Stephen Johnson Field

“ We do not think that its wise and beneficent purpose of securing a home to the family against the vicissitudes of fortune can be thus easily evaded. A forced dispossession in ejectment is as much within the prohibition as a forced sale under judicial process. ”

“ In that case Chief Justice Hemphill said that 'the Constitution obviously intended that the homestead should be exempted from the operation of any species of execution, or from any forced disposition of the property, whether partial or total, which would disturb the family in the quiet and uninterrupted possession of their home with the property thereto attached. The beneficence of the provision has a much wider range than to protect the family from a sale which would utterly extinguish all right in the property. ”

“ The appellant is the owner of the mortgage in this case, and aware-so states him counsel-that he could not enforce it against the homestead in the State courts, as there mortgages can only be enforced by a decree of sale, commenced an action of ejectment for the premises in the Circuit Court of the United States, contending that the mortgage passed the legal title as against the mortgagors, and that, as its owner, he had a right to recover the possession of the premises for default in the payment of the notes secured. ”