Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/526

 518 establishment, and all those institutions, which are public in their nature, are examples in point. It has never been doubted, that all, who are employed in them, are protected, while in the line of their duty; and yet this protection is not expressed in any act of congress. It is incidental to, and is implied in, the several acts, by which those institutions are created; and is secured to the individuals, employed in them, by the judicial power alone; that is, the judicial power is the instrument employed by the government in administering this security.

§ 1651. It has also been asked, and may again be asked, why the words, "cases in equity," are found in this clause? What equitable causes can grow out of the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States? To this the general answer of the Federalist seems at once clear and satisfactory. There is hardly a subject of litigation between individuals, which may not involve those ingredients of fraud, accident, trust, or hardship, which would render the matter an object of equitable, rather than of legal jurisdiction, as the distinction is known and established in several of the states. It is the peculiar province, for instance, of a court of equity, to relieve against what are called hard bargains: these are contracts, in which, though there may have been no direct fraud or deceit, sufficient to invalidate them in a court of law; yet there may have been some undue, and unconscionable advantage taken of the necessities, or misfortunes of one of the parties, which a