to be held estopped from saying that the description was ambiguous, and this notwithstanding the fact that the statement was made on printed blanks, prepared by the board. Central Pacific Railroad Co. California, 91.
2. The decision of the Supreme Court of the State that the findings of the trial court on the question of whether the franchises taxed cov- ered franchises derived from the United States was conclusive, and is binding on this court. Ib.
3. The fact that a court, after giving its decision upon an issue, gives its opinion upon the manner in which it would have decided the issue under other circumstances, does not constitute an error to be reviewed in this court. Ib.
4. The Central Pacific company is a corporation of California, recognized as such by the acts of Congress granting it aid and conferring upon it Federal franchises, and it was not the object of those acts to sever its allegiance to the State or transfer the powers and privileges de- rived from it; nor did those consequences result from the acceptance of the grant by the corporation. Ib.
5. The property of a corporation of the United States may be taxed by a State, but not through its franchise. Ib.
6. Although a corporation may be an agent of the United States, a State may tax its property, subject to the limitation pointed out in Railroad Co. v. Peniston, 18 Wall. 5. Ib.
7. It is immaterial in this case whether the railroad company operates its road under the franchise derived from the United States, or under that derived from the State. Ib.
8. When it is considered that the Central Pacific company returned its franchise for assessment, declined to resort to the remedy afforded by the state laws for the correction of the assessment as made if dis- satisfied therewith, or to pay its tax and bring suit to recover back the whole or any part of the tax which it claimed to be illegal, its position is not one entitled to favorable consideration; but, without regard to that, the court holds, for reasons given, that the state courts rightly decided that the company had no valid defence to the causes of action proceeded on. Ib.
CIRCUIT COURT COMMISSIONER.
CLAIMS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
See FRENCH SPOLIATION CLAIMS.
1. The levee board of Mississippi, being authorized by a statute of the State to borrow money and to issue their bonds therefor, to be nego- tiable as promissory notes or bills of exchange, issued and sold to the
amount of $500,000, principal bonds of $1000 each, payable "in gold coin of the United States of America," with semi-annual interest coupons, payable "in currency of the United States." In a suit to enforce a trust and lien upon certain lands in the State created in favor of the bondholders by an act of the legislature of the State, the Supreme Court of the State construed the bonds as obligations payable in gold coin, and held that the power to borrow money conferred by the statute upon the levee board did not authorize it to borrow gold coin or issue bonds acknowledging the receipt thereof and agreeing to pay therefor in the same medium, and that the bonds were void for want of power in that respect. Held, (1) That the inquiry as to the medium in which the bonds were payable, and, if in goid coin, the effect thereof, involved the right to enforce a contract according to the meaning of its terms as determined by the Constitution and laws of the United States, interpreted by the tribunal of last resort, and, therefore, raised questions of Federal right which justified the issue of the writ of error, and gave this court jurisdiction under it; (2) That the bonds were legally solvable in the money of the United States, whatever its description, and not in any particular kind of that money, and that it was impossible to hold that they were void because of want of power to issue them; (3) That as, by their terms these bonds were payable generally in money of the United States, the conclusion of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, that they were otherwise payable, was erroneous. Woodruff v. Mis sissippi, 291.
2. FIELD, J., concurring. No transaction of commerce or business, or obligation for the payment of money that is not immoral in its char- acter and which is not, in its manifest purpose, detrimental to the peace, good order and general interest of society, can be declared or held to be invalid because enforced or made payable in gold coin or currency when that is established or recognized by the government; and any acts by state authority, impairing or lessening the validity or negotiability of obligations thus made payable in gold coin, are violative of the laws and Constitution of the United States. Ib. 3. The principle reaffirmed that while a State, consistently with the pur- poses for which the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, may confine the selection of jurors to males, to freeholders, to citizens, to persons within certain ages or to persons having educational qualifications, and while a mixed jury in a particular case is not, within the meaning of the Constitution, always or absolutely necessary to the enjoyment of the equal protection of the laws, and therefore an accused, being of the colored race, cannot claim as matter of right that his race shall be represented on the jury; yet a denial to citizens of the African race, because of their color, of the right or privilege accorded to white citi- zens of participating as jurors in the administration of justice would be a discrimination against the former inconsistent with the amend-
ment and within the power of Congress, by appropriate legislation, to prevent. Gibson v. Mississippi, 565.
4. The inhibition upon the passage of ex post facto laws does not give a criminal a right to be tried, in all respects, by the law in force when the crime charged was committed. The mode of trial is always under legislative control, subject only to the condition that the legislature may not, under the guise of establishing modes of procedure and prescribing remedies, violate the accepted principles that protect an accused person against ex post facto enactments. Ib.
5. The Constitution of the United States, in its present form, forbids, so far as civil and political rights are concerned, discrimination by the General Government, or by the States, against any citizen because of his race. All citizens are equal before the law. The guarantees of life, liberty and property are for all persons, within the jurisdiction of the United States, or of any State, without discrimination against any because of their race. Those guarantees, when their violation is properly presented in the regular course of proceedings, must be en- forced in the courts, both of the Nation and of the State, without reference to considerations based upon race. In the administration of criminal justice no rule can be applied to one class which is not ap- plicable to all other classes. Ib.
6. The statute of the State of Georgia of October 22, 1887, requiring every telegraph company with a line of wires, wholly or partly within that State, to receive dispatches, and, on payment of the usual charges, to transmit and deliver them with due diligence, under a penalty of one hundred dollars, is a valid exercise of the power of the State in rela- tion to messages by telegraph from points outside of and directed to some point within the State. Western Union Telegraph Company v. James, 650.
In a bill to compel specific performance of a contract for the sale and pur- chase of a tract of land, it is absolutely necessary for the plaintiff to tender performance and payment of the purchase money on his part; and this rule is still more stringent when applied to the case of an optional sale. Kelsey v. Crowther, 404.
1. Upon a bill in equity by subscribers for shares in a corporation to com- pel it to issue shares to them, and to set aside as fraudulent a contract by which it had agreed to transfer all its shares to another person, a de- cree was entered, setting aside that contract, and ordering shares to be issued to the plaintiffs, and a new board of directors to be chosen. Upon a bill by other stockholders, afterwards filed by leave of court in
the same cause, and entitled a supplemental bill, alleging fraud and mismanagement of the new officers and insolvency of the company, and praying for the appointment of a receiver, the court, without notice to the plaintiffs in the original bill, appointed a receiver, and made an order for a call or assessment upon all stockholders of the company. Held, that this order, although conclusive evidence of the necessity of the assessment as against all stockholders, did not prevent a plaintiff in the original bill, when sued by the receiver, in the name of the corporation, for an assessment, from pleading the statute of limitations to his liability upon his subscription. Great Western Tele- graph Company v. Purdy, 329.
2. In an action brought in a state court, by a corporation against a sub- scriber for shares, to recover an assessment thereon under an order of assessment made by a court of another State upon all the stockholders, in a proceeding of which he had no notice, a judgment of the highest court of the State for the defendant, upon the ground that, by its con- struction of a general statute of limitations of the State, the cause of action accrued against him at the date of his contract of subscription, and not at the date of the order of assessment, involves no Federal question, and is not reviewable by this court on writ of error. lb. See CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY.
See PRACTICE, 1;
UNITED STATES, 3, 4.
1. On the trial of a person indicted for murder, although the evidence may appear to the court to be simply overwhelming to show that the kill- ing was in fact murder, and not manslaughter or an act performed in self defence, yet, so long as there is evidence relevant to the issue of manslaughter, its credibility and force are for the jury, and cannot be matter of law for the decision of the court. Stevenson v. United States, 313.
2. A review of the evidence at the trial of the defendant (plaintiff in error)
in the court below shows that there was error in the refusal of the court of the request of the defendant's counsel to submit the question of manslaughter to the jury. Ib.
3. Goode v. United States, 159 U. S. 663, followed in holding that in the
trial of an indictment against a letter carrier, charged with secreting, embezzling or destroying a letter containing money in United States currency, the fact that the letter was a decoy is no defence. Mont- gomery v. United States, 410.
4. On the trial of a person indicted for a violation of the provisions of Rev. Stat. § 3893, touching the mailing of obscene, lewd or lascivious
books, pamphlets, pictures, etc., it is competent for a detective officer of the Post Office Department, as a witness, to testify that correspond- ence was carried on with the accused by him through the mails for the sole purpose of obtaining evidence from him upon which to base the prosecution. Andrews v. United States, 420.
5. The mailing of a private sealed letter containing obscene matter in an envelope on which nothing appears but the name and address is an offence within that statute.
6. As the inspector testified that the signature was fictitious, and that the letter had been written in an assumed name, the opening by him of the sealed answer bearing the fictitious address was not an offence against that provision of the statute which forbids a person from opening any letter or sealed matter of the first class not addressed to himself. Ib. 7. W. lived on a tract of land next to one owned and occupied by his father in law, Z., concerning the boundary between which there was a dispute between them. While W. was ploughing his land, Z., being then under the influence of liquor, entered upon the disputed tract and brought a quantity of posts there, for the purpose of erecting a fence on the line which he claimed. W. ordered him off, and continued his ploughing. He did not leave, and W. after reaching his boundary with the plough, unhitched his horses and put them in the barn. In about half an hour he returned with a gun, and an altercation ensued, in the course of which W. was stabbed by a son of Z. and Z. was killed by a shot from W.'s gun. W. was indicted for murder. On the trial evidence was offered in defence, and excluded, of threats of Z. to kill W.; and W. himself was put upon the stand and, after stating that he did not feel safe without some protection against Z., and that Z. had made a hostile demonstration against him, was asked, from that demonstration what he believed Z. was about to do? This question was ruled out. Held, that if W. believed and had reasonable ground for the belief that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm from Z. at the moment he fired, and would not have fired but for such belief, and if that belief, founded on reasonable ground, might in any view the jury could properly take of the circum- stances surrounding the killing, have excused his act or reduced the crime from murder to manslaughter, then the evidence in respect of Z.'s threats was relevant and it was error to exclude it; and it was also error to refuse to allow the question to be put to W. as to his belief based on the demonstration on Z.'s part to which he testified. Wallace v. United States, 466.
8. Where a difficulty is intentionally brought on for the purpose of kill- ing the deceased, the fact of imminent danger to the accused consti- tutes no defence; but where the accused embarks in a quarrel with no felonious intent, or malice, or premeditated purpose of doing bodily harm or killing, and under reasonable belief of imminent danger he inflicts a fatal wound, it is not murder. Ib.
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