Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/645

Rh 30. Such preference exists in a wise where no suit has been instituted; as, upon an assignment by a bankrupt, the United States must be first paid. Ibid.

31. The legislature of a stale cannot annul the judgment, or determine the jurisdiction, of the courts of the United States. United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch, 115.

32. In an action of ejectment between two citizens of the state where the lands lie, if the defendant set up an outstanding title in a British subject, which he contends is protected by treaty, and that therefore the title is out of the plaintiff, and the highest state court decides against the title thus set up, it is not a case in which a writ of error lies to the Supreme Court of the United States. Owing v. Norwood's Lessee, 5 Cranch, 344.

33. This is not a case arising under the treaty, and the words of the judiciary act must be restrained by those of the Constitution. Ibid.

34. Whenever a right grows out of, or is protected by, a treaty, it is sanctioned against all the laws and judicial decisions of the states; and whoever may have this right, it is protected. But if the person's title is not affected by the treaty, if he claims nothing under the treaty, his title cannot be protected by the treaty. Ibid. 348.

35. If a title be derived from a legislative act, which the legislature might constitutionally pass, if the act be clothed with all the requisite forms of law, a court sitting as a court of law cannot sustain a suit by one individual against another, founded on the allegation that the act is a nullity in consequence of the impure motives which influenced certain members of the legislature which passed the act. Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, 131.

36. One legislature, so far as respects general legislation, is competent to repeal any act which a former legislature was competent to pass; and one legislature cannot abridge the powers of a succeeding legislature. But if an act be done under a law, a succeeding legislature cannot undo it. Ibid. 135.

37. When a law is, in its nature, a contract, and absolute rights have vested under that contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest those rights. Ibid.

38. It may well be doubted whether the nature of society and government does not prescribe some limits to the legislative power; and if any be prescribed, where are they to be found, if the property of an individual, fairly and honestly acquired, may be seized without compensation? Ibid.

39. The question whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the Constitution, is a question which ought seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative in a doubtful case. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other. Ibid. 128.

40. Where an estate has passed, under a legislative grant, into the hands of a purchaser for a valuable consideration, without notice, the state is restrained, either by general principles which are common to our free institutions, or by the particular provisions of the Constitution of the United States, from passing a law whereby the estate so purchased can be impaired and invalidated. Ibid. 139.

41. The appellate powers of the Supreme Court are given by the Constitution; but they are limited and regulated by the judiciary act and other acts of Congress. Durousseau v. United States, 6 Cranch, 307.

42. An act of the legislature, declaring that certain lands which should be purchased for the Indians should not thereafter be subject to any tax, constituted a contract, which could not be rescinded by a subsequent legislative act; such repealing act being void under that clause of the Constitution of the United States which prohibits a state from passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts. New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 Cranch, 164.

43. In expounding the Constitution of the United States, a construction ought not lightly to be admitted which would give to a declaration of war an effect in this country it does not possess elsewhere, and which would fetter that exercise of entire discretion respecting enemy's property, which may enable the government to apply to the enemy the rule that he applies to us. Brown v. United States, 8 Cranch, 110.

44. The power of making "rules concerning captures on land and water,"