Right of removal

“ An appearance which waives the objection of jurisdiction over the person is a voluntary appearance, and this may be effected in many ways, and sometimes may result from the act of the defendant, even when not in fact intended. But the right of the defendant to a removal is a statutory one, and he is obliged to pursue the course pointed out ”

“ The right to removal is absolute, and cannot be trammeled by such a consequence.'
It may be conceded, for the sake of the argument, that the grounds of removal might have been amended by including in the petition the federal ground of action set up in the complaint, but no attempt at amendment was made, and the removal to the District Court of the United States was upon a petition resting solely on the ground of diverse citizenship. ”

“ This power of removal is not to be found in express terms in any part of the constitution; if it be given, it is only given by implication, as a power necessary and proper to carry into effect some express power. The power of removal is certainly not, in strictness of language, an exercise of original jurisdiction; it presupposes an exercise of original jurisdiction to have attached elsewhere. ”

“ Contributing nothing to 'the reparation of injury, the re-establishment of right, and the restoration of order,' such action on the part of government would of itself be an injury to the citizen, a palpable denial of his common and constitutional right, and the sure promoter of disorder and discontent. ”

“ The latter section, in turn, permitted removal either at the pre-trial stage of the proceedings in the state court or after final judgment in that court. [22] There can be no doubt that post-judgment removal was a practical remedy for civil rights defendants invoking either the 'd 'denied or cannot enforce' clause or the 'color of authority' clause of the 1866 removal provision, in order to vindicate rights that had actually been denied at the trial. ”

“ In the cases which justify resistance, the principle upon which the citizen proceeds, is not that he has a legal or constitutional right to annul or repeal the offensive law,—which is the doctrine of the nullifiers,—but that he has a right, which he admits to be illegal and unconstitutional, but which he claims as a natural one, to make a violent opposition to its execution. ”

“ And no man, or body of men, can, without being guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons or acquisitions of any other man or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a right has arisen from some compact between the parties, in which it has been explicitly and freely granted. ”

“ Assume for the moment the district court was right that §1252 (f) (1) does not bar vacatur orders and that §706 (2) authorizes courts to issue them. Even so, a vacatur order still does nothing to redress the States’ injuries. The Guidelines merely advise federal officials about how to exercise their prosecutorial discretion when it comes to deciding which aliens to prioritize for arrest and removal. A judicial decree rendering the Guidelines a nullity does nothing to change the fact that federal officials possess the same underlying prosecutorial discretion. ”

“ The right to be heard in open court before one is condemned is too valuable to be whittled away under the guise of 'demoralization of the court's authority.'
It is 'the law of the land' that no man's life, liberty or property be forfeited as a punishment until there has been a charge fairly made and fairly tried in a public tribunal. ”

“ To deny the right of State courts to issue the writ, or, what amounts to the same thing, to concede the right to issue and to deny the right to adjudicate, is to deny the right to protect the citizen by habeas corpus against arbitrary imprisonment in a large class of cases ”

“ But it is advisable for persons so situated, on their intended removal, to make application to Government for a special pass, rather than to trust valuable property to the effect of a mere intention to remove, dubious as that intention may frequently appear, under the circumstances that prevent that act from being carried into execution. ”

“ Stauder and Rives thus teach that removal is not warranted by an assertion that a denial of rights of equality may take place and go uncorrected at trial. Removal is warranted only if it can be predicted by reference to a law of general application that the defendant will be denied or cannot enforce the specified federal rights in the state courts. ”

“ In the case of a Subject who has committed a Crime that renders all society of his fellow-citizens with him prejudicial to the State, the Supreme Power has also the Right of inflicting Banishment to a Country abroad. ”

“ Can the State governments defend themselves against a usurpation of those rights by the federal court, which the federal court is unable to preserve, but not against a gradual absorption of them, which the court is able to accelerate? If they may constitutionally defend themselves in the first catalogue of cases, it must be in virtue of an inherent right of self preservation. ”

“ It is the right to passive submission to penalties, or, it is the active ultimate right of revolution. It is the right our fathers took to themselves, as an ultimate remedy for unsupportable evils. It means, war and bloodshed. ”

“ Being a creature of law, no man can, like a parricide, stab that law, and claim at the same time all its privileges and all its honors. He would destroy the very government for which he asserts a right to act. ”

“ The object of true redress is to restore the position demanded by the rule of right, to substitute justice for injustice, to compel the wrongdoer to restore to the injured person that which is his own. A like purpose is assigned to punishment, so long as it is imperfectly differentiated from that retributive vengeance which is in some sort a reparation for wrongdoing. ”

“ The hardship of removal, however, has grown with the growth of the United States, and there is a natural desire to prevent it when possible, if a preliminary sifting will show that there is no probable cause for the charge. ”

“ The court did not stop to inquire whether there had been a compliance with the removal provisions, holding that under those circumstances it did not lie in the mouth of the receiver to deny the jurisdiction he had sought. And see Toledo, St. L. & W.R. Co. v. ”

“ Where any person, through malice, either acting himself or through the agency of another, kills his own slave, he shall be deprived of the right to testify in court thereafter, as a mark of infamy; and, in order that such rashness may be prevented, he shall [223] be exiled as long as he lives, and be forced to do penance, and his property shall be given to those whom the law has designated as his nearest heirs. ”

“ We proceed now to the consideration of civil justice and to the analysis of the various forms assumed by it. It consists, as we have seen, in the enforcement of rights, as opposed to the punishment of wrongs. The first distinction to be noticed is that the right so enforced is either a Primary or a Sanctioning right. A sanctioning right is one which arises out of the violation of another right. All others are primary; they are rights which have some other source than wrongs. ”

“ If that court was without jurisdiction, by reason of the paramount authority of the constitution and laws of the United States, to compel the plaintiff in error, in response to the writ of habeas corpus, to produce the prisoner, then his committal for contempt was the denial of a right, privilege, and immunity secured by the supreme law of the land. The claim by the plaintiff in error that there was such a denial constitutes the foundation of our jurisdiction. ”

“ However your lordships may decide as to the admission to new rights and new franchises, we fearlessly assert that no reason has yet been supplied which can justify you as the highest court of judicature in the land in forfeiting the existing right of freemen. Thus, my lords, our first ground of protesting against this Bill is that of individual injustice. You punish a number of individuals who have been advanced under the existing order of things to the highest offices in the magistracy of the city; I say you punish, because to degrade is to punish. ”

“ It is evident, also, that the operations necessary to give effect to the enactments of the legislature are confined to those two occasions; namely, that on which a right is disputed, and that on which it has been violated. On the occasions on which a right is disputed, it is requisite to determine to whom it belongs. On the occasions on which a right has been violated, it is sometimes only required to compel reparation to the injured party; sometimes it is necessary, besides, to inflict punishment upon the offender. ”

“ It is not now and never has been a static, narrow, formalistic remedy; its scope has grown to achieve its grand purpose-the protection of individuals against erosion of their right to be free from wrongful restraints upon their liaberty. ”

“ With respect to a part of such acts, all that it is found convenient to do, through the instrumentality of judicature, is, to remove the obstruction which prevents the enjoyment of the right, without inflicting any penalty for creating it. ”

“ On the clause, however, which gave to the Act its especial and distinguishing character, there will be large difference of opinion. 'The sturdy vagabond' who by the earlier statute was condemned on his second offence to lose the whole or a part of his right ear, was condemned by the amended Act, if found a third time offending, with the mark upon him of his mutilation, 'to suffer pains and execution of death, as a felon and as an enemy of the commonwealth.' So the letter stands. ”

“ To burden the exercise of a constitutional right with conditions which materially impair its value, or which, practically, compel the abandonment of the right rather than to submit to the conditions, is, in law, an infringement of that right. ”

“ That the power of removal is constitutionally vested in the President of the United States, is a principle which has been not more distinctly declared by judicial authority and judicial commentators, than it has been uniformly practiced upon by the Legislative and Executive Departments of the Government. ”

“ We cannot sanction taking a man by the heels for refusing to grant the permission which this Act on its face apparently gave him the right to withhold. That would be making an act criminal without fair and effective notice. ”

“ This disposition hath engaged numbers under these unhappy circumstances to attempt screening themselves from the rigour of the laws by sheltering in certain places, where by virtue of their own authority, or rather necessities, they set up a right of exemption and endeavour to establish a power of preserving those who live within certain limits from being prosecuted according to the usual course of the Law. ”

“ Few persons could reasonably feel compensated for the arbitrary destruction of their rights, by having the order for their destruction made known beforehand, in terms so distinct and unequivocal as to admit of neither mistake nor evasion. ”

“ But where a specific duly is assigned by law, and individual rights depend on the performance of that duty, it seems equally clear that the individual who considers himself injured has a right to resort to the laws of his country for a remedy. ”

“ Nay, this court, in favour of liberty, hath a power, in all cases; they may, if they see proper, bail a man for crimes that are not ordinarily bailable by common law.
Fifthly, they have a right to hold plea of all the trespasses done vi & armis, though brought principally for a private reparation to the party; for this action favours of a criminal nature, and the king is entitled to a fine for the breach of the peace. ”

“ That the sound policy of applying legislative power to direct, restrain, or punish the vicious propensities of the evil disposed, cannot be disputed, without invalidating the right of government to protect the innocent from the violence of the guilty, which would in effect declare all government to be useless ”

“ Can a remedy so uncertain prevent the offence? or, will a remedy so precarious, always remunerate the injured? But, if to this we add exemplary penalties, we have, surely, an additional security that the laws will be obeyed. The laws are not, and in my opinion will not be sufficient, unless they punish in the most prompt and exemplary manner all judges who refuse to grant the writ of habeas corpus, and all officers who refuse to obey it. For such offences, ruin ought to stare a man in the face; and, when he has so seriously abused his power, he ought to be stripped of it forever. ”

“ But it cannot be the intention of the Constitution to prevent, by this, a removal in any other way. Such a principle, if once admitted, would be attended with very inconvenient and mischievous consequences.
The gentleman further contends that every man has a property in his office, and ought not to be removed but for criminal conduct; he ought not to be removed for inability. I hope this doctrine will never be admitted in this country. A man, when in office, ought to have abilities to discharge the duties of it. If he is discovered to be unfit, he ought to be immediately removed ”

“ I concur in the judgment in these cases, but dissent from so much of the opinion as seems to assume that one condition of Federal jurisdiction, in the removal of a cause from a State court, under the first clause of sect. 2, act of 1875, is, that each party on one side of the controversy must be a citizen of a different State from that of which either of the parties on the other side is a citizen. ”

“ Light is thrown upon this distinction between the deprivation of a right and its violation-deprivation being competent to the law-making and law-enforcing organs of a State-by comparison of the language of § 1979, establishing liability for the 'deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution * * *,' 17 Stat. ”