Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/914

 902 FEDEBAIi BBF0BTE5. �Mannfg Co. v. Broivn, 2 Woodl. & M. 449, held, at circuit, that even tho title of an officer of the insolvent court of Massachusetts, conferred by an order to take possession, where no actual possession had been taken, was sufficient to preserve the property of the insolvent within the state from attachaient, after the commencement of the insolvent proceedings by a non-resident crediter. �In Maryland weight has been given to the supposed assent of Chief Justice Taney to a contrary doctrine in his opinion in White v. Winn, a report of which is printed in S Gill. 499. It is obvious, however, that what is there said by the chief justice on that point is said rather by way of argument and illustration than as statement of the law, and that no such ruling was neoessary in the case as he disposed of it. In the case before him the non-resident creditor, having ob- tained judgment in the United States circuit court, had laid an attach- ment in the hands of insolvent trustees, who had also previously been trustees under a voluntary conventional deed of trust from the insolv- ents for the beneflt of creditors. The voluntary deed of trust was valid except as forbidden by the insolvent law. The chief justice says, in substance: "Granting that the non-resident creditors may deny the validity of the proceedings under the insolvent law, the voluntary deed of trust will afiord a sufficient protection against them. If they insist that the deed is avoided by the provisions of the insolvent law, they must claim under the permanent trustees such interest only as by that law is awarded to them," He gave judgment against the claim of the attaching creditors. �That Chief Justice Taney had no disposition to extend the scope of the decisions which had been arrived at, after so much conflict of opinion, in the supreme court with regard to state insolvent laws, so as to further restrict the effect and operation of such laws, is to be plainly seen in his dissenting opinion in Cook v. Moffat, 5 How. 310, in which he states his individual opinion to be that the discharge of the individual should be held valid as to all debts, foreign as well as domestic, in every court within the state in which the discharge is granted. �The supreme court, in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Vt. 358, had decided — �"(1) That the power given to the United States to pass bankrupt laws is not exclusive. (2) ihat the fair and ordinary exercise of that power by the states does not necessarily involve a violation of the obligation of cotitracts, multo fortiori of posterior contracts. (3) But when in the exercise of that power the states pass beyond their own limits and the rights of their ovvn cit- ��� �