by John Marshall Harlan

“ There is nothing in the act which sanctions such a proposition. The court, in the case before us, had acquired jurisdiction of the parties and of the subject-matter of the suit. . . . Having such jurisdiction, and performing its duty as the case stood in that court, we are at a loss to see how its decree can be treated as void.' Again: 'The debtor of a bankrupt, or the man who contests the right to real or personal property with him, loses none of those rights by the bankruptcy of his adversary. ”

“ It rests, necessarily, upon the ground, that immediately upon the assignment of the bankrupt's property to his assignees, the State court of chancery-although the attachments therein were sued out more than four months preceding the bankruptcy-had no jurisdiction to determine the relative rights of the attaching creditors and the assignees in bankruptcy, or to order a sale of the attached property, and appy the proceeds to the satisfaction of the debts of those creditors. ”

“ If the bankrupt owed the attaching creditors the sums by them respectively claimed, and if the attachments were so issued and levied as, under the laws of the State, to create a valid lien upon the property, it is clear that the State court gave the assignees all that could have been awarded them. ”