Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/625

 IN EB LONG ISLAND, ETC., TEANSPOETATION CO. 613 �is true that under those rules an alternative remedy is allowed in most cases, but not in ail. In some cases the pro- ceedings can hein personam only, in others in rem only. In one notable instance — the case of a lien by the local law of a state for materials and repairs furnished to a vessel in a home port — the remedy to enforce an undoubted right of lien at- tached as security to a maritime contract has been given and taken away and again given to suitors in the admiralty courts of the United States by a mere change of the admiralty rules. AU concurrent remedy in the state court to enforce the lien was prohibited by the exclusive character of the jurisdiction given to the admiralty courts, the common-law remedy saved to suitors not being. competent for the enforce- ment of a lien. The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 569. It seems to me, therefore, competent for congress, while making the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts exclusive in this class of maritime causes, to direct the courts to exercise that jurisdic- tion only in rem and not in personam; to provide for this class of marine torts that there shall be a remedy only against the ship and freight, or, if against the person, only to the value of the ship and freight; that such an act wonld be within constitutional power of congress to erect tribunals inferior to the supreme court, and to prescribe their jurisdiction and powers, and the remedies which suitors in those courts shall be entitled to. Thus, Chief Justice Taney says, in The St. Lawrence, 1 Blatchf. 527: "Yet congress may undoubtedly prescribe the forms and modes of proceeding in the judicial tribunals it establishes to carry this power (the judicial power) into execution, and may authorize the court to pro- ceed by an attachment against the property or by the arrest of the person, as the legislature shall deem most expedient to promote the purposes of justice." �Aside from this power of congress to prescribe what rem- edies suitors in the courts of the United States may enjoy, it has been suggested by the supreme court that perhaps con- gress may adopt by legislative act, as part of the maritime law ot the United States, a raie or principle of the general maritime law not before adopted as part of our maritime law. ����