Roger B. Taney

“ If void at first, it continued to be void and a nullity to the time of the deaths of the parties, and their administrators could derive no lawful title from them. To say that a legal or equitable interest in a fraudulent contract can exist in a party and be transmitted to his administrator, when used as legal language, is a solecism. And if from necessity, upon any principle of law or equity, the award related back, it would seem that those who purchased the interest in these shares, at their full market value at the time ”

“ And is not this court bound, under the award of the commissioners, to regard the original contract as valid, when it has been so decided by a lawful tribunal of the United States, having exclusive jurisdiction over the subject? If we are so bound, and not authorized to impeach the judgment of the commissioners, then the judgment of the Maryland court, in the cases of Gooding and Williams, is right, and ought to be affirmed upon the second ground stated in the opinion, even if we were sitting here as an appellate tribunal. ”

“ And no one of these judges deemed it necessary that the administrators should be parties, or called before the court; acting no doubt upon the established rules of chancery, that a person who has no interest in the fund need not and ought not to be made a party; and that the administrators could have no interest, as the intestates themselves had none at the times of their respective deaths. ”

“ And if the court was right in deciding, that neither the trustee of the insolvent nor any one else could derive a title to this money under the contract with Mina, perhaps the language of the award, together with the documents referred to in it, might justify this decision. ”

“ The courts of the United States can hardly be authorized to sanction and enforce what are called honorary obligations of a foreign nation, when those obligations have arisen from temptations offered to our own citizens to violate the laws of their own country. ”