Court Opinion

ID: 9416638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 19:50:41.503296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:58.426965
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice CAMPBELL
dissenting:
I dissent from the judgment of the court in this cause, and from the opinion delivered by the judges composing a majority of the court.
The judgment oí the District Court affirms that the court had no jurisdiction as a court of admiralty, under the Constitution and' laws of the United States, in a cause of collision arising in Wilcox county, in' the State of Alabama, between steamboats navigating the Alabama river. The Alabama river flows entirely within the State, and discharges itself into the Mobile river, and through that and the Mobile bay connects with the Gulf of Mexico. The collision occurred two hundred miles above the ebb and flow of the tide, and on a river upon which no port of entry or delivery before that time had been established. This court decides that the judgment shall be reversed, and that the District Court shall take cognizance of the cause, against its own sense of obligation and duty.
It is my opinion that this court claims a power for the District Court not delegated to the Federal Government in the Constitution of the United States, and that Congress, in organizing the judiciary department, have not conferred upon any court of the United States. That this court has assumed a jurisdiction over a case only cognizable at the common law, and triable by a jury; and that its opinion and judgment contravene the authority and doctrine of a large number of decisions pronounced by this court, and by the Circuit Courts, after elaborate arguments and mature deliberation, and which for a' long period have formed a rule of decision to the court, and of opinion to the legal profession; and that no other judgment of this court affords a sanction to this. (10 Wheat., 428; 7 Pet., 324; 11 Pet., 175; 12 Pet., 72; 5 How., 441; 6 How., 344; 4 Dall., 426; 2 Gall., 398; The Anne, 1 Mas., 109; 1 Bald., 544.)
The judicial power of the United State's extends to all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution and laws of ■ the United States, and treaties made, or-which, shall be made, under their authority — to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Whatever other jurisdiction is allowed to the judiciary department is particular, in its nature, depending upon the character or status of the persons or communities *323who are parties to the controversy, and not upon the subject-matter.- This classification of the eases to which the judicial power of the United States should extend among courts of law, equity, and of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, refers to a division recognised in the .jurisprudence of all the States that were parties to the Federal compact, and is intimately related to the constitutional history of the colonies and of the mother*country. Neither at the Declaration of Independence by the Colonies, nor when the Federal Constitution Avas adopted, Avas there a body of municipal law common to the States, nor a uniform system of judicial procedure in use in their courts. _ Until the Constitution Avas framed, the States preserved their sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which had not been expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.
Whatever reference is made in the Federal Constitution to any existing system of hnv, or any modes of judicial proceeding, as the basis of a distribution of power and authority, relates to the system thus recognised as existing in the several States as it was received from England.
A portion of that judicial system was esteemed of su,ch vital importance to the liberty of the citizen, that it was incorporated into the Constitution of the United States, and placed above the reach of the authority of any department of the Federal Government. The sections of the Constitutión, “that no person shall be held to ansAver for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of the grand jury; that, in all criminal prosecutions,, the accused shall enjoy the right of trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and “be informed of the nature and cause of his accusation;” “that in suits at common law, when the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved;” “that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of hvw; ” and others of a like kind, identify the metí of the Revolution as the descendants of ancestors who had maintained for many centuries a persevering and magnanimous struggle for a constitutional Government, in which the people should directly participate, and which would secure to their posterity the blessing of liberty. The supremacy of those courts of justice that acknowledged the right of the people' to share in their administration, and directed their administration according to the course of the common law, in all the material subjects of litigation — of that common law Avhich sprung from the people themselves, and is legitimate by that highest of all sanctions, the consent of those *324who are submitted to it — of that common law, which resulted from the habitual thoughts, usages, conduct, and legislation, of a practical, brave, and self-relying race — was established in England and in the United States only by their persevering and heroic exertions and sacrifices. Magna Charta, from which a portion of this Constitution was extracted, was, according to Lord Brougham, “a declaration of existing and violated rights.”' It was renewed thirty times. To preserve its authority, it was read in churches, published four times a year in the county courts, sustained by force of arms, and when violated, the commons vindicated it by the infliction of exemplary punishment upon the guilty authors. A delinquent King at one time was required to imprecate the wrath of Heaven on those who transgressed it. The archbishop and bishops, apparelled in their official robes, with candles burning; “did excommunicate, accurse, and from the threshold of the church cut off all those who, by any art or device, shall violate, break, lessen, or change, secretly or openly, by deed, word, or counsel, against it, in any article whatsoever, and all those that against it shall make statutes, or observe them being made, or shall bring in customs, or keep them when they be brought in, and the writers of such statutes, and also the counsellors and executioners of them, and all those that shall presume to judge according to them.”
The old historian, who describes this solemn ceremony, says, “that when this imprecation was uttered, and when the candles extinguished had been.hurled upon the ground, and the fumes and stench rose offensive to the nostrils and eyes of those who observed it, the archbishop cried, “Even so let the damned souls be extinguished, smoke, and stink, of all who violate this charter or unrighteously interpret it.”
The reign of Richard H was an epoch to be remembered with interest, and studied with care, by those concerned in administering the constitutional law of England or the United States. A formal complaint was made by the Commons of defects in the administration, as well about the King’s person and his household as in his courts of justice, and redress was demanded. Measures were taken for placing the judicial institutions of England upon a solid constitutional foundation, and to exclude from the realm the odious systems of the continent. The first of the enactments was directed against the usurpations of the great military officers, who administered justice by virtue of their seignoral powers — the Lords’ Constable and the Earl Marshal. The acts of 8th and 13th Richard H provide that, “because the Commons do make a grievous complaint that the court of the Constable and Marshal have ac *325croached to them, and do daily accroach, contracts, covenants, trespasses, debts, detinues, and many other actions pleadable at the common law, in great prejudice to the King, .and to the great grievance and oppression of the people,” therefore they were prohibited, and their jurisdiction confined “to contracts and deeds of arms without the realm,” and “things that touch more within the realm, which cannot be determined and discussed by the common law.”
The Lord High Admiral received a similar rebuke. The preamble of the act of 13 Richard II recites, “that complaints had arisen because Admirals and their deputies hold their sessions within divers places of the realm, accroaching to them greater authority than belonged to their office, to the prejudice of the King, &c.” It was declared that the Admiral should not meddle with anything done within the. refilm, but only with things done upon the sea, as had been used in the time of Edward HI. But this did not suffice to restrain the accroaching spirit of that feudal lord and his deputies.’
Two years after, the Parliament enacted, “that the court of admiralty hath no manner of cognizance, power, nor jurisdiction of any manner of contract, plea, or quarrel, or of any other thing done or rising within the bodies of counties, either by land or water, and also with wreck of the sea; but all such manner'of contracts, pleas, and quarrels, and all other things rising within the bodies of counties, as well by land as by water as aforesaid, and also wreck of the sea, shall be tried, termined, discussed, and remedied by the laws of the land, and not before, nor by the Admiral or his lieutenant, in no manner. Nevertheless, of the death of a man and of a mayhem doné in great ships, being and hovering in the main stream- of the great rivers, beneath the points of the same rivers, and in no other place of the same rivers, the Admiral shall have cognizance.”
In the sixteenth year of the reign of Richard II, the rule of the Roman chancery, like that'of the Lords’ Constable, Marshal, and Admiral, was banished from England. In that year it was enacted that, “Both those-who shall pursue or cause to be pursued, in the court of Rome or elsewhere, any processes, or instruments, or other things whatsoever, which touch the King, against his crown and regality, or his realm, shall be outlawed and placed out of the King’s protection.” In the following reign the accroaching spirit of the courts of admiralty received a further rebuke.
_Upon the prayer of the Commons, the statutes of Richard H were confirmed, and a penalty was inflicted upon such as should maintain suits in the admiralty, contrary to their spirit.
This body of statute law served in a great degree to check *326the usurping tendencies of these anomalous jurisdictions, and to prevent in a measure the removal of suits triable at the common law ad alind examen, and to be discussed per aliam legem. It placed upon an eminence the common law of the realm, and enabled the Commons to plead with authority against other encroachments and usurpations upon the general liberty. But, though a foreign law and despotism were not allowed to enter the kingdom through the courts martial, ecclesiastical, or admiral, the perversion of judiciary powers to purposes of oppression was not effectually prevented. The courts of the Star Chamber and of High Commission, originally limited to specific objects, “assumed power to intermeddle in civil causes' and matters only of private interest between party and party, and adventured to determine the estates and liberties of the subject, contrary to the.law of the land and the rights and privileges of the subject,” and “had been by experience found to be an intolerable burden, and the means to introduce an arbitrary power and government.” Among the cases of jurisdiction claimed by the Star Chamber were those between merchant strangers and Englishmen, or between strangers, and for the restitution of ships and goods unlawfully taken, or other deceits practiced on merchants.
One of the most practiced proctors of this court has left his testimony: “That since the great Roman Senate, so famous in all ages and nations as that they might be called jure minan orbis, there hath no court come so near them, in state, honor, and adjudication, as this.” But, by the 16th of Charles I, it was enacted, both in respect of this and the High Commission Court, “that from henceforth no court, council, or place of. judicature, shall be erected, ordained, constituted, or appointed, which shall have, use, or exercise the same or like jurisdiction as is or hath been used, practiced, or exercised,” in those courts.
But the statute did not terminate with this. The patriot leaders of that time, reviewing in the preamble to the act the various parliamentary enactments in regard to the legal institutions of England, and reciting those declarations of the public liberties which had extended over a period of four hundred years, proceeded to add another. It was solemnly enacted, “that neither his Majesty, nor his Privy Council, have, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, or authority, by English bill, petition, articles, libel, or any other arbitrary whatsoever, to examine or draw in question, determine, or dispose of the lands, tenements, hereditaments, goods, and chattels, of any of the subjects of this realm, but that the same ought to be tried and determined in the ordinary courts of justice, and by the ordinary course of the law.”
*327This selection of a few sections from various English statutes, and the historical facts I have mentioned, is designed to illustrate the intensity and duration of the contest which resulted in placing the judiciary institutions of England on their existing foundation. In the midst of that contest, the settlements ■were formed in America in which those institutions were successfully planted.
They have been incorporated into the Constitution of the United States, and prevail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. These statutes show how the courts martial, ecclesiastical, admiral, and courts proceeding from an arbitrary royal authority, were either limited or suppressed.
The inquiry arises, how would a case like that before this court have been decided ,in England, either at the period of the Declaration of Independence, or at the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, in the court of admiralty? ■
In 1832 a question arose in that court, whether a cause of collision, arising between steam vessels navigating the river Humber, a short distance from the sea, within the ebb and flow of the tide, within the port of Hull, below the first bridges, when the tide was three-fourths flood, was cognizable by the court. . The judge of the admiralty, an exact and conscientious judge, answered: “Since the statutes of Richard II and of Henry IY, it has been strictly held, that the court of admiralty cannot exercise jurisdiction in civil-causes arising infra corpus comitatus.” I cite this opinion not simply as evidence of the law in 1832, but also as affording authentic evidence of the historical fact it enunciates. (The Public Opinion, 2 Hagg., 399.)
I proceed now to inquire of the admiralty jurisdiction as exercised by the courts of vice-admiralty in the colonies and in the United States before the adoption of the Constitution.
The jurisdiction included four subjects, and a separate examination of each title of jurisdiction will shed light upon the discussion. These are — prize; breaches of the acts of navigation, revenue, and trade; crimes and misdemeanors on the high seas; and cases of civil and maritime jurisdiction.
The prize jurisdiction originated in a special commission from the King, and is usually conferred at the commencement of hostilities, upon the Admii’al and his subordinates. It is a part of the ancient jurisdiction of the court, as thus derived. Congress, by the Articles of Confederation, were authorized to appoint courts of appeal to determine finally upon cases of that kind, and no doubt has ever been expressed that this branch of jurisdiction, under -the Constitution and acts of Congress *328since the adoption of the Constitution, is vested in the District Courts of the United States. (The Hunter, 1 Dod., 483; Le Coux v. Eden, 2 Doug., 613; 13 How., 498; 2 Gall., 325; ib., 20.)
The admiralty court of Great Britain and the vice-admiralty courts of the colonies were vested with jurisdiction over cases for the violation of a series of statutes for the regulation of trade and revenue in the colonies. The origin and extent of this jurisdiction are explained in the case of the Columbus, decided in the British admiralty in 1789, on an appeal from the vice-admiralty court of Barbados. The learned judge of that court said: “The court of admiralty derives no jurisdiction in causes of revenue from the patent of the judge, or from the ancient customary and inherent jurisdiction of the prerogative of the Crown, in the person of its Lord High Admiral, and exercised by his lieutenant Not a word is mentioned of the King’s revenue, which seems to have been entirely appropriated to the Court of Exchequer, which is both a court of law and equity. If, therefore, there is any inherent prerogative right of judging of seizures upon the sea, for the rights and dues of the Crown, whether of peace or of war, as in the right of prize and reprisal, that prerogative jurisdiction is put in motion by special commission or by act of Parliament. The first statute which places judgment of revenue in the plantations with the courts of admiralty, is the 12th of Charles II, ch. 18, sec. 1, which act has been followed by subsequent statute's.” ^ This lucid opinion has not been cited in any previous discussion of the subject in this court, from the fact that it is not published in the regular series of the admiralty reports. (2 Coll. Jur., 82; 2 Dod. Adm. R., 352.)
By an act of the 22d and 23d Charles II, to regulate the trade of the plantations, suits were authorized for breaches of its enactments “in the court of the High Admiral of England, or of any of his vice-admirals,” or in any court of record. The acts of 7th and 8th of William III, 6th George II, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, of George in, confer plenary jurisdiction upon the same courts, in cases of navigation, trade, and revenue, in the colonies, and the later statutes extend their authority to seizures upon the land as well as water. The reason for this jurisdiction, as given in the acts themselves, and as repeated by British writers, is not creditable to the colonists; but, as Justice Chase has assigned in this court a similar reason for the acts of Congress on the same subject, no offence can be taken for repeating the British opinion. Reeves, in his History of Navigation and Shipping, says: “The laws of navigation were nowhere disobeyed and contemned so openly as in New Eng*329land;” “that, in minds tempered as theirs were, obedience, and disobedience were much the same thing to the interests of the mother country;” “that the contraband trade was carried on with, skill and courage;” “that the exclusion of all but native subjects of Great Britain from serving on juries afforded no corrective; ” “that for the purpose of securing the execution of the acts of trade and navigation, the Government proceeded to institute courts of admiralty, and to appoint persons to the office of attorney general in those plantations where such courts and such offices had never before been known; and from this time there seems to have been a more general obedience to the acts of trade and navigation.” (Reeves’s Hist., 79, 90; Stokes’s Const. Col., 360, 361.)
The-first of these acts was passed when the colonial settlements in New England and Virginia were in their infancy, and before those in the remaining colonies had been fairly commenced. The jurisdiction was familiar to the colonists, and these acts explain the origin of the clause of the judiciary act of 1789 on the same subject. The judiciary act confers on the District Courts “cognizance of all civil causes of civil and maritime jurisdiction, including all seizures under laws of impost, navigation, or trade, of the United States, when the seizures are made on waters which are navigable from the sea by vessels of ten or more tons burden, within their respective districts, as well as upon the high seas.” It is difficult to' comprehend on what principle the court can construe the grant of jurisdiction in this act over eases of seizure under the law of impost and trade upon navigable waters, to an extension of the civil jurisdiction of the admiralty to the same- localities. The admiralty jurisdiction, in cases of seizure, is a special jurisdiction, not belonging to the original constitution of the courts of admiralty, and this act treats it as such. And so this court, until the revolution in its doctrines in these latter years, uniformly treated it. The long and painful discussions from Delovio v. Boit to the New Jersey Navigation Case, are without meaning on any other hypothesis. If the jurisdiction in both classes of cases had-been supposed to rest on the same foundation, the whole controversy would have been settled by the case of “La Vengeance,” reported in 3 Dall., 297.
The civil and maritime jurisdiction of the vice-admiralty courts extended to the same subjects and was exercised under the same limitations in the colonies as in Great Britain. “Upon the establishment of colonial Governments,” says a learned judge of one of those courts, “it was deemed proper to invest the Governors with the same civil and maritime jurisdiction; and therefore it became usual for the Lord High Admiral or the *330Lords Commissioners to grant a commission of vice-admiral to them.” The office thus conferred on the Governor was precisely the same with that of the vice-admirals in England, and was confined to that civil and maritime jurisdiction which was the original branch of his authority. (Stewart’s V. Ad. R., 394, 405.) These courts were subordinate to the admiralty court of England, and, until the late reign of William IV, it received appeals from them. (1 Dod. Adm. R., 381.) The incompatibility of the criminal jurisdiction of the Admiral on the high seas with the legal constitution of England, was declared and corrected by the 28 H. VIII, ch. 15.
Hawkins, in his Pleas, says that, it being inconsistent with the liberties of the nation that any man’s life should be taken away, unless by the judgment of his peers or the common law of this land, that act was passed. (1 Hawk. PL, 251.) And the same principle is embodied in the Constitution of the United States, with much enlargement; for the extension of the admiralty jurisdiction under the laws, professedly of navigation and trade, for the punishment of offences and misdemeanors, in the reign of George III, was a prominent cause of the American Revolution. In 1768, John Adams, the Coke of the Revolution, prepared for the citizens of Boston instructions to their representatives, Otis, Cushing, Samuel Adams, and Hancock. The citizens said to their representatives, that, “next to the revenue itself, the late extensions of the jurisdiction of the admiralty are our greatest grievance. The American courts of admiralty seem to be forming by degrees into a system that is to overturn our constitution, and to deprive us of our best inheritance, the laws of the land. It would be thought in England a dangerous innovation, if the trial of any matter on land was given to the admiralty.” They refer to the statutes passed in the reign of George III, and declare that they violate Magna Charta; and they conclude by an earnest recommendation to their representatives, “ by every legal measure to endeavor that the power of these courts may he confined to their proper element, according the ancient English statutes; and that they petition and remonstrate against the late extensions of their jurisdictions, and they doubt not that the other colonies and- provinces, who suffer with them, will cheerfully harmonize wfith them in any justifiable measures ofredress.” Other testimony of the same kind might be adduced, to show what the opinions of the colonists were, as to the legitimate extent of the admiralty jurisdiction in the colonies. The journals of the First Gongress (1774) render this unnecessary. They are replete with proof of the pervading sentiment in the British colonies.
*331That Congress' declare that “the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and to the benefit of such English statutes as existed at the time of the colonization, which had been found suitable to their situation.”- In their address setting forth the cause and necessity for their taking up of arms, they allege that statutes have been passed for extending the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty beyond their ancient limits. In the several addresses to the inhabitants of Great Britain, to the people of the colonies, to the people of Ireland,, and to the King, the enlarged authority of those courts, their interference with the common-law right of trial by jury, and their offensive use .of the laws and course of proceeding adopted from Roman tyrants, are distinctly reprehended. (1 Jour. Congr., 16, 28, 32, 47, 101.)
There can be no room for doubt that the statesmen and jurists who composed the Congress of 1774 regarded the limits of the courts of admiralty as settled by the statutes of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry VIII, and the early acts of navigation and trade, and that the enlargement of this jurisdiction was such a wrong as to justify a resort to arms. Their declarations bear no other interpretation; and the admiralty system of the States before the Constitution was administered upon this opinion. (Bee’s Adm. R., 419, 433; 1 Dall., 33.)
Before examining the constitutional history and Constitution of the Hnited States, it will not be irrelevant to ascertain the origin of the courts of admiralty in France, and their jurisdiction at the period of the adoption of the Constitution. The Admiral was, in France, as in England, a great feudatory, with the seignoral privilege of administering justice by judges of his appointment. There were there, as in England, contests with other officers in regard to jurisdiction, and the royal authority was interposed to settle them. In 1627, the office, with its dig.nity and privileges, was' abolished; in 1668, it was revived by Louis XIV, and conferred upon a member of the royal family; in 1791, it was suppressed, aud its judicial establishment disappeared from history, other courts and authorities being established to perform their functions. The ordinances of Louis XIV enlarged and defined the jurisdiction of the courts of the Admiral, to promote the convenience of commerce, to determine the unsettled jurisprudence concerning maritime contracts, to define the duties of seamen, the powers of the officers, and to provide an adequate police for the ports, harbors, and the coasts of the sea.
. Their jurisdiction extended to a number of cases of contract specified in the ordinance, and conferred the ancient jurisdiction over piracies and thefts at sea, the desertion of crews, and *332generally of all crimes, offences, and trespasses, committed on the sea, in ports, roadsteads, and havens, and the shores within the ebb-and flow of the tide.
The police and navigation of the rivers of France were not placed under the admiralty, but were regulated by other officers under other ordinances. Without supposing that the ordinances of Louis XIV have any authority on this subject, it is yet certain that a cause of collision arising upon one of the rivers of France above the ebb and flow of the tide was.not cognizable before the admiralty of France, in 1789, or for centuries previously.
' The judicial power of the United States was organized to comprehend all cases that might properly arise under the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, and, in addition, cases of which, from the character of the parties,' the decision might involve the peace and harmony of the Union. This principle was accepted without dissent among the framers of .the Constitution. The clause “all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction” appears in the draught of the Constitution imputed to Charles Pinckney, and submitted at a very early stage of the session of the Convention. It was- reported by the committee of detail in their first report, and was adopted without debate. In one of the sittings, in an incidental discussion, Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, remai’ked: “ That the admiralty jurisdiction ought to be given wholly to the National Government, as it related to eases not within the jurisdiction of a particular State, and to a scene in which controversy with foreigners would be most likely to happen.” (2 Mad. De., 799.) No other observation in the Convention illustrates this clause.
The judiciary clause is expounded in the numbers of the Federalist, by Alexander Hamilton.
He says, the judicial power extends — 1st, to all those cases which arise out of the laws of the United States, passed in pursuance of their just and constitutional powers of legislation; 2d, to all those which concern .the execution of the provisions expressly contained in the Articles of Union; '3d, to all those in which the United States are a party; 4th, to all those which involve the peace of the Confederacy, whether they relate to the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, or to that between th e States themselves; 5th, to all those which originate on the high seas, and are of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction; and, lastly, to all those in which the State tribunals cannot be supposed to be unbiassed and impartial.
In regard to the 5th class, he says: “ The most bigoted idolizers of State authority have not' .thus far shown a disposition to deny the national judiciary -the cognizance of maritime *333causes. These so generally depend on the laws of nations, and so commonly affect the rights of foreigners, that they fall within the-considerations relative to-the public peace.' The most important of them are, by the present Confederation, submitted to Federal jurisdiction.”-
Similar remarks are to be found in- the debates in various of the Conventions of the States which adopted the Constitution,, as incidentally occurring.. In none of the Conventions was the judiciary clause of the Constitution considerately examined, except in Virginia; .and in the Convention of Virginia no objection was made to this clause. .Gov. Randolph said there, that “Cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction'cannot-with propriety be vested in particular State courts. As our national tranquillity, reputation, and intercourse with foreign nations, may be affected by admiralty decision's, as they ought therefore to be uniform, and as there can be no uniformity if there be thirteen distinct independent jurisdictions, the jurisdiction-ought to be in the Federal- judiciary.” Mr. Madison, in a luminous exposition of the article, expressed a similar opinion. He said: “The same reasons supported the grant of admiralty jurisdiction as existed in the grant of cognizance of causes affecting ambassadors and foreign ministers.” “As our intercourse with foreign natibfts will be affected by decisions of this kind, they ought to be uniform.” In the same speech, this statesman affirmed, that all ■controversies directly betioeen citizen and citizen will still remain with the local courts. And after the Constitution was adopted, we find Chief Justice Jay, in analyzing the judicial power of the United States, and assigning reasons for the grant, says of this portion of it, “because, as the seas are the joint property of nations, whose rights and privileges relative thereto are regulated by the law of nations and treaties, such cases necessarily belong to a national jurisdiction.” The instance jurisdiction of the court, now the object of such ambition and interest, and involving questions so threatening, was hardly referred to by the friends of the Constitution, and not an alarm -was expressed by any .of its vigilant and jealous opponents. The prize jurisdiction of the court — that which concerned the foreign relations of the Union in war or in peace, and which is so intimately related to the honor and dignity of the country — was in the minds of all those statesmen who refei’red to the subject.
It did not enter the imagination of any opponent of the Constitution to conceive that a jurisdiction which for centuries had been sternly repelled from the body of any county could, by any authority, artifice, or device, assume a. jurisdiction through the whole extent of every lake and water-course within the *334limits of tbe United States. The collision described in the libel of the appellants occurred at a place which in 1789 formed a part of the State of Georgia. Had a similar cause then arisen, I can affirm with perfect safety that not an individual member of any Convention, whether State or Federal, who was concerned in the making or the ratifying of the Constitution, would have admitted the existence of an admiralty jurisdiction over the-case. Such being the facts, I affirm that no change in the opinion of men, nor in the condition of the country, nor any apparent expediency, can render that constitutional which those who made the Constitution did not design to be so.
“If any of the provisions of the Constitution are deemed unjust,” said the Chief Justice, in Scott v. Sandford, 19 How., 393, “there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself by which it may be amended; but, while it remains unaltered,' it must be construed as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning with which it spake when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States.
That the framers of the Constitution designed to secure to the Federal Government a plenary control over all maritime questions arising in their intercourse.with foreign nations, whether of peace or war, which assumed a juridical form through courts of its own appointment, is more than probable from the instrument and the contemporary expositions I have quoted. This was the primary and designed object of the authors of the Constitution in granting this jurisdiction. It is likewise probable that the jurisdiction which had been exercised from, the infancy of the colonies to the reign of George III, by courts of admiralty, under laws of navigation, trade, and revenue, was considered as forming a legitimate branch of the admiralty jurisdiction. Such was the opinion of the First Congress' under the Constitution, and it has been confirmed in this court. (3 Dall., 397; 2 Cr., 405; 4 Cr., 443; 2 H., 210.) If the instance jurisdiction of the court was at all remembered, the reminiscence was not of a nature to create alarm. The cases for its employment were few and defined. Those did not depend upon any purely municipal code, nor affect any question of public or political interest. They related for the most part to transactions at a distance, which did not involve the interests nor attráct the observation of any considerable class.of persons. No one could imagine that this jurisdiction, *335by the interpretation of those who were to exercise it, could penetrate wherever a vessel of ten tons might enter within any of the States.
The question arises, what are the power and jurisdiction claimed for the courts of the United States by this reversal of the judgment of the District Court of Alabama? •
The Supreme Court requires that court to take cognizance of cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction that arise on lakes and on rivers, as if they were high seas. Dunlap, defining the constitutional jurisdiction in 1835, said, that “it comprehends all maritime contracts, torts, and injuries. The latter branch is necessarily bounded by locality; the former extends over all contracts, whensoever they may be made and executed, or whatever may be the form of the stipulation which relates to the navigation, business, or commerce of the sea.” (Dunlap’s Pr., 43.)
This was the broad pretension for. the admiralty set up by Mr. Justice Story, in Delovio v. Boit, in 1815, under which the legal profession and this court staggered for thirty years before being able to maintain it. The definition to be deduced from the present decision deprives that of any significance.' That affords no description of the subject.
The definition under this decree, if carried to its logical ex-. tent, will run thus: “That the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the courts of the United States extends to all cases of contracts, torts, and injuries, which arise in or concern the navigation, commerce, or business of citizens of the United States, or persons condmorant therein, on any of the navigable waters of the world.”
I proceed now to examine the jurisprudence of the courts of the United States, to ascertain the various stages in the progress to the goal which has been to-day attained. The tendency of opinion in the first years of the existence of the Union was to limit the admiralty jurisdiction according the constitution of the British court of admiralty. Justice Washington so declared in 1806; United States v. McGill, 4 Dall., 395; and his learned successor maintained the same doctrine. (Bald. R., 544.)
This opinion was assailed by Justice Story in Delovio v. Boit, 2 Gall., 395, in the year 1815.
The question of jurisdiction arose on a libel founded on a policy, of insurance, and the jurisdiction of the court was sustained. I believe I express a general, if not universal, opinion of the legal profession, in saying that this judgment was erroneous. I understand Justice Curtis to intimate the existence of such an opinion in the Gloucester Insurance Company v. Younger, 2 Curt. R., 322.
*336The opinion of Justice Story, in the cause of Delovio v. Boit, is celebrated for its research, and remarkable, in my opinion, for its boldness in asserting novel conclusions, and the facility with which authentic historical evidence that contradicted them is disposed of. The examination of the English authorities resulted in the following conclusions.
In the construction of the statutes of Richard II and Henry IV, “the admiralty has uniforítüy and without hesitation,” he says, “maintained that they were never intended to-abridge or restrain the rightful jurisdiction of the court; that they meant to take away any pretence of entertaining suits upon contracts arising wholly upon land, and referring solely to terrene affairs ; and- upon torts or injuries which, though arising in ports, were not done within the ebb and flow of the tide; and that the language of these statutes, as well as the manifest object •thereof, as stated in- the preambles, and in the petitions on which they were founded, is fully satisfied by this exposition. So that, consistently with the statutes, the admiralty may still exercise jurisdiction: 1. Over torts and injuries upon the high seas, and in ports within the ebb and. flow of the tide, and in great streams below the first bridges; 2. Over all’maritime contracts arising at home or abroad; 3. Over matters of prize 'and its incidents.” In regard to the conclusions of the courts of common law he says:
That the common-law interpretation of these statutes abridges, the jurisdiction to things wholly done on the sea. 2. That the common-law interpretation of these statutes is indefensible upon principle, and' the decisions founded upon it are inconsistent and unsatisfactory. 3. That the interpretation of the same statutes does-not abridge any of its ancient jurisdiction, but leaves to it cognizance of all maritime contracts, torts, injuries, and'oftences upon the high seas, and in ports as far as the ebb and flow of the tide. 4. That this is the true limit of the admiralty jurisdiction, on principle. In regard to thé case of the collision between ships and steamboats, we have the authoritative declaration of the judge of the admiralty. I have cited it to show that this statement of the English law is not accurate. And Sir John Nicholl, in the same court, in 3 Hagg., 257, 283, differs materially from other portions of the same statement. It may be true that the English court of admiralty, with the approbation" of the Xing, took cognizance of causes arising within the limits of Englandr-in despite of the prohibition by Parliament. But the great charter, and other statutes of importance to the liberties of the realm, were also violated by the same authority. It is also true. that the twelve judges of England, apd the attorney gen*337eral, in the presence of the King and the Privy Council, after solemn debate, in 1632, signed an agreement to concede to the admiralty a larger jurisdiction. But such an act was illegal, and by the judges extra-judicial. Ten of those judges, •four years later, presided in the case against Hampden for ship money; the attorney general was the inventor of the writ for its levy; the Privy Council was that which Strafford and Laud had organized to rule England without a Parliament, and which was made hateful by its arbitrary and violent proceedings. And the contract itself was denounced as unconstitutional by Lord' Coke, who, but a few years before, had prepared the Petition of Right in which the legal constitution of England was embodied. For all contracts, pleas, and quarrels, made and done upon a river, haven, or creek, within the realm of England, he said, “the Admiral, without question, hath not jurisdiction, for then he should hold pleá of things done within the body of the county, which are triable by verdict of twelve men, and merely determinable by the common law, and not within the admiralty and by the civil law; for that were to change and alter the law in such cases.” (4 Co. Inst., 135.) And finally, in 1640, to close the door upon all such attempts of the King and his Privy Council, the fifth section of the act “ For the regulating of the Privy Council, and for taking away the court commonly" called- the Star Chamber,” which I have already quoted, was adopted.
The great and controlling question of contest in this long period of contest was as to the supremacy of the Parliament, and a very important form of that question related to its organization of the courts and its regulation of their jurisdiction. When the supremacy of Parliament had been established by the Revolution, its enactments which had defined the constitutional limits of the courts of judicature were no longer opposed or contradicted. The error of the opinion in Delovio v. Boit, on this subject, in my judgment, consists in its adoption of the harsh and acrimonious censures of discarded and discomfited civilians on the conduct of the great patriots of England, whose courage, sagacity, and patriotism, secured the rights of her peojDle, as any evidence of historical facts.
But the royal ordinances-of Louis XIV unquestionably afford that support to the decision and opinion in that case which cannot be found in the English law. The policy of insurance is enumerated among the contracts submitted to the French courts of admiralty, arid the formulary in which the jurisdiction as to torts and offences is expressed in the opinion is a free translation from the French ordinances. I refer to the opinion in the case of Delovio v. Boit, as the first and most complete *338exposition of the system which its author afterwards introduced as the doctrine of the court, in the Thomas Jefferson, in 1825; Orleans v. Phoebus, in 1837; and Coombs’s case, in 1838; and which was more fully sanctioned in the opinions of the court in subsequent cases; and because he defends in that opinion the jurisdiction of the admiralty upon grounds which are not to be reconciled with the opinion of the court in the present cause.
In the Steamboat Orleans v. Phoebus, 11 Pet., 173, decided in 1835, the court say: “ The true test of jurisdiction is, whether the vessel be engaged substantially in maritime navigation, or in interior navigation and trade, not on tide-waters. In the latter case there is no jurisdiction.” In the United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet., 73, the direct question arose as to the limits of this jurisdiction. The court answers, as in former cases, “ That in cases purely dependent upon the locality of the act done,'it is limited to the sea and to tide-waters as far as the tide flows; and that it does not reach beyond high-water mark. It is the doctrine repeatedly asserted by, this court,, and we see no reason to depart from it.” In Waring v. Clark, 5 How., 441, the same question was again considered by the court. The claimants of the largest extent of jurisdiction for the court expressed their opinion through Mr. Justice Wayne. He cited the former decisions with approbation, and said that the question was no longer open-in the court; “that it was res judicata in this court.” Again, in 1848, Mr. Justice Nelson, expressing the views of the four judges who concurred with Justice Wayne in the former case, (New Jersey Steam Navigation Company v. Merchants’ Bank, 6 How., 344,) disclaimed jurisdiction-over “ contracts growing out of the purely internal commerce of the State, as well as commerce beyond tide-waters,” stating that “ they are generally domestic in their origin and operation, and could hardly have been intended to be drawn within the cognizance of the Federal courts.” I think it is manifest, that had the case before the court been produced before it ten years ago, it would have been unanimously dismissed for the want of jurisdiction. From the decision in the Thomas Jefferson, in 1825, to that of the New Jersey Navigation Company v. the Merchants’ Bank, in 1848, two generations of judges have-agreed to doctrines wholly irreconcilable with the judgment now given.
In 1851, the case of the Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 How., 443, came before the court. It was a cause of collision between steamboats navigating Lake Ontario, and engaged in the commerce of different States. The District Court exercised jurisdiction under the act of February, 1845, (5 Stat. at L., 726,) *339which provided for such cases on the lakes, and navigable waters connected with them, in the same manner as if the same vessels had been employed in navigating the high seas or on tide-waters within the admiralty jurisdiction, with a proviso that all the issues of fact might be tried by a jury.
The court decided that the act was not a regulation of commerce between the States, and that the jurisdiction conferred on the District Court could not be sustained as a regulation of commerce among the States, and that the judicial power of the United States could not be extended by such legislation. The court, after this sound constitutional argument, proceed to say: “ If the meaning of these terms in the Constitution was now for the first time brought before this court, th ere could, we think, be no hesitation in sayingthatthe lakes and their connecting waters were embraced in them. - These lakes are, in truth, inland seas. Different States border on them on one side, and a foreign nation on the other; a great and growing commerce between different States and a foreign nation, which is subject to all the incidents and hazards that attend commerce on the ocean. Hostile fleets have encountered in them, and prizes have been made; and every reason whicNpxists for the grant of admiralty jurisdiction to the General Government on the Atlantic seas, applies with equal force to the lakes, There is an. equal necessity for the instance power, and for the prize power of'the admiralty court to administer. Admiralty law; ■ and if the one cannot be established, neither can be the other.”
All the considerations mentioned in this argument applied to the Mississippi river in 1789, and some of them do at this time.
I have stated the entire argument of the court upon the precise question, whether the court had jurisdiction of the cause for damage in that locality. The court say, “the only objection made to the jurisdiction is, that there is no tide in the lakes, or the waters connecting them; and it is said that the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, as known apd understood in England and this country at the time the Constitution .was adopted, was confined to the ebb and flow of the tide.” The Chief Justice combats this objection to the jurisdiction of the court in that cause, and pronounces for the court that tide does not form the criterion of jurisdiction. In my opinion, the argument of the court in favor of jurisdiction is imposing; and also that the objection taken by the appellants, as reported in the opinion, does not embody the strength of the objection to /the jurisdiction. To aseertain'the scope of the opinion, it is necessary to examine the argurnent of the court, and the worth of the objection taken to the jurisdiction and combated.
*340The. lakes are -'certainly not seas according to the signification of that word ih the law of nations or the Admiral’s commission. They'are not common highways for all nations, open to the ships of. all, and exempted from the municipal regulation and control of any.. The sovereignty over them belongs to tpe riparian proprietors, in the same manner as over the- Rhine” or Rio Grande rivers; and the American States and British Queen have respectively courts to administer their laws within the limits of their -several titles, to the middle of the lakes, against those who may ofipnd against them". -The jurisdiction of the court of admiralty cannot be supported upon the lakes as seas. But the lakes form an external maritime boundary of the United States, and are a commercial highway, which by treaty is common to the inhabitants of the two maritime and commercial countries whose possessions border them. The commerce of these countries is great and growing, and exposed to depredation; and in the absence of a navy, and without defined boundaries, the police of the States on this exposed frontier may be inefficient for the protection of the interests of the Union. I shall not inquire whether these considerations, or those among them which are applicable to the river Mississippi, authorized the decisions in the Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 How.; and Fritz v. Bull, 12 How., 466; Walsh v. Rogers, 13 How., 283. I have yielded to.the principle.of stare decisis, and have applied the decisions as I found them when I came into this court. But not one of these considerations has any application to the case before this court. The Alabama river is not an inland sea.' Its navigation was not open to a single foreign vessel when this collision took place. No port had been established on it by the authority of Congress. The commerce that passes over it consists mainly of the products of the State, and the objects received in exchange, at the only seaport of the State. . For its whole, length it is subject to the same State Government, and its police does not involve a necessity for a navy.
The objection noticed in the opinion of the court in the'Genesee Chief, as opposed in the argument against the jurisdiction of the court,-1 have said does not meet, the force of the adversary opinion. In Erance, the domain of the Admiral was limited to the sea, its coasts, ports, havens, and shores to the high-water mark, and his seignoral right to dispense justice was confined to his domain. The .contest there was as to. the extent of rival seignories. But in Great Britain the cofitest had a more profound significance than is to be found in a controversy merely between rival feudatories.
The, Admiral’s jurisdiction there had no relation to the salt*341ness or freshness of the waters, nor whether the rivers were public or private, navigable or floatable. The question was, whether Englishmen should be governed by English laws, or “whether contracts, pleas, and ■ quarrels, should be drawn.ad aliud examen, and be sentenced per aliam legem.” The English Commons abhorred the summary jurisdiction of the courts of civil law, their private examination of witnesses, their rejection of a- jury of the vicinage, the discretion they allowed to the judge, and their foreign code. They erected a barrier of penal statutes to exclude them from the body of any county, either on land or water.
The people of the several States have retained the popular element of the judicial administration of England, and the attachment of her people to the institutions of local self-government. In Alabama, the “trial by jury is preserved inviolate,” that being regarded as “an essential principle of liberty and free government.” In the court of admiralty the people have no- place as jurors. A single judge, deriving his appointment from an independent Government, administers in that court a code which a Federal judge has described as “resting upon the general principies of maritime,law, and that it is not competent to the States, by any local legislation, to enlarge, or limit, or narrow it.” (2 Story R., 456.)
If the principle of this decree is carried to its logical extent, all cases arising in the transportation of property or persons from the towns and landing-places of the different States, to Other towns and landing-places, whether- in or out of the State; all cases of tort or damage arising in the navigation of the internal waters,‘whether involving the security of persons or title to property, in either; all cases of supply to those engaged in the navigation, not to enumerate others, will be cognizable in the District Courts of the United States. ' If the dogma of judges in regard to the System of laws to be administered prevails, then this,whole class of cases may be drawn ad aliud ex-amen, and placed under the dominion of a foreign code, whether they arise among citizens or others. The States are deprived of the power to mould their own laws in respect of persons and things within their limits, and which are appropriately subject to their sovereignty. The right of. the people to self-government is thus abridged — abridged to the precise extent, that a judge appointed by another Government may impose a law, not sanctioned by the representatives or agents of the people, upon the citizens of the State. Thus the contest here assumes the same significance as in Great Britain, and, in its last analysis, involves the question of the right of the people to determine their own laws and legal institutions. And surely this objec*342tion to the decree is. independent of any consideration whether the river is subject to tide's,- or is navigable from the sea.
This decree derives no strength from the legislation of Congress, but a strong argument is to be deduced from the act of 1845 in opposition to it. The learned author of the opinion in Delovio v. Boit, and in the case of the Thomas Jefferson, (Justice Story,) has the reputation of being the author of the act. ‘ He proposed to bring under the judicial administration of the United States, cases that did not belong to the jurisdiction of the admiralty under the authoritative exposition of the Constitution by this court. The first suggestion of the feasibility of such a law is to be found in the opinion given in the case of the Thomas Jefferson, in 1825, and is enough to relieve this court from the imputation of having decided that case without a propér appreciation of the magnitude of the question.
The act of 1845 involves the admission, that cases arising on waters within the limits of the United States other than tidewaters were cases at common law, and that a jury, under the seventh amendment of the Constitution, must be preserved. It was framed on the hypothesis that Congress might increase the judicial .power of the United States, so as to comprise all cases arising on, or which related to, -any subject to which its legislation extended. It is apparent that this court in 1847, and afterwards in 1848, when the suits of Waring v. Clark, and the New Jersey Navigation Co. v. The Merchants’ Bank, were so elaborately discussed, were wholly unconscious of the fact that this act contained a recognition of any jurisdiction in admiralty, additional to what had been previously exercised.
The only inference that can be drawn properly from the act of 1845, in my opinion', is, that Congress recognised, the limit that the decisions in the earlier cases in this court had established for .the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,-and its own incapacity to confer a more enlarged jurisdiction of that kind.
I have performed my duty, in my opinion, in expressing at large my convictions on the subject of the powers of the courts of the United States under tire clause of the Constitution I have considered.
There have been cases, since I came into this court,'involving the jurisdiction of the court on the seas and their tidewaters, the lakes, and the Mississippi river.- I have applied the law as settled in previous .decisions, in deference to the principle of stare decisis, without opposing ahy objection— •though in a portion of those decisions the reasons of the court did not satisfy my own judgment. I consider that the present case carries the jurisdiction to an incalculable extent beyond any other,- and all others, that have heretofore been pronounced, *343and that it must create a revolution in the admiralty administration of the courts of the United States; that the change will produce heart-burning and discontent, and involve collisions with State Legislatures and State jurisdictions. And, finally, it is a violation of the rights reserved in the Constitution of the United States to the States and the people.