authorize the removal to the Federal courts of cases involving crimes against State but not Federal laws, it was in violation of the sovereignty of the State and the Constitution of the United States.

The Supreme Court, by six of its nine justices, Justices Clifford and Field dissenting, and Justice Hunt being absent, overruled these objections, and held that the removal was authorized by the act of Congress; that it was a case within the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, and that Congress had, under the Constitution, the power which it had exercised. The court further held that the act of Congress authorizes the removal of any cause when the acts of the defendant complained of were done, or claimed to have been done, in the discharge of his duty as a Federal officer. "That the act of Congress," says the opinion, "does provide for the removal of criminal prosecutions for offenses against the State laws, when there arises in them the claim of the Federal right or authority, is too plain to admit of denial. Such is its positive language, and it is not to be argued away by presenting the supposed incongruity of administering State criminal laws by other courts than those established by the State. It has been strenuously urged that murder within a State is not made a crime by any act of Congress, and that it is an offense against the peace and dignity of the State alone. Hence it is inferred that its trial and punishment can be conducted only in State tribunals, and it is argued that the act of Congress can not mean what it says, but that it must intend only such prosecutions in State courts as are for offenses against the United States-offenses against the revenue laws. But there can be no criminal prosecutions initiated in any State court for that which is merely an offense against the General Government. If, therefore, the statute is allowed to mean anything, when it speaks of criminal prosecutions in State courts, it must mean that those are instituted for alleged violations of State laws in which defenses are set up or claimed under United States laws or authority."

The authority of Congress to pass the act, the court said, was found in that provision of the Constitution which empowers Congress to provide for carrying into effect all powers granted by the Constitution. Among these powers is the Federal judicial power, which extends to "all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States," etc. This provision, the court declared, embraces alike civil and criminal cases under the Constitution and Federal laws; and criminal as well as civil cases may be removed from a State to a Federal court whenever the Federal authority is called in question. The vast power of the General Government is set forth by Justice Strong as follows:

The United States is a government with authority extending over the whole territory of the Union, acting upon the States and upon the people of the States.

While it is limited in the number of its powers, so far as its sovereignty extends, it is supreme. No State government can exclude it from the exercise of any authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, obstruct its authorized officers against its will, or withhold from it for a moment the cognizance of any subject which that instrument has committed to it. intended to leave to the possibly varying decisions of the State courts what the laws of the government it established are, what rights they confer, and what protection shall be extended to those who execute them. If they said, Where is the supremacy over those questions vested in the Government by the Constitution-if, whenever and wherever a case arises under the Constitution and laws or treaties of the United States, the national Government can not take control of it, whether it be civil or criminal, in any stage of its progress-its judicial power is, at least, preme. In criminal as well as in civil proceedings in temporarily silenced instead of being at all times suState courts, cases under the Constitution and laws of the United States might have been expected to arise, as, in fact, they do. Indeed, the powers of the Genercised or claimed under it, are quite as frequently in eral Government, and the lawfulness of authority exquestion in criminal cases in State courts as they are in civil cases, in proportion to their number.

The founders of the Constitution could never have

From the decision of the majority Justices Clifford and Field dissented, the former writing an elaborate opinion, in which the latter concurred. Justice Clifford maintained that the act of Congress in question did not authorize the removal of a State indictment for an offense against the laws of the State from the State to the Federal courts for trial, and that, if it did, it was unconstitutional and void. He held that the Federal courts have no jurisdiction of a criminal act which Congress has not made a crime. "Decided cases everywhere hold," he said, "that, unless Congress first defines the offense, affixes the punishment, and declares, in some way, the court that shall have jurisdiction of the accusation, the Circuit Court can neither try the accused nor sentence him to punishment. Even the power of Congress to define offenses and provide for the punishment of offenders is limited to such subjects and circumstances as relate and are peculiar to the Federal Government." He admitted that Congress might declare the killing of a revenue officer, while in the discharge of his official duties, even when done within a State, to be murder, and might prescribe punishment for the crime. In that case the Federal courts would have jurisdiction of it. "But the principal question in this case," he said, "is of a very different character, as the indictment is against the officer of the revenue for murdering a citizen of the State, having in no way any official connection with the collection of the public revenue. Neither the Constitution nor the acts of Congress give a revenue officer, or any other officer of the United States, an immunity to commit murder in a State, or prohibit the State from executing its laws for the punishment of the offender.... Nobody before ever pretended that such an offense ever was or could be defined by an act of Congress as an offense against the Federal authority, or

that the Circuit Court, or any other Federal court, has or ever had any jurisdiction of such a case to try or sentence such offender for such an offense. . . . Legislative power is undoubtedly vested in Congress to pass laws to define and punish offenses against the authority of the United States; but it does not follow by any means that a prisoner, charged with murder committed in violation of the laws of a State, may claim to be tried in a Federal Circuit Court, or that a State indictment for such an offense constitutes a case arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States, or that it can in any way become cognizable in such a tribunal, certainly not unless it can be removed there in pursuance of some act of Congress defining the offense and providing for the trial and punishment of the offender. Persons charged with offenses against the authority of the States find ample guarantees of a fair trial in the laws of the States and the usages of the State courts, and, if the Federal officers need more, it belongs to Congress to provide the remedy in some mode authorized by the Constitution. . . . Large concessions were made by the States to the United States, but they never ceded to the national Government their police powers, or the power to define and punish offenses against their authority, as admitted by all courts and all commentators upon the Constitution."

The same view was also maintained by Justice Field, with whom Justice Clifford concurred, in the dissenting opinion in the case of Virginia against Rives (100 U. S. Reports, 336). He claimed that murder committed within a State, in violation of its laws, is an offense against the authority of the State, and that the State alone has the right to try and punish the offender. "Murder," he said, "is not an offense against the United States, except when committed on an American vessel on the high seas, or in some port or haven without the jurisdiction of the State, or in the District of Columbia, or in the Territories, or at places where the national Government has exclusive jurisdiction. The offense within the limits of a State, except where jurisdiction has been ceded to the United States, is as much beyond the jurisdiction of these courts as though it had been committed on another continent. The prosecution of the offense in such a case does not, therefore, arise under the Constitution and laws of the United States; and the act of Congress which attempts to give the Federal courts jurisdiction of it is, to my mind, a clear infraction of the Constitution. ... I do not think I am going too far in asserting that, had it been supposed a power so dangerous to the independence of the States, and so calculated to humiliate and degrade them, lurked in any of the provisions of the Constitution, that instrument would never have been adopted."

By the acts of Congress passed during and since the war, for the removal of causes, the

jurisdiction of the Federal courts has been immensely enlarged, and that of the State courts correspondingly diminished. "From various causes which we need not now stop to trace," says Judge Dillon, in his work on "Removal of Causes," "the small tide of litigation that formerly flowed into Federal channels has swollen into a mighty stream. Certain it is that of late years the importance of the Federal courts has rapidly increased, and that much, perhaps most, of the great litigations of the country are now conducted in them." Among the special statutes that have been passed on this subject may be mentioned those providing for the removal from State to Federal courts in civil and criminal cases against persons denied civil rights; in civil and criminal cases against revenue officers of the United States; in civil and criminal cases arising under the Federal election laws; in suits by aliens against officers of the United States, under specified circumstances; and in actions against Federal corporations. Besides these, several very important acts of more general operation have been passed. At the close of the war, the right of removal on the ground of citizenship was limited to cases in which the plaintiff, or all of the plaintiffs, if more than one, were citizens of the State in which the suit was brought, and the defendant, or all of the defendants, were citizens of another State or States. The right was further restricted to civil cases, and could be exercised only by the defendant, or, if more than one, all had to join in the application.

By the act of July 27, 1866, the right of removal was extended, under certain circumstances, to any one of the non-resident defendants so far as the action affected him. By the "prejudice or local influence" act of 1867 the right was given to both a non-resident plaintiff and a non-resident defendant, if either makes "an affidavit that he has reason to believe, and does believe, that from prejudice or local influence he will not be able to obtain justice in such State court." That is, on the conditions specified, if a suit is brought in a State court by a citizen of that State, against the citizen of another State, the latter may have the case removed to a Federal court; or when a person has brought an action in the courts of his own State against the citizen of another State, the plaintiff may remove it into the Federal court. "This act," says Dillon, "undoubtedly grew out of the condition of affairs in the Southern States after the war of the rebellion, and was intended to afford to plaintiff's who had resorted to the State court the right to transfer their suits to the Federal courts. This is the first act that, in any event, extended the right to a plaintiff to leave the forum he had voluntarily chosen, and in this respect was an entire departure from all the previous legislation. It is not so difficult to justify the act in this respect, even if it was intended to be permanent, as it is to sustain

VOL. XXI.-31 A

the provision that this removal may be had, on filing the general affidavit of prejudice or local influence, at any time before trial or final hearing of the suit.'"

The act of March 3, 1875, made another very material enlargement of Federal at the expense of State jurisdiction. By all previous legislation, the right of removal was limited to cases in which either the plaintiff or the defendant was a citizen of the State in which the suit was originally brought. The act of 1875 abolishes this limitation and authorizes the removal of cases in which neither party is a citizen of the State in which the action was begun. It is enough if they are citizens of different States. They need not be citizens of that in which the suit is brought, and the right of removal is given to either plaintiff or defendant. Besides thus increasing the class of cases that may be removed into the Federal courts on the ground of citizenship, the act also materially widens the circle of those that may be removed on the ground of subjectmatter independently of citizenship.

The constitutional validity of all these acts has been affirmed or recognized by the Supreme Court, and on controverted points, as to the meaning and effect of the acts, the decisions of the court, which have not always been unanimous, have tended greatly to extend the jurisdiction of the Federal judiciary, and hence to limit that of the State courts. Thus, in construing the act of 1867, the majority of the court held that a suit to annul a will as a muniment of title, and to restrain the enforcement of a decree admitting it to probate, was a suit in equity which might be removed to the Federal court when the parties were citizens of different States. Three of the judges dissented from this conclusion, and maintained that the question involved was simply one relating to the probate of a will, and that, under the act of Congress, the Federal tribunals had no jurisdiction of such a case. (Gaines against Fuentes, 92 United States Reports, 10.) And so, in the case of a Railroad Company against Mississippi, decided in 1880, and reported in 102 United States Reports, Justice Miller maintained, in a dissenting opinion, that the act of 1875 did not authorize a removal of a suit which was not founded on a Federal law, but in which a Federal law was incidentally involved in the defense merely. While Congress "intended to allow the removal of a suit where the very foundation and support thereof was a law of the United States, it did not intend to authorize a removal where the cause of action depended solely on the law of the State, and when the act of Congress only came in question incidentally as part (it might be a very small part) of the defendants' plea in avoidance." The majority of the court, however, consisting in this case of six justices, held that "it is not sufficient to exclude the judicial power of the United States from a particular case, that it

involves questions that do not at all depend on the Constitution or laws of the United States; but when a question to which the judicial power of the Union is extended by the Constitution forms an ingredient of the original cause, it is within the power of Congress to give the Circuit Courts jurisdiction of that cause, although other questions of fact or of law may be involved in it." The court has also held (Insurance Company against Morse, 20 Wallace, 445) that the right to remove cases into the Federal court pursuant to the acts of Congress can not be defeated by State legislation. In accordance with this view it declared that a State statute allowing a foreign corporation to do business in the State only on condition that it would agree not to remove suits against it to the Federal courts, was unconstitutional, and the agreement void.

For a

A striking development of Federal power may also be traced in the decisions of the Supreme Court interpreting that clause of the Constitution which vests in Congress power to regulate commerce among the States and with foreign nations. For more than a third of a century after the adoption of the Constitution it was a much-debated question what were the respective rights of the national and the State governments under this clause. In 1824 the Supreme Court declared, in the case of Gibbons against Ogden, that the power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce was exclusive in Congress. This, however, left many important questions unsettled. quarter of a century after its announcement it was maintained, not only by leading public men and constitutional lawyers, but also by several of the Supreme Court justices, that in the absence of congressional legislation a State had the power to legislate on the subject, and two decisions of the Supreme Court during that period are in harmony with this doctrine, if they do not directly support it. In 1851, however, the court denied to the States most of the power that had been claimed for them, and conceded it to the Federal Government. It held that in all matters of national character and concern the power was exclusive in Congress, whether exercised or not, and hence that even in the absence of congressional action no State had authority to pass laws in matters of that kind. It conceded, however, that in the absence of Federal legislation a State might deal with certain strictly local matters pertaining to foreign and interstate commerce, but held that even in such case State legislation must give way to or at least harmonize with any acts that Congress might choose to pass on the subject.

The theory that in purely internal commercial affairs the authority of the State is supreme has never been denied. But even here the Federal power has been steadily carried by the logic of events and judicial decisions into the domain of every State, and corresponding inroads have been made upon State sovereignty.

Commerce has become nationalized, and now partakes of an interstate character to an extent that was perhaps not dreamed of by the framers of the Constitution. In 1870 the Supreme Court, holding that a steamer whose trips were made wholly within one State, was subject to the laws of Congress, because transporting things brought from or destined to another State, declared that all local agencies or instruments, though operating wholly within the State, fall under the jurisdiction of the General Government when employed in interstate commerce. “It is said," remarked the court, "that if the position here asserted be sustained, there is no such thing as the domestic trade of a State; that Congress may take the entire control of the commerce of the country, and extend its regulations to the railroads within a State on which grain or fruit is transported to a distant market. We answer that the present case relates to transportation on the navigable waters of the United States, and we are not called upon to express an opinion upon the power of Congress over interstate commerce when carried on by land transportation. And we further answer that we are unable to draw any clear and distinct line between the authority of Congress to regulate an agency employed in commerce between the States, when that agency extends through two or more States, and when it is confined in its action entirely within the limits of a single State. If its authority does not extend to an agency in such commerce, when that agency is confined within the limits of a State, its entire authority over interstate commerce may be defeated." (The Daniel Ball, 10 Wallace, 566.)

In the case of Lord against Steamship Company, decided during the session of 1880-'81, and reported in 102 United States Reports, the lines of Federal supremacy were carried by the court to a frontier in State domain before unknown. It held that a vessel plying exclusively between the ports of one State, and engaged in traffic purely and wholly internal, is employed in commerce over which Congress has exclusive control, provided that in making its trips it goes out of the jurisdictional waters of the State upon the high seas for any distance, however short. As vessels employed in domestic trade do generally go upon the high seas, the effect of this decision is to transfer from a claimed State to Federal control the bulk of the coasting-trade of the country, although carried on entirely within the limits of the States.

This general outline of the decisions by the Supreme Court shows a remarkable development of central power on the most important points affecting the relations between the States and the General Government.

LAWRENCE, WILLIAM BEACH, LL. D., an American jurist and eminent writer on international law, was born in the city of New York, October 23, 1800; died there, March 26, 1881.

He was the only son of Isaac Lawrence and his wife Cornelia, daughter of Dr. Abraham Beach, for many years one of the ministers of Trinity Church, New York, and a descendant of the first white child born in the colony of Connecticut. Isaac Lawrence was an opulent merchant, and for many years was President of the New York branch of the United States Bank, and one of the presidential electors of James Monroe. Lawrence's ancestors came from England about the middle of the seventeenth century, and received a patent for a portion of Long Island, now constituting the towns of Flushing, Hempstead, and Newtown. He was sent to Dr. Barry's school in Rector Street, and at the age of twelve, being too young to gain admission in Columbia College, he entered Rutgers in New Jersey, spending two years there, when he joined the former institution, graduating with high honors in the class of 1818. Henry J. Anderson was the only one above him, while James Lenox stood number nine in the same class. After a tour to the West as far as the Mississippi, Lawrence entered the office of William Slosson, an eminent New York lawyer. He also spent a year under the instruction of Judges Gould and Reeves, in whose law-school, at Litchfield, Connecticut, John C. Calhoun was then a student. During the winter of 1820-21 Mr. Lawrence visited some of the leading families of South Carolina, and spent several days with Jefferson at Monticello, and with Madison at Montpelier. Soon after his return to New York he married Esther, daughter of Archibald Gracie, a wealthy merchant, and sailed for Europe in one of Mr.¦ Gracie's ships, carrying letters of introduction from President Monroe, Secretary of State J. Q. Adams, the French minister, Joseph Bonaparte, his father-in-law's intimate friend and frequent guest, Madison, and Jefferson, by whom he was introduced to Lafayette, who entertained him and his young wife for a fortnight at La Grange. They were guests of Lord Holland at Holland House, and of the Bonapartes at Rome, then a center of elegant European society.

In 1823, Mr. Lawrence returned to the United States, and was there admitted as counselor to the Supreme Court of New York. His special attention was given there, as previously, to political economy and international law, but not to the exclusion of his taste for the beautiful, as seen in his address in 1825 before the New York Academy of Fine Arts. In 1826, at the request of Albert Gallatin, he was appointed secretary of legation to Great Britain, Gallatin being our embassador, and his part in the negotiations may be inferred from Mr. Gallatin's report to the State Department, that Mr. Lawrence was competent alone to conduct the mission. In 1827 President Adams appointed him chargé d'affaires, and his correspondence with Lords Dudley and Aberdeen concerning the settlement of the boundary of our northern and northeastern frontier evinced his diplo

matic ability and established his reputation as an expounder of international law. While in London he was intimate with members of the Political Economy Club, including McCulloch, Grote the historian, Jeremy Bentham, and Sir John Bowring, who became both his friend and physician, and he was a frequent contributor to the "Westminster Review." From England he went to Paris, and while pursuing his favorite studies, translated into English the "History of Louisiana," by Marbois (which was published in 1830), and made the acquaintance of Cousin, Guizot, Villemain, and many other men of eminence. On his return to New York after an absence of four years, he formed a law partnership with Hamilton Fish, and displayed great powers in prosecuting claims for indemnity under the treaty of 1831, called the Rives Treaty, in which the Lawrence family were largely interested, the claims being for spoliations under the decrees of Napoleon in violation of the law of nations. His arguments were commended by Webster, with whom he was associated in some of the most important cases. The lectures on political economy before the senior class of Columbia College were repeated by Mr. Lawrence before the Mercantile Library Association, and were afterward published. These able lectures were in defense of free trade, of which he was always a warm advocate. He was an active member of the New York Historical Society, and from 1836 to 1845 vice-president of the society, Gallatin being president. In the latter year, Mr. Lawrence, by his able argument before the Court of Errors, obtained a reversal of the Chancellor's decision (Miller vs. Gable, 4 Denio, 570). At this period he purchased a large estate known as Ochre Point, at Newport, Rhode Island, where he erected a commodious summer residence, and in 1850 he removed his permanent home to that place, where he continued to reside until his death, with the exception of an occasional visit to Europe, or a winter spent in Washington. Soon after his settlement in Newport he was elected Lieutenant-Governor, and in a short time, by a provision of the State Constitution, he became Governor of Rhode Island. While acting as such, he was instrumental in abolishing the law for imprisonment for debt, in procuring a reform in the management of the jails, and in advancing various other reforms.

After the death of his friend Henry Wheaton, Mr. Lawrence prepared an edition of his "Elements of International Law," which was published in 1855, for the benefit of Mr. Wheaton's destitute family. This work, which was more than doubled in size by the addition of Lawrence's original matter, made the name of Wheaton well known throughout the United States and Europe. It immediately met with almost universal adoption in courts and consular offices, and in colleges and universities, at home and abroad. A second edition, bringing the text down to date, was issued by Governor

Lawrence in 1863. Lawrence's Wheaton has ever since been the accepted text-book among diplomatists, and as such is always referred to in the United States Senate, to which body, in connection with the President, the whole treaty-making power is confided. It is the standard work in the English language upon the subject of international law, and it has appeared in many of the European tongues. It has even been translated into the languages of China and Japan, and was the first English work that appeared in Japanese. A rival edition by Richard Henry Dana, purporting to be original, and covering exactly the same ground as Lawrence's Wheaton, led to long litigation in the United States Circuit Court for Massachusetts. Judge Clifford fully confirmed the claims of Governor Lawrence, declaring Dana's work to be an infringement of the American copyright law, and said, "Such a comprehensive collection of authorities, explanations, and well-considered suggestions, is nowhere, in the judgment of the court, to be found in our language," as in Lawrence's Wheaton.

In 1868 there was published at Leipsic the first volume of Lawrence's great original work on "International Law." The fifth volume of this important treatise appeared in 1880, and the sixth and concluding volume, now in manuscript and almost complete, will soon be finished by another hand, and published by Brockhaus. This magnum opus, which was written and published in French, occupied a large portion of the author's time during the last twelve years of his long and busy life. Among his many other publications may be mentioned, "The History of the Negotiations in Reference to the Eastern and Northeastern Bonndaries of the United States "(New York, 1841); "The Treaty of Washington" (Providence, 1871); "Disabilities of American Women Abroad (New York, 1871); and "Administration of Equity Jurisprudence" (Boston, 1874).

While in Europe, Brown University_conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and he was distinguished as the first recipient of the title of Doctor of Civil Law granted in the United States, by a degree conferred by the Regents of the University of the State of New York. As an international counselor he was unsurpassed perhaps either in Europe or America. He achieved great professional distinction in appearing before the British and American International Tribunal at Washington, in 1873, in the case of the Circassian, involving more than half a million dollars. He won the suit, obtaining for his clients the reversal of a decision of the United States Supreme Court, the only instance of that character which has occurred in the country's history. Lawrence's argument in the case, on which the decision was rendered, is now regarded, both here and in Europe, as an authoritative exposition of several most important points of international law. He was one of the original members of the "Institute of the Law of Nations," com