John Archibald Campbell

“ Every sovereign has the exclusive right to command within his territory; and the laws which originate rights to real property are commands addressed to the members of the State, requiring them to abstain from any interference with the proprietary right they recognise or establish; and in respect to this subject the sovereignty of New York has not been impaired by her adoption of the Federal Constitution. ”

“ The power to establish federal courts, and to endow them with a jurisdiction to determine controversies between certain parties, affords no pretext for abrogating any established law of property, or for removing any obligation of her citizens to submit to the rule of the local sovereign. The title of the devisees of Mary Clarke was divested by authority conferred by the Legislature of the State, which was exercised subject to the oversight of her own tribunals. ”

“ Property has since been bought and sold upon the faith of the opinion here delivered, and the judgment by this court pronounced. Every principle by which our law of precedents is justified, tends against the reopening of the case in this court.
The litigation in respect to the property conveyed by Clarke, under the authority derived from the acts of the Legislature, and the orders of the chancellor, commenced before the death of Clarke. Sinclair v. Jackson, 8 Cow., 543.
The case of Clarke v. Van Surley was tried at the New York Circuit in 1833, and was decided in the Supreme Court in 1836. ”