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Chancery in England possesses; is subject to neither limitation nor restraint by State legislation, and is uniform throughout the different States of the Um'on. The Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Missouri, therefore, had jurisdiction to hear and determine this controversy, notwithstand ing the peculiar structure of the Missouri probate system, and was bound to exercise it, if the bill, according to the received prin ciples of equity, states a case for equitable relief." * In a still more modern case it was said by Mr. Justice Harían, speaking for the court : "While the courts of the Union are required by the statutes creating them, to accept as rules of decision, in trials at common law, the laws of the several States, except where the Constitution, laws, treaties and statutes of the United States otherwise provide, their jurisdiction in equity cannot be impaired by the local statutes of the different States in which they sit.'1 I have made these quotations at the ex pense of repetition to emphasize the Federal doctrine on this subject, and to show the great uniformity with which those courts have as serted a jurisdiction in equity entirely above the laws of the States, whether judge-made or statutory. It is not very material to inquire whether the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Krumseig case is a departure from these principles. While the court, in a proceeding in equity, enforced the statute of Minnesota against usury, as con strued by the Supreme Court of that State, in the most severe manner, by ordering the cancellation of the notes and mortgage, with out compelling the plaintiff to pay into Court what was justly due with lawful interest, thus confiscating the whole debt,— yet I do not see in the reasoning of the court any purpose to depart from this settled rule of Federal juris diction. It merely exercised its jurisdiction so i Pay"« :•. Hook, 7 Wall. (IL S.) 425, 430. Kirby г-. Lake Shore, etc., Railroad, 120 (U. S.), 130, 137-

as to enforce the local law in that particular case, as it had the unquestioned power todo. But a survey of the whole subject may well lead to some serious inquiries : Why should there be, on this subject, one rule for cases in equity and a different rule for cases at common law? Why, in other words, should the courts of the United States be allowed to erect their own system of jurisprudence in disregard of the laws of the States m cases in equity, while being bound by those laws — a command which they constantly neglect — under' the thirtyfourth section of the Judiciary Act in cases at common law? Why should the alien, the non-resident citizen, and what is still worse, that spurious and fictitious " citizen" which exists in the form of the " tramp corporation," whose citizenship is founded upon an unfaithful interpretation of the Con stitution and Judiciary Act, be allowed the privilege of having their controversies ad judicated according to a system of law which is not available to the domestic citi zen, and in courts whose doors are shut to him? Why, for example, if Judge Sanborn's view had prevailed in the Krumseig case, — and, considered as a mere question of juris diction, I have shown that it might easily have prevailed, — should the Missouri cor poration, lending money in Minnesota at usury, by the device of removing the cause from the State to the Federal court, have acquired the right to lose no more than the usurious excess over lawful interest, while the citizen of Minnesota, making precisely the same contract, must forfeit the whole debt, principal and interest? Why, in framing the Judiciary Act, the Federal courts were required to conform to the rules of law existing in the particular States in cases at common law, but were not required so to do in cases in chancery, may not be clear to men of our day, unless it is considered that when the Federal judi ciary establishment was formed, several of the States, notably Massachusetts and Penn-