Legalization

“ The principle that Federal jurisdiction must be everywhere the same, under the same circumstances, has not been departed from. The prohibition rests on grounds which, so far from making a distinction between the States, apply to them all alike. ”

“ The proposal to amend the Constitution by putting in a prohibition amendment, is the first step toward national control of sumptuary laws directing what shall and shall not be done in every community; amendments to the Constitution in respect of the 'franchise, to direct who in every state shall or shall not have the right to the elective franchise. In general, the great industrial communities of the North and East are more and more being subjected to government control and regulation by the people of the parts of the country that know little of the business of the country. ”

“ If the government of the United States, therefore, has no right to legislate for the territories, it has no right to adjudicate for the territories; if it has no right to adjudicate, then it has no right to enforce the decisions of the judicial tribunals. ”

“ That these matters, both as stated in the body of the bill, and, in the prayers for relief, call for the judgment of the court upon political questions, and, upon rights, not of persons or property, but of a political character, will hardly be denied. For the rights for the protection of which our authority is invoked, are the rights of sovereignty, of political jurisdiction, of government, of corporate existence as a State, with all its constitutional powers and privileges. ”

“ To give such jurisdiction to the state courts that transient foreigners, and persons from other states, committing injuries in this state, may be amenable to the state whose laws they violate and whose citizens they injure. 4th To prevent an extension of the federal jurisdiction, which may, and in all probability will, swallow up the state jurisdictions, and consequently sap those rules of descent and regulations of personal property, by which men hold their estates. ”

“ It is, indeed, distressing to reflect that it ever should have been made a question, whether the Constitution, on the whole face of which is seen so much labor to enumerate and define the several objects of federal power, could intend to introduce in the lump, in an indirect manner, and by a forced construction of a few phrases, the vast and multifarious jurisdiction involved in the common law—a law filling so many ample volumes; a law overspreading the entire field of legislation ”

“ It has a much more extended operation that either court, State, or Federal has given to it. The provision, it is to be observed, places property under the same protection as life and liberty. Except by due process of law, no State can deprive any person of either. The provision has been supposed to secure to every individual the essential conditions for the pursuit of happiness ”

“ One of these principles is, that every State possesses exclusive jurisdiction and sovereignty over persons and property within its territory. As a consequence, every State has the power to determine for itself the civil status and capacities of its inhabitants; to prescribe the subjects upon which they may contract, the forms and solemnities with which their contracts shall be executed, the rights and obligations arising from them, and the mode in which their validity shall be determined and their obligations enforced ”

“ It is not without reason, therefore, that the common law was deemed by our ancestors a part of the law of the land, brought with them upon their emigration, so far, as it was suited to their circumstances; since it affords the amplest protection for their rights and personal liberty. Congress have vested in the courts of the United States full authority to issue this great writ, in cases falling properly within the jurisdiction of the national government. ”

“ It may regulate the manner and circumstances under which property is held, and the condition, capacity, and state of all persons therein, and also the remedy and modes of administering justice. And it is equally true that no State or nation can affect or bind property out of its territory, or persons not residing within it. No State therefore can enact laws to operate beyond its own dominions, and if it attempts to do so, it may be lawfully refused obedience. ”

“ It is needless to state that many modern statutes—like prohibition laws, for instance—are passed for that very reason. Yet whatever the fact may have been in the past, there is no doubt that for the future, legislation by the people, constructive law-making at the popular behest, is the great new fact of Anglo-American civilization. ”

“ We can hold territory; but to admit the inhabitants into the Union, to make citizens of them, and states, by treaty, we cannot constitutionally do, and no subsequent act of legislation, or even ordinary amendment to our Constitution, can legalize such measures. ”

“ All we mean to say on this point is, that, as there is no express regulation in the Constitution defining the power which the General Government may exercise over the person or property of a citizen in a Territory thus acquired, the court must necessarily look to the provisions and principles of the Constitution, and its distribution of powers, for the rules and principles by which its decision must be governed. ”

“ These resolutions declared jurisdiction over slavery to belong exclusively to the states; that by the 8th section of the first article of the constitution, the states had surrendered to the federal government jurisdiction over commerce and navigation upon the high seas; that slavery, being an abridgment of the natural rights of man, can exist only by force of positive municipal law, and is necessarily confined to the territorial jurisdiction of the power creating it ”