Court : US Supreme Court
..... which framed and the states which adopted it. the counsel for the plaintiffs in error have contended with great force that the act in question is also inhibited by the thirteenth amendment. that amendment prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, but i have not supposed it was susceptible of a ..... condition of serfs attached to the plantation, the purpose of the article might have been evaded if only the word slavery had been used. the case of the apprentice slave, held under a law of maryland, liberated by chief justice chase on a writ of habeas corpus under this article, illustrates this course of observation. ..... to inhibit such interference. the supremacy of the constitution and the laws of the united states always controlled any state legislation of that character. but if the amendment refers to the natural and inalienable rights which belong to all citizens, the inhibition has a profound significance and consequence. what, then, are the privileges .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... power in the state to farm out the ordinary avocations of life that dissent was made to the judgment of the court sustaining the validity of the act. it was believed that the fourteenth amendment had taken away the power of the state to parcel out to favored citizens the ordinary trades and callings of life, to give to a. the ..... been in existence in the state of iowa, ever since the code of 1851, a law strictly prohibiting the sale of such liquors, the act in all essential particulars under which the defendant was prosecuted, amended in some immaterial points. if it is supposed that the averment is helped by the statement that he owned the liquor before the law was ..... of the constitution of the united states. but the case before us is supposed by counsel of the plaintiff in error to present a violation of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution, on the ground that the act of the iowa legislature is a violation of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the united states which that .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... under which it was convened, and the specification and charge under which he was arraigned, tried, and convicted. averments are also set forth in the amended plea that the offense charged in the specification before the general court-martial is the same as that embodied in the indictment, and that the court-martial ..... text-writers, as, for example, mr. cooley says, "the states may constitutionally provide for punishing the counterfeiting of coin and the passing of counterfeit money, since these acts are offenses against the state, notwithstanding they may also be offenses against the nation." cooley, const.lim. (4th ed.) 25. corresponding views are expressed by mr. ..... that proposition; but the prisoner, through his counsel, insists that the jurisdiction to issue the writ and order the discharge was plainly conferred by the subsequent act of congress. justices and judges of the courts of the united states have power, in addition to the authority previously conferred, to grant writs of habeas .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... a charter is a contract, the eighteenth section declares that congress may at any time, having due regard for the rights of the companies named therein, add to, alter, amend, or repeal the act. the power of congress therefore in its sovereign and legislative capacity over this corporation is very great. the government, however, holds another very important relation -- namely that of ..... company was not bound to pay this interest until the bonds mature except so far as the act made in that regard two special provisions. one was that half the compensation for transportation performed for the united states should, as provided by the subsequent amended charter of 1864, be withheld by the government for that purpose; the other was that after the .....
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..... land grant. the proper substitutions were made on the record, the new trustees all being citizens of massachusetts. subsequently, on the 3d of october, 1874, an amendment was made to the bill for the foreclosure of the railroad mortgage, by which atkins, one of the trustees of the land grant mortgage, and other persons, ..... wishes of a very large majority of bondholders. if there was anywhere the slightest evidence of fraud or unfaithfulness, their conduct would be carefully scrutinized. the acts of trustees when personally interested should always be open and fair. slight circumstances will sometimes be considered sufficient proof of wrong to justify setting aside what has ..... differences of opinion among the bondholders as to what their interests require, it is not improper that he should be governed by the voice of the majority, acting in good faith and without collusion, if what they ask is not inconsistent with the provisions of his trust. this company and these trustees were peculiarly .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... this abundantly appears from the separate opinions in this case of the judges composing the court of oyer and terminer. comegys, c.j., alluding to the fifteenth amendment, and the act of march 1, 1875, said: "returning to the point that our laws forbid the selection of colored persons as jurors. we answer this by saying that we ..... have no such laws. . . . the fourteenth amendment, therefore, and the act of 1875 passed by congress as appropriate legislation for its enforcement, or either, are superior to our state constitution, and it had to give way to them, and ..... its provisions, or with the laws enacted for their enforcement, or had its judicial tribunals, by their decisions, repudiated that amendment as a part of the supreme law of the land, or declared the acts passed to enforce its provisions to be inoperative and void, there would have been just ground to hold that there was such .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... also asked from the prosecution, was not a right given or secured to them, or to any person, by the law of the state, or by any act of congress, or by the fourteenth amendment of the constitution. it is a right to which page 100 u. s. 323 every colored man is entitled that, in the selection of jurors to pass ..... made himself liable to punishment at the instance of the state and under the laws of the united states. in one sense, indeed, his act was the act of the state, and was prohibited by the constitutional amendment. but inasmuch as it was a criminal misuse of the state law, it cannot be said to have been such a "denial or disability ..... for similar legislation, and thus obviate the objections which had been raised to its first section, was one of the objects of the amendment. after its adoption the civil rights act was reenacted, and upon the first section of that amendment it rests. that section is directed against the state. its language is that " no state shall make or enforce any law .....
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..... made to protect the equal civil rights of petitioner and those offering to vote for him, and by reason of the right guaranteed by the fifteenth article of amendment to the constitution of the united states." if all that is here alleged be true, it does not show a case "arising under the constitution or ..... to vote at all elections, and because in this case they were prevented by intimidation from exercising that privilege, the properly constituted canvassing board of the state, acting, as is alleged by dubuclet in his petition, "in accordance to law and their sworn duty," rejected all votes from the parishes and polls where intimidation occurred ..... for petitioner, and against jno. c. moncure, relator, and who were prevented, hindered, and controlled and intimidated from voting for petitioner by relator moncure and those acting in his interest by means of bribery, threats of depriving them of employment and occupation, and of ejecting them from rented houses, lands, and other property, and .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... filed exceptions to the rule, on behalf of himself and all other stockholders desiring to avail themselves thereof. on the date last named, the petition and amended petition of the assignees, and the exceptions thereto, came on for hearing, whereupon the court overruled the exceptions and decreed that an assessment and call be ..... the public no right to trust them. persons dealing with the managers of a corporation must take notice of the limitations imposed upon their authority by the act of incorporation. zabriskie v. the cleveland, columbus & cincinnati railroad co., supra. the laws secured to the public and the creditors an infallible mode of ascertaining ..... the reasons for his decision, he said: "it is, however, contended that notwithstanding the agreement itself was ultra vires and void, yet there are personal acts and things personally affecting these two gentlemen which render them still liable as shareholders." these were the acceptance of shares by stace and worth, the fact that .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... or any place subject to their jurisdiction." its second section declares that "congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." this amendment was followed by the civil rights act of april 9, 1866, which, among other things, provided that "all persons born in the united states, and not subject to any foreign ..... u. s. 629 ), it is clear that the law in question cannot be sustained by any grant of legislative power made to congress by the fourteenth amendment. that amendment prohibits the states from denying to any person the equal protection of the laws, and declares that congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, ..... the proposal by congress of the fourteenth amendment, on june 16, 1866, the statute books of several of the states, as we have seen, had become loaded down with enactments which, under the guise of apprentice, vagrant, and contract regulations, sought to keep the colored race in a condition, practically, of servitude. it was .....
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