United States law

“ So, that any attempt to deem a state a party to a suit, simply because it has an interest in a suit, or is a stockholder in a corporation on the record, would be to renounce all ordinary doctrines of law applicable to such cases. The framers of the constitution must be presumed, in treating of the judicial department, to have used language in the sense, and with the limitations belonging to it in judicial usage. They must have spoken according to known distinctions, and settled rules of interpretation, incorporated into the very elements of the jurisprudence of every state in the Union. ”

“ The Federal courts must of course decide ultimately what are the respective spheres of State and Nation in connection with any law, State or National, and they must decide definitely and finally in matters affecting individual citizens, not only as to the rights and wrongs of labor but as to the rights and wrongs of capital; and the National Government must always see that the decision of the court is put into effect. ”

“ It is a self-evident proposition that the several state legislatures retain all the powers of legislation delegated to them by the state constitutions, which are not expressly taken away by the Constitution of the United States. Per Chase, J. Ibid.
14. A law that punishes a citizen for an innocent action, or, in other words, for an act which, when done, was in violation of no existing law; a law that destroys or impairs the lawful private contracts of citizens; a law that makes a man judge in his own cause ”

“ There is no common law of the United States, and yet the main body of the rights of the people of this country rest upon and are governed by principles derived from the common law of England, and established as the laws of the different states. ”

“ The question for us is whether, if the state Constitution undertakes to authorize such a law, it encounters the Constitution of the United States. It is a question of the power of the state as a whole. ”