Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The statutes, we believe, have not been understood to attempt to withdraw from the courts of the larger districts the authority expressly conferred upon them by the Revised Statutes and the organic act,-a thing that, of course, territorial statutes could not do. See the City of Panama, 101 U.S. 453, 25 L. ed. 1061. We should not decide against the local understanding of a matter of purely local concern unless we thought it clearly wrong, instead of thinking it, as we do, plainly right. ”

“ Stat. § 1874, by which the judges of the supreme court were 'authorized to hold court within their respective districts, in the counties wherein, by the laws of the territory, courts have been or may be established, for the purpose of hearing and determining all matters and causes, except those in which the United States is a party.' Thus, it is argued, exclusive jurisdiction of cases like the present was transferred to the county district courts. ”