Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/448

 OCTOBER TERM 19? (a) that Chapter 240 of the Laws of 1906 should be con- strued to have a retroactive effect, and "(b) that such construction would not be in vilatlon of the Fourteenth Article of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United .States and, "(�) would not impose and exact a tax without due notice and without due proems of law, and "(d) that the State would not by such act and such con- struetion thereof deprive the plaintiffs in error of property without due notice and without due process of law; each of these grounds having been stated in the notice of said mot/on by the plaintiffs in error, who then and there 'resisted upon their constitutional rights in such respects as soon as the ion arese." We do not intend to intimate that,/f the words of the opin- ion were capable of the monlng whleh is attributed to them in this assignment of. error, there would have been shown any violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. ,Lm/u v. 184 U.S. 156. But we thlnl, in view of the fact that when the copies of the journals were offered in evidence no objection had been made that the orinl were not produced, the language of the court may quite as naturally be interpreted as a declination to pass on a question, not y to the do- eision, whish had been set at rest for the future by legislation. The best that can be add for the plaintiffs in error is that the action of the court was ambiguous. We resolve the amb/guity against the parties complaining, who are bound to show clearly that a Federal right was impaired, rather than-misuse put ingenuity to spell ot a Federal question to aid a defansewhish is merely teelmieai and destitute of substantial merit. It does not therefore appear that the judgment under re- view was based upon the dec/sion of any Federal question. Bachtd v. W//son, 204 U.S. 36.. The writ of error is

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