court had no jurisdiction of him, and if imprisoned he was entitled to his release on habeas corpus.

Sec. 16, Act of 1789 (Rev. Stat., Sec. 723) provides that "suits in equity shall not be sustained in either of the courts of the United States in any case where a plain, adequate and complete remedy may be had at law." It has been held (Baker v. Biddle, 1 Baldwin, 405) that this was an absolute limitation on the jurisdiction and that any decree beyond this jurisdiction was void. Disobedience of a void injunction order is no contempt, and an examination of the validity of the order, as depending upon the jurisdiction of the court, when the question is brought before the higher court, as may even now be done by habeas corpus is a valuable safeguard against injustice committed by a transgression of jurisdiction.

In the famous case of In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443 (1887), the Supreme Court, speaking by Mr. Justice Matthews, declared it to be well settled that while the exercise of the power of punishment for contempt of their orders, by courts of general jurisdiction, is not subject to review by writ of error or appeal to this court," yet "when a court of the United States undertakes by its process of contempt to punish a man for refusing to comply with an order which that court had no authority to make, the order itself, being without jurisdiction is void," and that "when the proceedings for contempt in such a case result in imprisonment this court will, by its writ of habeas corpus, discharge the prisoner."

In time of riot or disorder, when property and civil rights are threatened or endangered, it is of course the duty of the authorities to restore order, regardless of cost, and to remove the threatened danger by whatever means are in their power, which being done they should consider the cause which provoked the passions of the people, sometimes unreasonable though they be.

There can be no doubt that much of the discontent which seems to smoulder among our laboring men is caused by the

seemingly insatiate and pitiless greed of some great capitalists and corporations. The tales of the vast, and sometimes very rapidly accumulated fortunes, of these later days, sound strangely on the ears of men who are struggling on scanty wages to support their wives and children; and when organized labor inaugurates a struggle for the betterment of its conditions, and the men, in the effort to compel a compliance with their demands, too often stirred up by unscrupulous agitators, commit acts which bring them within the restraining jurisdiction of a court of equity, it is hardly unnatural that they should believe, especially when encouraged so to do by many who should know better, that the strong arm of the law which compels them to cease is guided by, and is but a creature of, the very power against which they are struggling.

We cannot afford to allow this belief to grow, it appears to be already too widespread, unreasonable though we may believe it to be.

Therefore it seems that the best solution of this entire question is offered by what has been so often suggested, namely a compulsory arbitration of all disputes arising between employers and employed. The use of the strictly legal, but to so many obnoxious, remedy by injunction would thus be generally avoided in labor disputes, and with it the apparently most prolific cause of the bitter feelings spoken of.

This plan is open to the objection that by it certain men will be required to surrender, to a greater or less degree, their personal right to manage their own affairs as seems best to them, but it may well be asked whether the time has not come when, in this particular, a measure of this right must be surrendered for the common good.

Time forbids us to go into this question which might lead us far from our subject, suffice it to say that in such a critical period as that through which we are passing, it becomes every patriotic man to yield somewhat of that which is strictly his right, when his adhering to it too

closely might result in seriously endangering the social fabric.

It may be added that matters would be very much helped if a greater sense of responsibility was felt, and more care exercised by those whose duty it is to disseminate and comment upon the news. The instance here under our own observation last summer has not been the only one, when an untrue and misleading report of facts, and the expression of a too hasty opinion thereon, has stirred up feelings and excited animosities which no amount of subsequent correction could atone for.

I am conscious that this has been a very imperfect and incomplete discussion of a very large subject, but such as it is it has not been without avail if it has aided in any degree in showing that the so-called "usurpations" of the judges have not been usurpations at all, but that the application of the injunction to prevent violations of law and the consequent irreparable injury to property and civil rights, incident to strikes, has been in accordance with well known principles of equity jurisprudence; and that if any defects are inherent in that system or if any objections are properly applicable to it, they should be met and corrected. in some other way than by that unreasoning abuse and, I may say, villification, of the judiciary which in these latter days seems to have become a favorite pastime with so many.

ANNUAL ADDRESS.

BY HON. SEYMOUR D. THOMPSON.

I. Debate

in the

JUDICIAL SUPREMACY.

At the sixth annual meeting of the American Bar Association, held at Saratoga Springs in the year 1883, American Bar Asso- a paper was read by Mr. Robert G. Street, ciation on Judicial of Texas, on the subject of "How Far QuesSupremacy. tions of Public Policy may Enter into Judicial Decisions." It was forcibly written, and contained apt historical illustrations, but did not advance any hitherto unknown doctrine. The central ideas which it promulgated were that, under the constitution of the United States, each of the three departments of the government - the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial - has the right to interpret the constitution for itself, and is not bound by the interpretation put upon it by either of the other two departments; and, secondly, a proposition which he formulated in this language:

"No question of the grant or prohibition of sovereign power or declaration of public policy should ever be considered settled until uniformity of opinion and action has been reached by the several departments; and not then until the people have made known, under circumstances and conditions favorable to its exercise, and through such time as to assure deliberation, their approval of such concurrence. And this concurrence itself, to be binding, must be reached under the free exercise of the right of independent opinion and action, and not through the influence of gross delusion that the courts speak on the subject with the voice as of one having authority.

Among other ideas which Mr. Street combated was the hallucination, which in recent times has taken hold even of the minds of judges, that when the highest judicial court declares a law

1 Report of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, pp. 179, 192.

unçonstitutional and refuses to enforce it, the law is thereby repealed or annulled. He pointed out the absurdity of this proposition by showing that, if it were well founded, and if the highest court should hold a statute bad this year, and hold it good next year, the Legislature would have to re-enact it, since the first decision had the effect of annulling or destroying it. This, it is perceived, would erect the judicial branch of the government into a Third House of the Legislature, with a negative legislative power, consisting in the power of repealing existing statutes. Some years after this address was delivered, the judicial craze of setting aside statutes had progressed so far that two learned Federal judges actually expressed the opinion that, the Supreme Court of the United States having, by its decision in Leisy v. Hardin,' annulled the prohibitory laws of the States so far as they operated upon importations from outside their borders, and Congress thereafter having, by an act passed in compliance with a suggestion in the opinion of the court in that case, given the States the power to extend their prohibitory laws to importations from other States or foreign countries, it became necessary for the States to re-enact their prohibited laws; since as they had been repealed or annulled by the judicial decision in question, and the subsequent act of Congress was not, in its terms, retroactive.' Mr. Street also pointed out that, outside of the operation of the rule of stare decisis, a judgment declaring a statute unconstitutional had merely the effect that the court refused to enforce it in the case under consideration, and the decision bound only the parties to the immediate litigation. The court was not even bound to follow its own decision, though it would probably do so; but was at liberty to reconsider it and overrule it in any other case, upon becoming convinced of its error.

--

I have said that there was nothing new in the doctrine which Mr. Street put forth. He merely promulgated the doctrine of Jefferson, of Jackson, and of Lincoln. These three great statesmen, each in his turn, had admitted that the Supreme

1 135 U. S. 100.

2 Re Rahrer, 43 Fed. Rep. 556.