John Archibald Campbell

“ The first branch of the inquiry is satisfactorily answered by Judge Story. 'In all cases of partition,' he says, 'a court of equity does not act merely in a ministerial character and in obedience to the call of the parties who have a right to the partition, but it founds itself upon its general jurisdiction as a court of equity, and administers its relief ex aequo et bono, according to its own notions of general justice and equity between the parties. ”

“ A court of the State of Indiana, with a plenary jurisdiction in chancery, having the subject-matter and parties within that jurisdiction, has pronounced the decree, from whence comes the power of this court to pronounce its jurisdiction usurped, and its decree a nullity? This court, of old, was accustomed to say, 'that a judgment or execution irreversible by a superior court, cannot be declared a nullity by any authority of law, if it has been rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction of the parties and the subject-matter, with authority to use the process it has issued ”

“ Witherington, 2 Dev. & B. 433, where land belonging to one in severalty was included in the petition as land held in common, and allotted to another in severalty, it was held, in an action of ejectment, that the lessor of the plaintiff, who had been a party to the judgment, 'was concluded, bound, and estopped, to controvert any thing contained in it. ”