Lower court

“ Much stronger is the case at bar, for the tribunal was composed of officers of the government of the United States. It was created by the land department in pursuance of express authority from the acts of congress. This perjury was not merely a wrong against that tribunal or a violation of its rules or requirements; the tribunal and the contest only furnished the opportunity and the occasion for the crime, which was a crime defined in and denounced by the statute. ”

“ It also has 'power to issue writs of mandamus, certiorari, prohibition, and habeas corpus, and also all writs necessary or proper to the complete exercise of its appellate jurisdiction.' Id. § 4. The constitution of 1849 provided that the district courts 'shall have original jurisdiction, in law and equity, in all civil cases where the amount in dispute exceeded two hundred dollars, exclusive of interest. In all criminal cases not otherwise provided for, and in all issues of fact joined in the probate courts, their jurisdiction shall be unlimited.' Const. ”

“ You will observe that, as a rule, the further we go from the surface of things the nearer, we get to the bottom." This brought cheers and waving of hats from the Howlin Wilderness, and the Court re peated, " I am free to say that the Court has gone diligently into the depths of this case, and that, as a rule, the further you get from the surface of things the nearer you get to the bottom. The case looked dark indeed against the prisoner at first; but the Court has gone to the bottom of the matter, and he is now white as snow." ”

“ This is a term frequently applied throughout the South and West to bodies of men who constitute themselves into a tribunal for the purpose of exercising a species of vicarious jurisdiction over those offences to which the ordinary courts of justice administer neither so swift nor so severe a punishment as they conceive them to merit. In other words, they are usually a set of scoundrels, who, having no legitimate occupation, have formed themselves into a peripatetic court, presided over by Judge Lynch; and are at once a terror and a scourge to the locality they infest. ”

“ The principle that a State conviction is a bar to a federal prosecution, and that, where there is concurrent jurisdiction, the tribunal first taking jurisdiction afterwards holds that jurisdiction, and exercises it throughout, to the exclusion of all others, necessarily leads to this result. ”

“ The conferring of jurisdiction in actions at law upon the appropriate District Courts of the United States is not, in and of itself, a deprivation of an existing jurisdiction both at law and in equity in State courts. ”

“ Those found upon any part of the block belong to each and every tract of which it is composed, and if sufficient lines and corners can be found they determine the location of the entire block, without regard to its calls for adjoiners or for waters, if such calls conflict with the lines actually run upon the ground and returned.' He added: 'It requires neither argument nor citation of authority to show that the learned judge was clearly right in thus instructing the jury.' 98 Pa. ”

“ In the New England States it is held that a judgment obtained against a town may be levied upon and made out of the property of any inhabitant of the town. The suit in those States is brought in form against the inhabitants of the town, naming it; the individual inhabitants, it is said, may and do appear and defend the suit, and hence it is held that the individual inhabitants have their day in court, are each bound by the judgment, and that it may be collected from the property of any one of them. ”

“ But . . . no civil suit shall be brought before either of said courts against any person by any original process or proceeding in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant; but where the jurisdiction is founded only on the fact that the action is between citizens of different states, suit shall be brought only in the district of the residence of either the plaintiff or the defendant.'
In Patton v. ”

“ Knowledge by congress of the boundaries of a state and of its political subdivisions may reasonably be presumed, as much of its legislation is affected by them, such as relate to the territorial jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, the extent of their collection districts, and of districts in which process, civil and criminal, of their courts may be served and enforced. ”

“ Appellate jurisdiction, in its strictest sense, as exercised under the Judiciary Act, is certainly conferred upon the Circuit Courts in four classes of cases by the express words of the Bankrupt Act, without any resort to construction: (1.) By appeal from the final decree of the District Courts in suits in equity commenced and prosecuted in the District Courts by virtue of the jurisdiction created by the third clause of the second section of the act. ”

“ I am by no means suggesting that these delays of the law would be useful in inferior Courts, or that Judges of the County Court have the wit and ability to write judgments in term time of value to the world. Inferior as they necessarily are in equipment of learning and worldly emolument to the Judges of the High Court, they can only take a humble pleasure in believing that they administer justice at least as indifferently. ”

“ But, if the two suits are in rem or quasi in rem, requiring that the court or its officer have possession or control of the property which is the subject of the suit in order to proceed with the cause and to grant the relief sought, the jurisdiction of one court must of necessity yield to that of the other. ”

“ The Circuit Court can give no judgment for plaintiff or defendant in a case where it has not jurisdiction, no matter whether there be a plea in abatement or not. And unless it appears upon the face of the record, when brought here by writ of error, that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, the judgment must be reversed. ”

“ Power is certainly vested in the Supreme Court to issue the writ of prohibition to the District Court, when that court is proceeding in a case of admiralty and maritime cognizance of which the District Court has no jurisdiction. ”

“ Suits in these courts are, by the judiciary act of 1789, ch. 20, § 11, to be brought in the district whereof the defendant (being a citizen of the United States) is an inhabitant, or in which he shall be found at the time of serving the writ; and the suits are cognisable in no other places than those assigned for the regular holding of the terms of the courts. There is no pretence, therefore, to say, that the circuit court could, by any rule, adopt the state law upon this subject. ”

“ Under this subsection, the district courts would remain free to experiment in the assignment of other duties to magistrates which may not necessarily be included in the broad category of 'pretrial matters.' This subsection would permit, for example, a magistrate to review default judgments, order the exoneration or forfeiture of bonds in criminal cases, and accept returns of jury verdicts where the trial judge is unavailable. ”

“ As suits are usually begun in the district in which the defendants, or one of the defendants, reside, the question practically involves the whole power of the circuit court of one district to take jurisdiction of such suits, brought against defendants, some of whom are residents of other districts. ”

“ If the associate justice presiding in the Circuit Court of that district, sustains the District Court in that excess, and says, as he is supposed to have done, that it is proceeding regularly and lawfully, when in truth its proceedings are irregular and unlawful, then either this court must have power to issue a prohibition, or its authority to revise the proceedings of inferior tribunals, to confine them within the limits of their jurisdiction, and to protect their own, is so far completely nullified. ”

“ There is no reason in justice or expediency why the County Court, the poor man's court, should be supported by the suitors themselves while the High Court, the rich man's court, is mainly paid for by the State. ”

“ Higley to be the almost uniform rule, among the people who make the common law of England the basis of their jurisprudence, to have a distinct tribunal for the establishment of wills, and the administration of the estates of men dying either with or without wills, which tribunals are variously called 'prerogative courts,' 'probate courts,' 'surrogate courts,' 'orphans' courts,' etc. ”

“ By appeal, by injunction, by mandamus or certiorari, the proceedings of inferior courts or magistrates can be reached, and their legality or constitutionality tested. But here a multitude of tribunals are established, over whose proceedings, not the supreme court of any state, no, not even the supreme court of the United States, has supervision. And what do these commissioners decide? That a man has no right to himself; that his body, limbs, faculties, are the property of another; that he owes service. Suppose the question were, whether the respondent owed the claimant a dollar. ”

“ There are two jails, one for the boys, one for the girls; a library, a school-house, a chapel, bank, and a well-organized banking and currency system. There is a court, and there is a judge, who is elected every year by the citizens. From this court an appeal lies in certain cases to a Supreme Court chosen by the boys from the Board of Trustees, but this court only passes on the regularity of the proceedings in the court below, that is, on what might be regarded as equivalent to constitutional and jurisdictional questions. ”

“ By the organic act of the Territory, the District Courts are invested with chancery and common-law jurisdiction. The two jurisdictions are exercised by the same court, and, under the legislation of the Territory, the modes of procedure up to the trial or hearing are the same whether a legal or equitable remedy is sought. The suitor, whatever relief he may ask, is required to state 'in ordinary and concise language' the facts of his case upon which he invokes the judgment of the court. ”

“ This is a horse soon curried. Congress, in conferring jurisdiction on the district courts in cases based solely on diversity of citizenship, has been explicit to confine such suits to 'the judicial district where all plaintiffs or all defendants reside.' 28 U.S.C. § 1391 (a) , 28 U.S.C.A. § 1391 (a) . ”

“ In England, all the higher courts where open to applicants for the writ, and it is hardly supposable that, under the new government, founded on more liberal ideas and principles, any court would be, intentionally, closed to them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Through the influence of the procedure of royal courts, on the one hand, of the stringent classifications of the tenantry in regard to status on the other, the presenters were gradually debased, and legal learning came to maintain that the only judge of a customary court was its steward. But a presentment of the kind described in the manorial rolls vouches for a very independent position of the suitors, and indeed for their prevalent authority in the constitution of the tribunal. ”

“ In process of time the King's Court developed itself into the Court of King's Bench and the Courts of the Justices of Assize, Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery, or to use the common expression, the Assize Courts; and the County Court, so far as its criminal jurisdiction was concerned, lost the greater part of its importance. ”

“ All proceedings at law are practically abolished by these decisions, and there have been but few or no jury trials in the district courts of that Territory since the last session of Congress. Property is left without protection by the courts, and crimes go unpunished. ”

“ The complications begin when one state opens its courts and extends the privileges of its laws to persons who never were domiciled there and attempts to visit disadvantages therefrom upon persons who have never lived there, have never submitted to the jurisdiction of its courts, and have never been lawfully summoned by personal service of process. ”

“ Justice Story said, 'It cannot be admitted, that any party can first affirm the jurisdiction by taking the property on bail, and then turn round and deny the same jurisdiction, when the court can no longer administer effectual relief to the interests of other persons. ”