Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/96

 64 FEDEBAIi BKFOBTEB. �claim for pilotage which belonged to the admiralty Jurisdîc- tion, and might be enforced in the district court. The origin of this right is in the state law, but the nature of it authorizea the party in whose favor it exista to sue in the admiralty court. The Wright, 1 Deady, 597; The California, 1 Saw. 467; The Steam-ship Company v. Joliffe, 2 Wall. 457; Ex parte McNeil, 13 Wall, 236. In the last case (243) Mr. Jus- tice Swayne, speaking for the court, says : "It is urged fur- ther that a state law could not give jurisdiction to the district court. That is true. A state law cannot give jurisdiction to any federal court ; but that is not a question in this case. A state law may give a substantial right of such character that, where there is no impediment arising from the residence of the parties, the right may be enforced in the proper federal tribunal, whether it be a court of equity, of admiralty, or of common law. The statute in such cases does not confer jurisdiction. That exists already, and it is invoked to give effect to the right by applying the appropriatë remedy." �Owing to the anomalous state of the titles to land in Ken- tucky, a statute of that state, passed in 1796, gave to'the person in possession of real property and haVing a title thereto the right to maintain a suit in equity against any person set- ting up a claim thereto for the purpose of determining such claim, without being compelled to wait for such person to assert such a claim at law. �This statute enlarged the class of cases în whicb a party was entitled to relief in a court of equity by obtaining a decree to quiet the title to lands. Proving beneficiai, the substance of it bas since been adopted in many of the states and now constitutes section 600 of the Oregon Civil Code. It gave a ne w right, which from its nature was and is properly enforce- able in a court of equity, as well of the nation as of the state, wherever the citizenship of the parties gives the former juris- diction. Curtis V. Sutter, 15 Cal. 262. In Clark v. Smith, 14 Pet. 200, the supreme court held that the right conferred by this statute could be asserted in the courts of the United States as well as in those of the state. In Lorman v. Clark, 2 McLean, 569, the court held that a statute of Michigan, ����