Court : US Supreme Court
Sinking Fund Cases - 99 U.S. 700 (1878) U.S. Supreme Court Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U.S. 700 (1878) Sinking Fund Cases 99 U.S. 700 APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS Syllabus 1. So far as it establishes in the Treasury of the United States a sinking fund, the Act of Congress approved May 7, 1878, 20 Stat. 56, entitled "An Act to alter and amend the act entitled 'An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes,' approved July 1, 1862, and also to alter and amend the act of Congress approved July 2, 1864, in amendment of said first-named act," is not unconstitutional. 2. The debt of the respective companies therein named to the United States is not paid by depositing and investing the fund in the manner prescribed by that act, 3. Retaining in the fund the one-half of the earnings for services rendered to the government by the...
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Strauder v. West Virginia - 100 U.S. 303 (1879) U.S. Supreme Court Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879) Strauder v. West Virginia 100 U.S. 303 ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA Syllabus 1. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States considered, and held to be one of a series of constitutional provisions having a common purpose, namely to secure to a recently emancipated race, which had been held in slavery through many generations, all the civil rights that the superior race enjoy, and to give to it the protection of the general government, in the enjoyment of such rights, whenever they should be denied by the States. Whether the amendment had other, and if so what, purposes not decided. 2. The amendment not only gave citizenship and the privileges of citizenship to persons of color, but denied to any State the power to withhold from them the equal protection of the laws, and invested Congress with power, by ...
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Trademark Cases - 100 U.S. 82 (1879) U.S. Supreme Court Trademark Cases, 100 U.S. 82 (1879) Trademark Cases 100 U.S. 82 Syllabus 1. Property in trademarks has long been recognized and protected by the common law and by the statutes of the several states, and does not derive its existence from the act of Congress providing for the registration of them in the Patent Office. 2. A trademark is neither an invention, a discovery, nor a writing within the meaning of the eighth clause of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, which confers on Congress power to secure for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. 3. If an act of Congress can in any case be extended, as a regulation of commerce, to trademarks, it must be limited to their use in "commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." 4. The legislation of Congress in regard to trademarks is not, in its...
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Ex Parte Virginia - 100 U.S. 339 (1879) U.S. Supreme Court Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1879) Ex Parte Virginia 100 U.S. 339 1. A., a judge of a county court in Virginia, charged by the law of that State with the selection of jurors to serve for the year 1878 in the circuit and county courts of his county, was, in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Virginia, indicted for excluding and failing to select as grand jurors and petit jurors certain citizens of his county of African race and black color, who, possessing all other qualifications prescribed by law, were excluded from the jury lists made out by him as such officer, on account of their race, color, and previous condition of servitude, and for no other reason, against the peace, &c.;, of the United States, and against the form of the statute in such case made and provided. Being in custody under that indictment, he presented to this court his petition for a writ of habeas corpus and a wri...
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Auffm'ordt v. Rasin - 102 U.S. 620 (1880) U.S. Supreme Court Auffm'ordt v. Rasin, 102 U.S. 620 (1880) Auffm'ordt v. Rasin 102 U.S. 620 APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK Syllabus 1. A, with a view of giving preference to B, a creditor, transferred to him Nov. 15, 1873, certain securities. B accepted them with knowledge that A was insolvent. Proceedings in bankruptcy were instituted against A. Feb. 7, 1874, he was declared to be bankrupt. His assignee brought suit in June, 1875, against B. for the value of the securities. Held that he was entitled to recover. 2. The tenth section of the Act of June 22, 1874, 18 Stat., part 3, 178, whereby in cases of involuntary or compulsory bankruptcy, the period of four months mentioned in sec. 35 of the Bankrupt Act of March 2, 1867, 14 id. 534, was changed to two months, did not take effect until two months after its passage. It was not intended to destroy previously vested rights ...
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Neal v. Delaware - 103 U.S. 370 (1880) U.S. Supreme Court Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370 (1880) Neal v. Delaware 103 U.S. 370 ERROR TO THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY, STATE OF DELAWARE Syllabus 1. The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment rendered inoperative a provision in the then existing Constitution of a State whereby the right of suffrage was limited to the white race. 2. Therefore, a statute confining the selection of jurors to persons possessing the qualifications of electors is enlarged in its operation so as to embrace all those who, by the Constitution of the State, as modified by that amendment, are entitled to vote. 3. The presumption should be indulged, in the first instance, that the State recognizes as binding on all her citizens and every department of her government an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, from the time of its adoption, and her duty to enforce it, within her limits, without reference to any inconsistent prov...
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Springer v. United States - 102 U.S. 586 (1880) U.S. Supreme Court Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 (1880) Springer v. United States 102 U.S. 586 ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS Syllabus 1. Certain lands of A. were distrained and sold by reason of his refusal to pay the income tax assessed against him under the Act of June 30, 1864, 13 Stat. 218, as amended by the Act of March 3, 1865, id., 469, he having no goods or chattels known to the proper officers out of which the tax and penalty could have been made. The United States became the purchaser of the lands, received a deed therefor, and brought ejectment against him. Held that he cannot raise the question here that the deed, inasmuch as it refers to the Act of March 30 instead of that of June 30, should, on the trial, have been excluded from the jury, as that objection to its admissibility in evidence was not made in the court of original jurisdiction. 2. Whe...
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Williams v. Louisiana - 103 U.S. 637 (1880) U.S. Supreme Court Williams v. Louisiana, 103 U.S. 637 (1880) Williams v. Louisiana 103 U.S. 637 ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA Syllabus In a suit brought in one of her courts by the State of Louisiana seeking to restrain payment on the bonds issued to the New Orleans, Mobile, and Chattanooga Railroad Company under an Act of the legislature approved April 20, 1871, and praying for relief upon the ground that the act was in violation of the constitutional amendment of 1870, which declares "that, prior to the first day of January, 1890, the debt of the state shall not be so increased as to exceed twenty-five millions of dollars," which limit, it was claimed, had been attained before the passage of the act, a holder of some of the bonds, who was permitted to intervene, set up that they were issued in discharge and release of valid and then subsisting obligations of the state, which, prior to the adoption of the ame...
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Walnut v. Wade - 103 U.S. 683 (1880) U.S. Supreme Court Walnut v. Wade, 103 U.S. 683 (1880) Walnut v. Wade 103 U.S. 683 ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS Syllabus 1. A bill designated as "House Bill No. 231," and having for its title, "An Act to amend an act entitled An Act to incorporate the Illinois Grand Trunk Railway,'" regularly passed the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of Illinois. In its passage through the Senate, "Illinois" was dropped from the title, and in the message of the House to the Senate and of the Senate to the House, reporting its passage by those bodies respectively, "Illinois" was left out of the title, but the designation as House Bill, No. 231 was retained. The journals show no amendment to the title. The bill as above entitled was signed by the presiding officer of each House. The Constitution of Illinois then in force provides that "Every bill shall be read on three different days...
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United States v. Lee - 106 U.S. 196 (1882) U.S. Supreme Court United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882) United States v. Lee Decided December 4, 1882 106 U.S. 196 ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA Syllabus 1. The doctrine that, except where Congress has provided, the United States cannot be sued examined and reaffirmed. 2. That doctrine has no application to officers and agents of the United States who, when as such holding for public uses possession of property, are sued therefor by a person claiming to be the owner thereof or entitled thereto, but the lawfulness of that possession and the right or title of the United States to the property may, by a court of competent jurisdiction, be the subject matter of inquiry and adjudged accordingly. 3. The constitutional provisions that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor private property taken for public use without just compen...
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