations there is no prescription as between a government and its subjects, although in municipal codes it is allowed as between private persons for the sake of repose. Ordinarily, it is the sovereign political power that gives the title. How strange would be the anomaly of its retaining the right to use its omnipotent power to turn the grantee out and resume the possession as against his beirs at law. ”

“ Are the proceedings of the parish court of Madison, in the State of Louisiana, final and conclusive against all persons, parties, and those not parties? Are the frauds by which those judgments in favor of the executor, Stephen Douglas, and in favor of Mrs. Emeline Douglas, and the fraudulent, collusive, and covinous proceedings under those judgments, final, conclusive, sacred; beyond the power of all courts to overhaul them for fraud, deceit, and covin? No such sanctity can be ascribed to them. ”

“ Counsel must show a controversy with a party, not a controversy with the law; they must show an individual right, not a general public right. This court does not sit as conservators over public rights, and as such to guard them in the very beginning against the execution of an obnoxious law. It sits only in a controversy after a controversy has arisen. If there was no other objection to the case, this would be sufficient, namely, that no controversy has ever arisen under this law with any party, citizen of a State, public officer, or anybody else. ”

“ Indeed, in every instance where an attorney is charged by affidavit with fraud or malpractice in his profession, contrary to the principles of justice and common honesty, the court, on motion, will order him to appear and answer, and deal with him according as the facts may appear in the case. But, this is a distinct head of proceeding from that of contempt of court, or of the members thereof, committed in open court, or in immediate view and presence, tending to interrupt its proceedings, or to impair the respect due to its authority. ”

“ For the same reason, the arguments of a chancery court must be deemed inapplicable, except to the very case before the court; for, in equity, the decision itself may depend (and does so in this case) upon which party it is that applies for relief. A decree is not a bar even in chancery, when the position of the parties is changed. It is lawful and equitable for a party to use the means he has at law to force his adversary into a condition to oblige him to go into chancery, and thus free himself from obstructions which lie in the way of administering what is plain and substantial justice. ”

“ Now, it is upon this principle that the lands held under the patent certificate have become property in the State, and subject to its legislation, that they are subject to judgment and execution against the owner; to conveyance by deed or devise; to descend to his heirs at law on his decease, or to sale by a court of probate to pay his debts. And it may well be asked, if the title is thus subject to the municipal laws concerning judgments and executions, deeds of conveyance, devises, of descent, and of administration in the probate court, how the title can be exempt from the law of trusts? ”

“ We can give very little weight to a possession so limited as to duration and in extent, when offered in support of a grant of ninety or one hundred thousand acres of land. If the grant cannot be maintained by its own force and effect, this possession will scarcely uphold it. Coming then to the grants, we may as well lay aside the first one, the colonization grant, at once, as entirely defective within the law of 1824 and the regulations of 1828. The only document in evidence is the naked grant itself. ”

“ But how is the case different on the return of the plaintiff to the State of Missouri? Is she bound to recognise and enforce the law of Illinois? For unless she is the status and condition of the slave upon his return remains the same as originally existed. Has the law of Illinois any greater force within the jurisdiction of Missouri than the laws of the latter within that of the former? Certainly not. They stand upon an equal footing. Neither has any force extraterritorially except what may be voluntarily conceded to them. ”

“ Gelston, as Chief Justice, observed, 'that if a fund for the payment of debts be created under an order or decree in chancery, and the creditors come in to avail themselves of it, the rule of equity then is, that they shall be paid in pari passu, or upon a footing of equality. But when the law given a priority, equity will not destroy it, and especially where legal assets are created by statute, as in case of a judgment lien they remain so, though the creditors be obliged to go into equity for assistance. ”

“ Taking the term commerce in its broadest acceptation, supposing it to embrace not merely traffic, but the means and vehicles by which it is prosecuted, can it properly be made to include objects and purposes such as those contemplated by the law under review? Commerce with foreign nations must signify commerce, which in some sense is necessarily connected with those nations, transactions which, either immediately or at some stage of their progress, must be extra territorial. ”

“ But it is proper to say, that the secret deliberations of the jury, or grounds of their proceedings while engaged in making up their verdict, are not competent or admissible evidence of the issues or finding. The jurors oftentimes, though they may concur in the result, differ as to the grounds or reasons upon which they arrive at it.
The evidence should be confined to the points in controversy on the former trial, to the testimony given by the parties, and to the questions submitted to the jury for their consideration, and then the record furnishes the only proper proof of the verdict. ”

“ Suppose these duties had been devolved on some bank, would not that bank be entitled to commissions? Was it not so before the Independent Treasury Act, either that they should receive commissions, or, what was better, interest on the money deposited? Now what is the difference whether you select a person who holds no office, or one who holds an office with particularly defined duties and a defined salary for those duties? The act of 1822 limits the emoluments of an office. What is an emolument? It is a compensation for the performance of an official duty. ”

“ But how can the power, explicitly conferred upon the City Council, to decide upon the security to be exacted, be exhausted before the passage of the ordinance for the issue of the bonds to be lent? It was made the duty as well as the right of the council to decide upon this question; and even if there had been submitted to the people the question of making a loan, on the faith of a particular indemnity, the council would by no means have precluded itself from insisting upon what was deemed a better security, before making the loan. ”

“ It is a rule of law that where trustees are named in a will it is not necessary that the testator should say in terms that he gives the legal estate to them. Nor that he should describe the quantity of legal estate which he intends to give them. If trustees are named the law looks to see what powers are conferred upon them and what duties are required of them, and then considers that it was the testator's intention to give them such a legal estate as would enable them to execute those powers and discharge those duties. ”

“ We should scarcely be justified in giving to this term a more enlarged meaning as to the right to make and sell, as it respects the one class, than is given to the others, as they are always used as correlative in the patent laws, to the extent of the interests held by them. The clause, therefore, in terms, seems to limit studiously the benefit, or reservation, or whatever it may be called, under or from the new grant to the naked right to use the thing patented; not an exclusive right even for that, which might denote monopoly, nor any right at all, much less exclusive, to make and vend. ”

“ Loring; the great improbability that that lady would make a young servant girl the confidant of her settled intentions respecting her only grandchildren, which she imparted to no one else; the lapse of time; the infirmity and treachery of the human memory, even under favorable circumstances, as to mere casual declarations,-which so many rules of law are framed to guard against, and judicial experience recognizes,-all combine not only to deprive the testimony of this witness of the character of 'the clearest and most stringent evidence,' but to place it below the level of ordinary credibility. ”

“ We have already held, in a previous case of this plaintiff and the United States, that the neglect to take possession, and the absence of any claim under the grant, and of any evidence even of the existence of the grant itself, for so long a period of time, afford such a violent presumption of abandonment of the claim, that unless explained to the satisfaction of the court, it is impossible, consistent with any sound principles of law or of equity, to uphold it. ”

“ Their powers are so intimately blended and connected that it is impossible to define or fix the limit of the one without at the same time that of the other in respect to any one of the great departments of Government. When the limit is ascertained and fixed, all perplexity and confusion disappear. Each is sovereign and independent in its sphere of action, and exempt from the interference or control of the other, either in the means employed or functions exercised, and influenced by a public and patriotic spirit on both sides, a conflict of authority need not occur or be feared. ”

“ The special act merely relieves the trustee from the judgment of law consequent upon their purchase. It leaves all incidental questions open, to be dealt with according to general principles.
And the trustees stand in an inauspicious relation to the property; they are vendors of the estate of others, and they are purchasers for themselves; a court of equity will, therefor, examine their acts with jealous caution, and in dubious matters it can allow them the benefit of no favorable presumption. ”

“ A court of equity, from the mere fact of such relation, would fasten upon the purchase a trust, without any inquiry into the motives or intentions of the attorney in making the purchase, and compel him to give up its benefits and advantages on the reimbursement of the purchase-money. Neither fraud nor imposition need be shown. The client may, at his election, treat the act of done for his benefit.
There are few of the business relations of life involving a higher trust and confidence than that of attorney and client, or, generally speaking, one more honorably and faithfully discharged ”

“ In equity, all rights, whether legal and perfect, or equitable and imperfect, are protected, and can be enforced. Congress declared that those having rights of any kind should have all the advantages that a court of equity could decree them. The rules applied in equity cases should apply in these. It is a well-settled rule that a court of equity cannot apply its powers to confirm or enforce a forfeiture, while there is another which requires it to exert them, whenever practicable, to prevent forfeitures, and to set them aside, and to relieve against them in all proper cases. ”

“ No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.' And in the clause conferring upon the Federal Government the general power over commerce, it is given, in terms, 'to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States.' The two are placed upon the same footing without any discrimination. The power is equally broad and absolute over the one as over the other. ”

“ The theory of a mutual insurance company is, that the premiums paid by each member for the insurance of his property constitute a common fund, devoted to the payment of any losses that may occur. Now, the cash premium may as well represent the insured in the common fund as the premium note; and this class of companies has been so long engaged in the business of insurance, it may well be that they can determine, with sufficient certainty for all practical purposes, the just difference in the rates of premium between cash and notes. ”

“ The Executive alone possesses no authority, under the Constitution and laws, to deliver up to a foreign power any person found within the States of this Union, without the intervention of the judiciary. ”

“ Though a solemn declaration, or previous notice to the enemy, be now laid aside, it is essential that some formal public act, proceeding directly from the competent source, should announce to the people at home their new relations and duties growing out of a state of war, and which should equally apprize neutral nations of the fact, to enable them to conform their conduct to the rights belonging to the new state of things. ”

“ The argument, we think, in any aspect in which it may be viewed, is utterly destitute of support upon any principles of constitutional law, as, according to that, Congress has no power whatever over the subject of slavery within the State, and is also subversive of the established doctrine of international jurisprudence, as, according to that, it is an axiom that the laws of one Government have no force within the limits of another or extraterritorially except from the consent of the latter. ”

“ The law goes upon the broad general principle, that litigants must sustain their cases by disinterested testimony, and if an interested witness is palmed upon the court, it is treated as a fraud, for which the verdict will be set aside. A bribed witness is an interested witness; his own self-interest is used, not only to give him directly an undue bias, but he infamously sells a falsehood and commits wilful perjury for a reward. ”

“ I consider the rule to be of such importance to the interests and safety of the public, and to the due administration of justice, that it ought on all occasions to be inflexibly maintained. I do not see how the court can expect its officers to do their duty, if they do it under the peril of resistance, and of that resistance being justified on grounds tending to the impeachment of the order under which they are acting. ”