Court Opinion

ID: 9841676
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:01:22.21683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:02:13.463614
License: Public Domain

Opinion of
Mr. Chief Justice TANEY.
I concur in the judgment of the court. But I do not, for myself, desire to express an opinion upon either the law of Pennsylvania or of South Carolina, in relation to charitable bequests. For, assuming every thing to be true that is stated in the complainant’s bill, and that the bequest is valid by the laws of Pennsylvania, and would be carried into execution by the tribunals of the State, yet I think the circuit court of The United States had not jurisdiction to establish and enforce it; and was right, therefore, in dismissing the bill. I propose to show, very briefly, the grounds on which this opinion is formed.
Undoubtedly, a charitable bequest of this description would be maintained in the English eoiut of chancery. The death of the executors, in the lifetime of the widow, would make no difference. The bequest would still be good against the heirs or representatives of the testator, and The fund applied to chari-’ table purposes, according to a scheme approved by the chancellor, or authorized under the sign-manual of the kina.
*392But the power which the chancellor exercises over donations to charitable uses, so far as it differs from the power he exercises in other cases of trust, does not belong to the court of chancery as a court of equity, nor is it a part of its judicial power and jurisdiction. It is a branch of the prerogative power of the king as parens patries, which he exercises by the chancellor.
Blackstone in his Commentaries, 3d vol. 47, enumerating what he states to be the extraordinary powers of the chancellor, says: “ He is the general guardian of all infants, idiots, and lunatics, and has the general superintendence of all charitable uses in the kingdom; and all this over and above the vast and extensive jurisdiction which he exercises in his judicial capacity in the court of chancery.” And in the same volume, page 437, he says: “ The king, as parens patries, has the general superintendence of all charities, which he exercises by the keeper of his conscience, the chancellor; and, therefore, whenever it is necessary, the attorney-general, at the relation of some informant, files an ex officio information in the court of chancery to have the charity properly established.”
So, too, Cooper, in his chapter on the jurisdiction of the court, says: “ The jurisdiction, however, in the three cases of infants, idiots, or lunatics and charities, does not belong to the court of chancery as a court of equity, but as administering the prerogative and duties of the crown.”
And in the case of the Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors, 4 Wheat. 1, this court, after examining many English authorities upon the subject, affirm the same doctrine. And Chief Justice Marshall, who delivered the opinion of the. court, expresses it in the following strong and decisive language (p. 48): —
“ It would be a waste of time,” says the- chief justice, “ to multiply authorities to this point, because the principle is familiar to the profession. It is impossible to look iffio the subject without perceiving and admitting it. Its extent may be less obvious.
“We now find,” he continues, “this prerogative employed in enforcing donations to charitable uses, which would not be valid if made to other uses; in applying them to different objects than those designated by the donor, and in supplying all defects in the instrument by which the donation is conveyed, or in that by which it is administered.”
Resting my opinion upon the English authorities above referred to, and upon the emphatic language just quoted from the decision of this court, I think I may safely conclude that the power exercised by the English court of chancery “in *393enforcing donations to charitable uses, which would not be valid if made to other uses,” is not a part of its jurisdiction as a court of equity, but a prerogative power exercised by that court.
It remains to inquire whether the constitution has conferred this prerogative power on the courts of equity of the United States.
The 2d section of the 3d article of the constitution declares that the judicial power of the United States shall extend to all cases in law and equity specified in the section. These words obviously confer judicial power, and nothing more; and cannot, upon any fair construction, be held to embrace the prerogative powers, which the king, as parens patria, in England, exercised through the courts. And the chancery jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, as granted by the constitution, extends only to cases over which the court of chancery had jurisdiction, in its judicial character as a court of equity: The wide discretionary power which the chancellor of England. exercises over infants, lunatics, or idiots, or charities, has not been conferred.
These prerogative powers, which belong to the sovereign as parens patria, remain with the States. They may legalize charitable bequests within their own respective dominions, to the extent to which the law upon that subject has been carried in England.; and they may require any tribunal of the State, which they think proper to select for that purpose, to establish such charities, and to carry them into execution. But state laws will not authorize the courts of the United States to exercise any power that is not in its nature judicial; nor can they confer on them the prerogative powers over minors, idiots, and lunatics, or charities, which the English chancellor possesses. Nobody will for a moment suppose that a court of equity of the United States could, in virtue of a state law, take upon itself the guardianship over all the minors, idiots, or lunatics in the State. Yet these powers in the English chancellor stand upon the same ground, and are-derived from the same authority, as its power in cases of charitable bequests.
State laws cannot enlarge the powers of the courts of the United States beyond the limits marked out by the constitution. It is true that the courts of chancery of the United States, in administering the law of a State, may sometimes be called on to exercise powers which do not belong to courts of equity in England. And, in such cases, if the power is judicial in its character, and capable of being regulated by the established rules and principles óf a court of equity, there can be no good objection to its exercise. It falls within the just inter-' *394pretation of the grant in the constitution. But, beyond this, the. state laws can confer no jurisdiction on the courts of equity of thé United States.
In the cases in relation to charities which have ■ come before this court, there has been a good deal of discussion upon the question, whether the power of the chancery court of England was derived from 43 Elizabeth, or was- exercised by the court before that act was passed. And there has been a diversity of opinion upon this subject in England, as well as in this country! In the case of the Baptist Association v. Hart’s Executors, Chief Justice Marshall, who delivered the opinion of the court, (vide 4 Wheat. 49,) and. Mr. Justice Story, who wrote out his own opinion, and afterwards published it in the appendix to 3 Pet. Rep., (vide p. 497,) were both at that time of opinion that it was derived from the statute. But in Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 2 How. 127, Mr. Justice Story changed his opinion, chiefly upon the authority of cases found in the old English records, which had been printed a short time before by the commissioners on public records in England. It appeared from these records that the power had been exercised in many cases long before the statute was passed.
■ But this circumstance does not affect the question I am now considering; for, whether exercised before or not, yet, whenever exercised, it was in virtue of the prerogative power, and not as a part of the jurisdiction of the court as a court of equity. The statute conferred no new prerogative on the “crown. . And Lord Redesdale, 1 Bligh. 347, while he held that the power existed in the chancellor before the statute, and had been frequently exercised, declares it to be a prerogative power, and says l “ The king, as parens patrim, has a right by his proper officer, the attorney-general, to call upon the several courts of justice, according to the nature of their several jurisdictions, to see that right is done to his subjects who are .incompetent to act for themselves, as in the case of charities and other cases.”
Besides, if it could be shown that at some remote period of’ time the-court of chancery exercised this power as a part of its. ordinary jurisdiction as a court of equity^ it would not influence the construction of the words used in the constitution. For at the time that instrument was adopted, it was universally admitted by the jurists in England and in this country, as will appear by the references above made, that this extraordinary and unregulated power in relation to charities was not judicial, and did not belong to the court as a court of equity. The constitution of the United Statés, as I have before said, grants only judicial power at law and in equity to. its courts ;• that is, the powers at that time understood and exercised as judicial, in the *395courts of common law and equity in England. And it must be construed according to the meaning which the words used conveyed at the time- of its adoption; and the grant of power cannot be enlarged by resorting to a jurisdiction which the court of chancery in England, centuries ago, 'may have claimed as a part of its ordinary judicial power, but which had been abandoned and repudiated as untenable on that ground, by the court itself, long before the constitution was adopted.
Cases may arise in a circuit court of the United States, in which it would be necessary to decide whether the English doctrine, as to charities, was founded on the statute, or was a part of the law of England before the statute was passed. And in a suit by an heir or representative of the testator, (authorized from his place of residence to sue in a court of the United States,) to recover property or money bequeathed to' a charity, the court must of .necessity examine whether the bequest was valid or not by the laws of the State, and barred the claim of the heir or representative. And if in such a ease it appeared that the State had not adopted the statute, it would be necessary to inquire whether the law in relation to these bequests was a part of the common law before the statute, and administered as such by the English court of chancery, and whether it had been adopted by the State as a part of its common law. For the prerogative powers of the English crown in relation to minors, idiots, or lunatics, and charities, are a part of the common law of England ; and the people of any State, who deemed it proper to do so, might vest these powers in the courts of the State.
Such an inquiry was necessary in the case of Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, and of Wheeler v. Smith. But the question of jurisdiction is a very different one when a court of the United States is called upon to execute the duties of the sovereignty of the State, and to taire upon itself the discretionary powers which, if they exist at all by its common law or statutes, belong to the official 'representatives of the parens patria, -that is, the state sovereignty. And in the case of the Baptist Association v. Hart, although the court did not expressly deny its jurisdiction to establish the charity, if it had been, valid by the laws of Virginia, yet it expressed its doubts upon the subject, saying that the question could only arise where the attorney-general was a party.
For these reasons a court of chancery of the. United States must, in my opinion, deal with bequests and trusts for charity as they deal with bequests and trusts for other lawful purposes; and decide them upon the same principles and by the same *396rules. And if the object to be benefited is so indefinite and. so vaguely described; that the bequest could not be supported in the case of an ordinary trust, it cannot be established in a court of the United States upon the ground that it is a charity. And if, from any cause, the cestui que trust, in an ordinary case of trust, would be incapable of maintaining a suit in equity to establish his claim, the same rule must be applied where charity is the object, and the complainant claims to be recognized as one of its beneficiaries.
I'concur, therefore, in affirming the judgment of the circuit court, dismissing the bill; but I concur upon the ground that the court had no jurisdiction of the case stated by the complainant, and express no opinion as to the validity or invalidity of this bequest, whether in this respect it be governed by the laws, of Pennsylvania or of South Carolina.