Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/91/367/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 08:09:30+00:00

Document:
1. The right of eminent domain exists in the government of the United States, and may be exercised by it within the states, so far as is necessary to the enjoyment of the powers conferred upon it by the Constitution.
a subsequent act made an appropriation "for the purchase at private sale, or by condemnation of such site," power was conferred upon him to acquire, in his discretion, the requisite ground by the exercise of the national right of eminent domain, and the proper circuit court of the United States had, under the general grant of jurisdiction made by the Act of 1789, jurisdiction of the proceedings brought by the United States to secure the condemnation of the ground.
3. Where proceedings for the condemnation of land are brought in the courts of Ohio, the statute of that state treats all the owners of a parcel of ground as one party, and gives to them collectively a trial separate from the trial of the issues between the government and the owners of other parcels; but each owner of an estate or interest in each parcel is not entitled to a separate trial.
This was a proceeding instituted by the United States to appropriate a parcel of land in the City of Cincinnati as a site for a post office and other public uses.
The plaintiffs in error owned a perpetual leasehold estate in a portion of the property sought to be appropriated. They moved to dismiss the proceeding on the ground of want of jurisdiction, which motion was overruled. They then demanded a separate trial of the value of their estate in the property, which demand the court also overruled. To these rulings of the court the plaintiffs in error here excepted. Judgment was rendered in favor of the United States.
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to purchase a central and suitable site in the City of Cincinnati, Ohio, for the erection of a building for the accommodation of the United States courts, custom house, United States depository, post office, internal revenue and pension offices, at a cost not exceeding three hundred thousand dollars, provided that no money which may hereafter be appropriated for this purpose shall be used or expended in the purchase of said site until a valid title thereto shall be vested in the United States and until the State of Ohio shall cede its jurisdiction over the same, and shall duly release and relinquish to the United States the right to tax or in any way assess said site and the property of the United States that may be thereon during the time that the United States shall be or remain the owner thereof."
building is hereby limited to two million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars (inclusive of the cost of the site of the same) -- seven hundred thousand dollars, and the Act of March 12, 1872, authorizing the purchase of a site therefor, is hereby so amended as to limit the cost of the site to a sum not exceeding five hundred thousand dollars."
"For purchase of site for the building for custom house and post office at Cincinnati, Ohio, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
from sovereignty, unless denied to it by its fundamental law. Vattel, c. 20, 34; Bynk., lib. 2, c. 15; Kent's Com. 338-340; Cooley on Const.Lim. 584 et seq. But it is no more necessary for the exercise of the powers of a state government than it is for the exercise of the conceded powers of the federal government. That government is as sovereign within its sphere as the states are within theirs. True, its sphere is limited. Certain subjects only are committed to it; but its power over those subjects is as full and complete as is the power of the states over the subjects to which their sovereignty extends. The power is not changed by its transfer to another holder.
"So far as the general government may deem it important to appropriate lands or other property for its own purposes and to enable it to perform its functions -- as must sometimes be necessary in the case of forts, lighthouses, and military posts or roads and other conveniences and necessities of government -- the general government may exercise the authority as well within the states as within the territory under its exclusive jurisdiction, and its right to do so may be supported by the same reasons which support the right in any case -- that is to say the absolute necessity that the means in the government for performing its functions and perpetuating its existence should not be liable to be controlled or defeated by the want of consent of private parties or of any other authority."
We refer also to Trombley v. Humphrey, 23 Mich. 471; 35 U. S. 10 Pet. 723; Dickey v. Turnpike Co., 7 Dana 113; McCullough v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 429.
sovereignty to take private property for its own public uses, and not for those of another. Beyond that, there exists no necessity, which alone is the foundation of the right. If the United States have the power, it must be complete in itself. It can neither be enlarged nor diminished by a state. Nor can any state prescribe the manner in which it must be exercised. The consent of a state can never be a condition precedent to its enjoyment. Such consent is needed only, if at all, for the transfer of jurisdiction and of the right of exclusive legislation after the land shall have been acquired.
or by private purchase, at his discretion. Why speak of condemnation at all if Congress had not in view an exercise of the right of eminent domain and did not intend to confer upon the secretary the right to invoke it?
"The term [suit] is certainly a very comprehensive one, and is understood to apply to any proceeding in a court of justice by which an individual pursues that remedy which the law affords. The modes of proceeding may be various, but, if a right is litigated in a court of justice, the proceeding by which the decision of the court is sought is a suit."
in the eleventh section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, jurisdiction of suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity was given to the circuit courts, it was intended to embrace not merely suits which the common law recognized as among its old and settled proceedings, but suits in which legal rights were to be ascertained and determined as distinguished from rights in equity, as well as suits in admiralty. The right of eminent domain always was a right at common law. It was not a right in equity, nor was it even the creature of a statute. The time of its exercise may have been prescribed by statute, but the right itself was superior to any statute. That it was not enforced through the agency of a jury is immaterial, for many civil as well as criminal proceedings at common law were without a jury. It is difficult, then, to see why a proceeding to take land in virtue of the government's eminent domain, and determining the compensation to be made for it, is not within the meaning of the statute a suit at common law when initiated in a court. It is an attempt to enforce a legal right. It is quite immaterial that Congress has not enacted that the compensation shall be ascertained in a judicial proceeding. That ascertainment is in its nature at least quasi-judicial. Certainly no other mode than a judicial trial has been provided.
a claim of legal right to take it, there appears to be no reason for holding that the proper circuit court has not jurisdiction of the suit, under the general grant of jurisdiction made by the Act of 1789.
hath this extent; no more. The court is not required to allow a separate trial to each owner of an estate or interest in each parcel, and no consideration of justice to those owners would be subserved by it. The circuit court therefore gave to the plaintiffs in error all, if not more than all, they had a right to ask.
exercise of their right of eminent domain, is often had before commissioners of assessment or special boards appointed for that purpose. It can hardly be doubted that Congress might provide for inquisition as to the value of property to be taken by similar instrumentalities, and yet if the proceeding be a suit at common law, the intervention of a jury would be required by the seventh amendment to the Constitution.
Nor am I able to agree with the majority in their opinion, or at least intimation, that the authority to purchase carries with it authority to acquire by condemnation. The one supposes an agreement upon valuation, and a voluntary conveyance of the property; the other implies a compulsory taking, and a contestation as to the value. Beekman v. Saratoga & Schenectady Railroad Co., 3 Paige 75; Railroad Company v. Davis, 2 Dev. & Batt. 465; Willyard v. Hamilton, 7 Ham. (Ohio) 453; Livingston v. Mayor of New York, 7 Wend. 85; Koppikus v. State Capitol Commissioners, 16 Cal. 249.

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