Page:James Bryce American Commonwealth vol 1.djvu/354

332 the Chinese, made under cover of the constitution of California of 1879 and divers statutes passed thereunder, have been defeated by the courts.

The safe rule for the private citizen may be thus expressed: "Ascertain whether the Federal law is constitutional (i.e. such as Congress has power to pass). If it is, conform your conduct to it at all hazards. If it is not, disregard it, and obey the law of your State." This may seem hard on the private citizen. How shall he settle for himself such a delicate point of law as whether Congress had power to pass a particular statute, seeing that the question may be doubtful and not have come before the courts? But in practice little inconvenience arises, for Congress and the State legislatures have learnt to keep within their respective spheres, and the questions that arise between them are seldom such as need disturb an ordinary man.

The same remarks apply to conflicts between the commands of executive officers of the National government on the one hand, and those of State officials on the other. If the national officer is acting within his constitutional powers, he is entitled to be obeyed in preference to a State official, and conversely, if the State official is within his powers, and the national officer acting in excess of those which the Federal Constitution confers, the State official is to be obeyed.

The limits of judicial power are more difficult of definition. Every citizen can sue and be sued or indicted both in the courts of his State and in the Federal courts, but in some classes of cases the former, in others the latter, is the proper tribunal, while in many it is left to the choice of the parties before which tribunal they will proceed. Sometimes a plaintiff who has brought his action in a State court finds when the case has gone a certain length that a point of Federal law turns up which entitles either himself or the defendant to transfer it to a Federal court, or to appeal to such a court should the decision have gone against the applicability of the Federal law. Suits are thus constantly transferred from State courts to Federal courts, but no one can ever reverse the process and carry a suit from a Federal court to a State court. Within its proper sphere of pure State law,—and of course the great bulk of the cases turn on pure State law,—there is no appeal from a State