By-law

“ Rights of property, like all other social and conventional rights, are subject to such reasonable limitations in their enjoyment as shall prevent them from being injurious, and to such reasonable restraints and regulations established by law as the legislature, under the governing and controlling power vested in them by the Constitution, may think necessary and expedient. This power, legitimately exercised, can neither be limited by contract nor bartered away by legislation. ”

“ Indeed, I had supposed, if there was a universal and uncontroverted proposition in the common law, as it is known and understood in England and in this country, it was, that no act done in violation of the laws of the land, or in disregard or contravention of its principles, can be the foundation of a claim which can be enforced at law or in equity. ”

“ Of all suits at law or in equity authorized by law to be brought by any person to redress the deprivation, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State, of any right, privilege, or immunities, secured by the Constitution of the United States, or of any right secured by any law of the United States providing for equal rights of citizens of the United States, or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States. ”

“ I have always entertained the view that, in cases turning upon questions of jurisdiction, or involving only the rights of private parties, courts should feel at liberty to settle principles of law according to the opinions of their existing members, neither regardless of nor implicitly bound by prior decisions, subject only to the condition that they do not require the disturbance of settled rules of property. ”

“ If within the limits of the Constitution a State should declare one of the disputed rules of general law by statute there would be no doubt of the duty of all Courts to bow, whatever their private opinions might be. ”

“ But, according to the course of proceeding under this head in equity, in order to entitle the party to the remedy, a case must be presented appropriate for the exercise of judicial power; the rights in danger, as we have seen, must be rights of persons or property, not merely political rights, which do not belong to the jurisdiction of a court, either in law or equity. ”

“ I freely concede that if the state system of jurisprudence should invest the court of chancery with an ordinary common-law jurisdiction, as, for example, with jurisdiction of an action upon a promissory note, such cause, when removed to the federal court, would simply be placed on the common-law side, and be tried by a jury. ”

“ Statutes serve to record the rights of a people, and speak the intention of parties to defend what the letter of the law has expressed; but without the vigour to maintain what is acknowledged as a right, the mere record, or the feeble intention, is of little avail.
A populace roused by oppression, or an order of men possessed of temporary advantage, have obtained many charters, concessions, and stipulations, in favour of their claims ”

“ This law is clearly corrective in its character, intended to counteract and furnish redress against state laws and proceedings, and customs having the force of law, which sanction the wrongful acts specified. In the Revised Statutes, it is true, a very important clause, to-wit, the words 'any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary not-withstanding,' which gave the declaratory section its point and effect, are omitted ”

“ Where a statute innovates upon the common law, and confers authority in derogation thereof to do a particular thing; as in this case, to surrender land to the commonwealth; the act must be performed in the manner directed by the statute, else it cannot prevail: not by the common law, for that does not at all permit it; not by the statute, because its requisitions have not been complied with. The statute declares that when certain things are done in the mode pointed out by it, they shall operate a relinquishment of the title. ”

“ Recognizing the difficulty in defining with exactness the phrase "due process of law," it is certain that these words imply a conformity with natural and inherent principles of justice, and forbid that one man's property, or right to property, shall be taken for the benefit of another, or for the benefit of the State, without compensation; and that [p391] no one shall be condemned in his person or property without an opportunity of being heard in his own defence. ”

“ By these statutory provisions the rules prescribed under the common law with respect to suits upon joint and several promises have been essentially changed, and the same license which concedes to a party the power of instituting his suit against one or more, or all the parties to an undertaking, carries with it by necessary implication the right to prosecute or discontinue it in the same sense and to the same extent and degree. ”

“ That wherever there exists at law a complete and adequate power, either for the prosecution of a right or the redressing of a wrong, courts of equity, with the exception of a few cases of concurrent authority, have no jurisdiction or power to act. ”

“ No one would object to the clause which declares that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor to the provision which declares that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ”

“ One prohibition is, 'that no person shall be deprived of his property, immunities or privileges, put out of the protection of the law, or deprived of his life, liberty or estate, but by judgment of his peers, or the law of the land.' In the opinion, however, which was given in the court below, it is denied, that the trustees, under the charter, had any property, immunity, liberty or privilege, in this corporation, within the meaning of this prohibition in the bill of rights. ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ If a State legislature should pass a law prohibiting the inhabitants of a particular township, county, or city, from tanning leather or making shoes, would such a law violate any privileges or immunities of those inhabitants as citizens of the United States, or only their privileges and immunities as citizens of that particular State? ”

“ It was held that the words 'meant only that the states should have legislative jurisdiction.' But jurisdiction, whatever else or more it may mean, is jurisdictio, in its popular sense of authority to apply the law to the acts of men. ”

“ Of the binding obligation, and conclusiveness of decrees in equity where the parties and the subject-matter of such decrees are within the regular cognizance of the court pronouncing them, and of their equality in dignity and authority with judgments at law, we have already spoken. It remains for us only to consider what may be legally intended or concluded from the pleadings in this cause as to the territorial extent of jurisdiction in the court whose decree is made the foundation of this action. ”

“ As we have said on more than one occasion, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to give to the terms 'due process of law' a definition which will embrace every permissible exertion of power affecting private rights, and exclude such as are forbidden. ”

“ We think the rule is settled in this court that whenever a new right is granted by statute, or a new remedy for violation of an old right, or whenever such rights and remedies are dependent on State statutes or acts of Congress, the jurisdiction of such cases, as between the law side and the equity side of the Federal courts, must be determined by the essential character of the case, and unless it comes within some of the recognized heads of equitable jurisdiction it must be held to belong to the other. ”

“ If a federal court concludes it is uncertain whether a Civil Rule truly governs a given question of practice, and if a relevant state rule of law differs, the extent to which application of the Civil Rule would interfere with substantive rights is certainly one of the factors that should be considered in deciding whether the Civil Rule applies. ”

“ They assert the power to look beyond the corporation, to presume or to ascertain the residence of the individuals composing it, and to model their decision upon that foundation. In other words, they affirm that in an action at law, the purely legal rights, asserted by one of the parties upon the record, may be maintained by showing or presuming that these rights are vested in some other person who is no party to the controversy before them. ”

“ The whole future will of each individual is concentrated into the one moment when he declares his willingness to participate in the commonwealth; and this extending the present will so as to embrace the whole future, changes the expressed common will into LAW. In so far as the common will determines how far the rights of each person shall extend, the law is called Civil Law; and in so far as it determines the punishment which shall follow a violation of the law, it is called Penal or Criminal Law. ”

“ Admitting that the power of the legislature is so far limited and restricted by general principles of law that it cannot, by any act of legislation, destroy or impair a vested and beneficial right in property, it would not follow that the act in question was void. ”

“ For although courts sometimes have been slow to extend the effect of statutes modifying the common law beyond the direct operation of the words, it is obvious that a statute may indicate a change in the policy of the law, although it expresses that change only in the specific cases most likely to occur to the mind. ”

“ Now, the question arises, What proceedings are meant by the phrase 'suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity,' in the latter section, conferring original jurisdiction, and the phrase 'a suit,' in the former section, giving the right of removal? ”

“ The proposition, hence, applies to the prohibitions of the Amendment the law of principal and agent governing contracts between individuals, and consequently assumes that no act done by an officer of a state is within the reach of the Amendment unless such act can be held to be the act of the state by the application of such law of agency. ”

“ Rights do not vest until all the conditions of the law have been fulfilled with exactitude during its continuance, or a direct engagement has been made, limiting legislative power over and producing an obligation. ”