Peter Vivian Daniel

“ The alleged wrong which the court are called on to redress, is not an act of state power at all; it is an act of the territorial government of Iowa, by which was repealed an act of the preceding territorial government of Wisconsin; consequently the decision of the court below asserted no state act or power in opposition to the Constitution, treaties, or laws, or to a commission or authority of, or under the United States, and presents therefore no ground of jurisdiction here, either as derived from the language of the statute, or from any construction heretofore given of it. ”

“ They are not states, and cannot pass statutes within the meaning of the Judiciary acts.' Other cases cited by the court, in the opinion just quoted, might be adduced to show the difference ever taken by the court in reference to its relation to the states as states, and as contradistinguished from the territories of the United States. It seems to us, that the control of these territorial governments properly appertains to that branch of the government which creates and can change or modify them to meet its views of public policy, viz.: the Congress of the United States. ”

“ Congress, in creating the territorial governments, and in conferring upon them powers of general legislation, did not, from obvious principles of policy and necessity, ordain a suspension of all acts proceeding from those powers, until expressly sanctioned by themselves, whilst for considerations equally strong they reserved the power of disapproving or annulling such acts of territorial legislation as might be deemed detrimental. A different system of procedure would have been fatal to all practical improvement in those territories, however urgently called for ”