Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/918

 906 FEDERAL REPORTER. �ship in Louisiana, and the plaintiff in error appealed f\-om the decision of the supreme court of the state, giving the office to Morgan, on the giround that it was without due process of law. The chief justice, in announcing the decision of the court, eaid that the only question in the case for its consid- eration was whether the state of Louisiana, acting through her judiciary, had deprived Kennard of bis office without due process of law, and then said: "It is substantially admitted by oounsel in the argument that such is not the case, if it bas been done 'in the due course of legal proeeedings,' accord- ing to those rules and fonns wbich bave been establisbed for the protection of private rights. We accept this as a suffi- cient definition of the term 'due process of law,' for the pur- poses of the present case. The question before us is not whether the court below, baving jurisdiction of the case and the parties, bave foUowed the law, but whether the law, if fol- lowed, would bave fumished Kennard the protection guar- antied by the constitution. Irregularities and mere errors in the proeeedings can only be corrected in the state courts. Our authority does not extend beyond an examination of the power of the courts to proceed at ail. The judgment of the state court was affirmed. �Tbe second was Pennoyer y. Neff, 95 U. S. 723. This case went up from this court, and the question was as to the validity of a personal judgment given against a non-resident of the state, in a court of the state, without any service of the summons except by publication. ■ In delivering the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice Field said: "Since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution the validity of sucb judgments may be directly questioned, and their enforcement in the state resisted, on the ground that proeeedings in a court of justice to determine the personal rights and obligations of parties, over whom that court bas no jurisdiction, do not constitute due process of law. Wbat- ever difficulty may be experiençed in giving to those terms a -definition wbich will embrace every permissible exertion of power affecting private rights, and exclude sueb as is for- iidden, there can be no doubt of their meaning when applied ����