Joseph McKenna

“ It is not reviewable at all because under the limitation of the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals it had no power to review or decide the question whether there was any evidence to show that Ireland was a fugitive from justice and that the Court of Appeals must be assumed not to have passed upon or to have decided the question whether Ireland was a fugitive from justice. Whether the assumption is justified or not we do not consider, on account of the view we entertain of the first ground of the motion, to which we immediately pass. ”

“ Questions of law which may be raised upon the indictment, the deductions from the facts which may be charged against the action of the Governor, do not impugn it or the validity of the statute which enjoined it. And surely the decisions of the courts of New York, one trial and two appellate, affirming the legality of his action, are not decisions against the validity of the authority he exercised.
There is a difference between a question of power to pass a law and its construction, and a difference between the endowing of an officer with authority and his erroneous exercise of that authority. ”

“ Coming, then, to consider what was involved in the decision of the courts below, it is manifes that the validity of no national enactment or authority was drawn in question nor, in the meaning of the section, the validity of a statute or authority of the state. There is no doubt of the right of the Governor of New Jersey to have demanded of the Governor of New York the extradition of Ireland, nor of the Governor of the latter state to have complied. ”