Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/660

 653 FEDERAL REPORTER. �ion, By the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, adopted prier to the present transaction, it is provided, among other things, that "no state aliall make or enforce any law wliioh shall abridge the privileges or im- munities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its juris- diction the eqiial protection of the laws." �Prior to the adoption of this amendment there was no con- stitutional inhibition upon the states preventing them from depriving persons of their property without due process of law, except such as may have been contained in their own constitutions. The fifth amendment of the constitution of the United States provided that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;" but it was early held that this was restrictive only on the powers of the government of the United States, and not upon those of the states. Barron v. Mayor, ett., of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243. Although the constitution of the state of New York contains the same restriction upon its government, yet the interpreta- tion of that constitution, like the construction of any other statuts of the state, is a matter in which the federal courts are bound to follow the decision of the highest judicial tribunal of that state. Webster v. Cooper, 14 How. 488, 504. �In the case of Roderigas y. Savings Institution, 68 N. Y. 460, one of the learned judges, who delivered the opinion of the majority of the court, expressed the opinion that the statutes under consideration, as applied in that case, eould not be regarded "as divesting a person of his property, or interfering with rights, without due process of law, in viola- tion of a constitutional right." Per Miller, J. P., 473. Al- though it does not appear in the opinions given that the judges specially referred to the prohibitory provision in the four- teenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, yet, as the provision in the constitution of the state of New York is substantially the same, it must be assumed, since otherwise the judgment rendered could not bave been given, that, in the opinion of the four judges who concurred in the ��� �