“ No man can be tried, under any circumstances, elsewhere than in the State or district where he committed the offence. Nor can new districts be created, ad libitum, after the offence is committed, to carry the trial to whatever remote point Congress may please, for reasons of prejudice, ill will, or favoritism, in order to acquit or convict, as inward feeling or outward pressure may dictate, giving to the particular party, at the option of Congress, friendly or unfriendly juries and judges, and allowing or taking from him a jury of his vicinage. ”

“ If there is any district in which this person could now be tried, it is the Western District of Arkansas. The only way to avoid the difficulty would have been, as the cases we have cited show, for Congress to have declared the old district to continue, with its original territorial extent, for all the purposes of this and similar cases.
The courts of the United States have no jurisdiction, as to crimes, except such as is expressly conferred by statute. In such cases, they have no implied powers, nor any derived from the common law. ”

“ But if you cut a tract of land or country in two, you may call one half by the name previously borne by the whole, and for some purposes it may be the same tract or country; but for others it is not so. Take from Arkansas a county, or half a dozen counties, and in many senses the residue would be the same Arkansas that existed before. Suits in her favor would not abate, nor her contracts be annulled, because the sovereignty or municipal corporation which constitutes the State does not lose its individuality by parting with a portion of its territory. ”

“ This view must overcome the locality of the crime, and the right which the defendants may claim, to have a jury as near the vicinage as practicable, at least a jury from the district where the crime was committed. These appear to me to be objections entitled to great consideration. A jurisdiction in so important a case should not be maintained under reasonable doubts of its legality. ”

“ It is a well-settled principle, that where a statute creating an offence is repealed, and no provision is made for carrying forward prosecutions commenced under it, all such prosecutions are absolutely ended with the repeal of the law. ”

“ Such a power, in a free country, would be intolerable. Congress could acquit or condemn at its pleasure. The district within which the crime was committed must have been previously ascertained by law. Thus, and thus only, will a possibility of special legislation for the particular case be avoided, and this power of attainder in disguise taken away.
There have never been but two districts in which it could be said that the offence in this case was committed. The Eastern District of Arkansas is limited to certain specified counties of the State ”

“ It will occur to every one, that it would be intolerable if a power existed by which, if a man committed an offence in Oregon or Florida, Congress might, in order to strike him down with perfect certainty, attach the particular place where he committed the offence to the District of Maine, so as to carry him to Portland for trial ”

“ If part of a defined territory, having functions or duties political, judicial, municipal, or other, be separated from it, either by annexion to another, or by being converted into a new political, judicial, municipal, or other entity, then the remaining part of the territory, or the former public body, retains all its property, powers, rights, and privileges, and remains subject to all its obligations and duties, unless some express provisions to the contrary be made by the act authorizing the separation. ”

“ It was not intended by the amendment to leave the rights of the accused to be settled by the caprice or hostility of Congress, and by laws enacted on the spur of the moment, to suit the particular occasion, reach the particular case, and strike the particular individual. ”

“ The act of March 10th, 1824, (4 Stat. at Large, 9,) divided Alabama into two districts, and sec. 5 made the necessary provisions.
The act of 3d March, 1837, (5 Stat. at Large, 176,) erected twelve new Circuit Courts. ”

“ We have examples of legislation by Congress by which new judicial districts have been formed out of the old, with total silence as to the cognizance of actions or prosecutions pending in the old, viz. ”