English people, and we their descendants, have venerated the law itself, looking past its administrators, and giving our allegiance and our obedience to the principles which govern organized society. It has been said that a dozen Englishmen or Americans, thrown on an uninhabited island, would at once proceed to adopt a code of laws for their government, and elect the officers who were to enforce them. And certainly this proposition is borne out by the early history of our emigrants to California, where every mining camp organized into a political body, and made laws for its own government, which were so good that Congress adopted them until they should be repealed or modified by statute.
I but repeat the language of the Supreme Court of the United States when I say that in this country the law is supreme. No man is so high as to be above the law. No officer of the Government may disregard it with impunity. To this inborn and native regard for law, as a governing power, we are indebted largely for the wonderful success and prosperity of our people, for the security of our rights; and when the highest law to which we pay this homage is the Constitution of the United States, the history of the world has presented no such wonder of a prosperous, happy civil government.
Let me urge upon my fellow-countrymen, and especially upon the rising generation of them, to examine with careful scrutiny all new theories of government and of social life, and if they do not rest upon a foundation of veneration and respect for law as the bond of social existence, let them be distrusted as inimical to human happiness.
And now let me close this address with a quotation from one of the ablest jurists and most profound commentators upon our laws, Chancellor Kent. He said, fifty years ago: "The Government of the United States was created by the free voice and joint will of the people of America for their common defence and general welfare. Its powers apply to those great interests which relate to this country in its national capacity, and which depend for their stability and protection on the consolidation of the Union. It is clothed with the principal attributes of sovereignty, and it is justly deemed the guardian of our best rights, the source of our highest civil and political duties, and the sure means of our national greatness."
1. A court of admiralty has no equity power to wind up a trust concerning
a licensed vessel, or to enforce an alleged contract of sale of it. The
Eclipse, 599.
2. When an intervener in an admiralty suit in rem seeks a remedy con-
cerning the vessel which is not maritime in its nature, the court is
without jurisdiction over his claim, and the intervention should be
dismissed. Ib.
3. A power was given to sell a vessel then lying in a dangerous position
locked up in ice, in care of the master, who was part owner, for a
specified sum: Held, to have been executed with reference to the then
condition of the vessel, and not to apply to a sale purporting to be
made under it after it had been brought by the master to a port of
safety, and not to warrant a conditional sale after extrication, depend-
ent upon the amount of damage which it might be found to have
suffered. Ib.
4. A vessel was conveyed to two trustees, one of whom was the master, in
equal shares, to hold as trustees for the benefit of all the owners,
cestuis que trust. Held, that the master was half-owner of the legal
title, and could not be removed under Rev. Stat. § 4250 on the appli-
cation of cestuis que trust, claiming to be a majority of the equitable
Ib.
AMENDMENT.
See JURISDICTION, A, 5.
Cross-appeals in equity must be prosecuted like other appeals; and, although
they may be taken and allowed after removal of the cause, on appeal
to this court, yet that cannot be done after the lapse of two years from
the date of the decree. Churchill v. Farrar, 609.
See HABEAS CORPUS, 1;
JURISDICTION, A, 5.
ASSIGNMENT FOR THE BENEFIT OF CREDITORS.
1. A court of equity will not lend its aid to enforce a sale of property
under execution where the disproportion between the value of the
property sold and the sum paid for it is so great as to shock the con-
science. Randolph's Executor v. Quidnick Co., 457.
2. Where a debtor, having large and scattered properties and being much
embarrassed, transfers his property for the benefit of his creditors
equally, equity requires that any creditor who is not satisfied with the
provisions of such transfer should act promptly in challenge thereof,
or else be adjudged to have waived any right of challenge. Ib.
3. When the highest courts of two States arrive at different conclusions
respecting the validity of an assignment by an insolvent debtor of all
his property for the benefit of creditors, this court is inclined in mat-
ters of doubt, to give the preference to the ruling of the court of the
State in which the insolvent resided, where the conveyance was exe-
cuted, and where the bulk of the property is situated. Ib.
4. S., a citizen of Rhode Island engaged in business there, with large prop-
erties in that State and with property in Connecticut, being embar-
rassed, made an assignment in 1873 of all his property for the benefit
of his creditors; which assignment, being assailed in the courts of
each State, was upheld by the Supreme Court of Rhode Island as to
the property there, and invalidated by the Supreme Court of Connec-
ticut as to the property there. Meanwhile in the execution of its
provisions, large transactions took place and extensive rights were
created. In 1875 a creditor commenced suit against S., and in 1882,
attached in that action property to the value of $500,000 which had
belonged to S. before the assignment, and having obtained execution,
levied upon it and sold it under execution for the sum of $275. The
purchaser filed a bill in equity to enforce the purchase: Held, (1)
That the disproportion between the sum paid and the value of the
property purchased was too great to warrant a court of equity in
enforcing the purchase; (2) That the long delay in attacking a trans-
fer under which great rights had been acquired by other creditors
justified a court of equity in refusing to lend its aid to the attack;
(3) That if it were necessary (which it was not) to decide whether the
assignment was or was not valid beyond challenge, the court would
incline to give preference in matter of doubt to the ruling of the
Supreme Court of Rhode Island, where S. resided when the convey-
ance was executed, and where the bulk of the property was situated.
Ib.
1. Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, followed in Lyng v. Michigan, 161.
2. The rulings in Hawkins v. Glenn, 131 U. S. 319, confirmed, and applied
to these cases. Glenn v. Liggett, 533.
United States v. Barlow, 132 U. S. 271, distinguished from this case.
United States v. Voorhees, 550.
Hopkins v. Nichols, 22 Texas, 206, distinguished. Société Foncière v. Mil-
liken, 304.
Peirce v. New Hampshire, 5 How. 504, overruled. Leisy v. Hardin, 100.
CERTIFICATE OF DIVISION IN OPINION.
A certified question : "Does the indictment charge the defendant with any
offence?" is too general to be made the subject of a Certificate of
Division. United States v. Chase, 255.
1. The Cherokee Nation filed in the court below a bill of complaint, seek-
ing a decree enjoining the Southern Kansas Railway Company from
entering upon the lands of that nation for the purpose of constructing
its proposed railway, and, if that relief could not be granted, then that
its bill might be treated as an original complaint and petition in
appeal as provided in § 3, c. 179, act of July 4, 1884, 23 Stat. 73:
Held, (1) That these two causes of action, one of an equitable and
the other of a legal nature, could not be joined in the same suit; (2)
That the court below erred in not treating the complaint as a petition
of appeal which entitled the petitioners to have a trial de novo of the
question of damages for the lands and rights proposed to be taken.
Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas Railway, 641.
2. The Cherokee Nation is not sovereign in the sense that the United
States or a State is sovereign, but is now, as heretofore, a dependent
political community, subject to the permanent authority of the United
States. Ib.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 8, 13.
CIRCUIT COURTS.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 1, 5;
CLAIMS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
An extra allowance to a contractor for carrying the mails, under the pro-
visions of Rev. Stat. § 3961, for an increase of expedition in carrying
them, is not invalidated by reason of the fact that, prior to its allow-
ance, the contractor was voluntarily carrying them over the route,
with the increased expedition, and at the contract rate of pay.
United States v. Voorhees, 550.
COMMISSIONER OF PENSIONS.
See JURISDICTION, A, 2.
1. By virtue of Rev. Stat. §§ 606, 610, the justices of the Supreme Court
of the United States are allotted among the nine circuits, to each one
of which a judge is assigned; and the latter section makes it the
duty of each judge to attend the Circuit Court in each district of
the circuit to which he is allotted, and thereby imposes upon him the
necessity of travelling from his residence to the Circuit Court which
he is to attend, and from each place in that circuit where the court
is held to the other places where it is held: Held, that, while a judge
is thus travelling to or from those places, he is as much in discharge
of his duty as when listening to and deciding cases in open court, and
is as much entitled to protection in the one case as in the other. In
re Neagle, 1.
2. While there is no express statute authorizing the appointment of a
deputy marshal, or any other officer, to attend a judge of the Supreme
Court when travelling in his circuit, and to protect him against as-
saults or other injury, the general obligation imposed upon the Presi-
dent of the United States by the Constitution to see that the laws be
faithfully executed, and the means placed in his hands, both by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States, to enable him to do
this, impose upon the Executive department the duty of protecting a
justice or judge of any of the courts of the United States, when there
is just reason to believe that he will be in personal danger while
executing the duties of his office. Ib.
3. An assault upon a judge of a court of the United States, while in dis-
charge of his official duties, is a breach of the peace of the United
States, as distinguished from the peace of the State in which the
assault takes place. Ib.
4. Under the provisions of Rev. Stat. § 788, it is the duty of marshals and
their deputies in each State to exercise, in keeping the peace of the
United States, the power given to the sheriffs of the State for keeping
the peace of the State; and a deputy marshal of the United States,
specially charged with the duty of protecting and guarding a judge of
a court of the United States, has imposed upon him the duty of doing
whatever may be necessary for that purpose, even to the taking of
human life. Ib.
5. David Neagle, a deputy marshal of the United States for the District of
California, was brought by writ of habeas corpus before the Circuit
Court of that district upon the allegation that he was held in imprison-
ment by the sheriff of San Joaquin County, California, on a charge of
the murder of David S. Terry. He alleged that the killing of Terry
by him was done in pursuance of his duty as such deputy marshal in
defending the life of Mr. Justice Field, while in discharge of his
duties as Circuit Judge of the ninth circuit. On the trial of this writ
in the Circuit Court it entered an order discharging the prisoner,
finding that he was in custody for an act done in pursuance of a law
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