Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/237

 230 FEDERAL REPORTER. �time the lien created by the Ohio statute did not attach until seizure, the decision was not put upon that ground; but tiie rule was broadly laid down that in distributing the proceeda of sale maritime liens would be preferred to those created by the state law. "I am not aware that it has been anywhero admitted that state legislation can interfere with, supersede, or destroy a right or lien previously acquired under the national maritime law. On the contrary, the existence of such a power in the states has been strongly denied. They may declare that a lien shall exist in cases designated, and provide for its enforcement by a seizure in rem; but, elearly, the lien so acquired must be subordinate to those existing before in favor of other parties." �This decision has been followed, so far as I know, through- out this circuit. Eeported cases are rare, but they are uni- form. The principle was acquiesced in by court and counsel in The St. Joseph, (Brown's Admiralty, 202,} and in the re- cent case, decided by the same judge, of The Alice Gctty. In the still later case of The John T. Moore, in the circuit court for the district of Louisiana, Judge Woods held that, even if the state liens were recorded pursuant to the statute, they must be postponed to maritime liens. In Scott's Case, (1 Abb. U. S. 336,) the relative priority of mortgages and ma- terial men in the home port was elaborately argued, but no question was made that foreign material men were entitled to be preferred to mortgagees, The court observes, in speaking- of maritime liens : "There was no question as to the validity and priority of these liens, and under former orders of the court they have been paid." Indeed, in ail the cases where the mortgagee has been held to rank lien holders under the state laws it has, apparently, been assumed that the decision would be different if the contract were between a mortgagee and foreign creditors. In The Grace Greenwood, 2 Biss, 131, the admiralty liens were jpaid before the contest was made. I had occasion to consider thcse authorities in the case of The Theodore Derry, in which I held that the mortgagees stood only in the place of owners to the amount of their mortgage, and that domestio material men were entitled to rank them. ����