Suppose the bill filed and the injunction prayed for allowed. If the President refuse obedience, it is needless to observe that the court is without power to enforce its process. If, on the other hand, the President complies with the order of the court and refuses to execute the acts of Congress, is it not clear that a collision may occur between the executive and legislative departments of the government? May not the House of Representatives impeach the President for such refusal? And in that case could this court interfere, in behalf of the President, thus endangered by compliance with its mandate, and restrain by injunction the Senate of the United States from sitting as a court of impeachment? Would the strange spectacle be offered to the public world of an attempt by this court to arrest proceedings in that court?

These questions answer themselves.

It is true that a State may file an original bill in this court. And it may be true, in some cases, that such a bill may be filed against the United States. But we are fully satisfied that this court has no jurisdiction of a bill to enjoin the President in the performance of his official duties; and that no such bill ought to be received by us.

It has been suggested that the bill contains a prayer that, if the relief sought cannot be had against Andrew Johnson, as President, it may be granted against Andrew Johnson as a citizen of Tennessee. But it is plain that relief as against the execution of an act of Congress by Andrew Johnson, is relief against its execution by the President. A bill praying an injunction against the execution of an act of Congress by the incumbent of the presidential office cannot be received, whether it describes him as President or as a citizen of a State.

The motion for leave to file the bill is, therefore,

Denied.

NOTE. Whether any particular class of Indians are still to be regarded as a tribe, or have ceased to hold the tribal relation, is primarily a question for the political departments of the government, and if they have decided it, this court will follow their lead. United States v. Holliday, 3 Wallace, 407.

It belongs exclusively to the government to recognize the political existence of new foreign states, and until it does so, courts must consider the old state of things as remaining. Gelston v. Hoyt, 3 Wheaton, 246.

In a controversy between the United States and a foreign sovereign as to boundary, this court must follow the decision of that department of the government intrusted by the constitution with

the care of its foreign relations, especially if sanctioned by the legislative power. Foster v. Neilson, 2 Peters, 253.

A bill in equity filed by one of the United States to enjoin the Secretary of War and other officers who represent the Executive authority of the United States from carrying into execution certain acts of Congress, on the ground that such execution would annul and totally abolish the existing State government of the State and establish another and different one in its place-in other words, would overthrow and destroy the corporate existence of the State by depriving it of all means and instrumentalities whereby its existence might, and otherwise would, be maintained-calls for judgment upon a political question, and will therefore not be entertained by this court. State of Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wallace, 50.

The President, in a message to congress, and in the correspondence carried on with the government of Buenos Ayres, having denied the jurisdiction of that country over the Falkland Islands, the courts must take the fact so to be. Williams v. Suffolk Insurance Co., 13 Peters, 415.

Who is the sovereign, de jure or de facto, of a territory is not a judicial but a political question, the determination of which by the legislative and executive departments of any government conclusively binds the judges, as well as all other officers, citizens and subjects of that government. Jones v. United States, 137 U. S., 202.

XVI.

ENFORCEMENT OF EXECUTIVE POWER

BY JUDICIAL PROCESS.

IN RE DEBS, PETITIONER.

158 U. S., 564. Decided 1895.

[On July 2, 1894, the district attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, acting under the direction of the Attorney-General of the United States, filed a bill of complaint in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois against these petitioners and others. The bill averred that the twenty-two railroads named therein were engaged in the business of interstate commerce and also that each of them was under contract to carry the United States mails; that four of the defendants were officers of the American Railway Union; that these four officers combined with others to compel an adjustment of a dispute between the Pullman Palace Car Company and its employés by boycotting the cars of the company; that to make the boycott effective, they had prevented certain of the railroads running out of Chicago from operating their trains, and were combining to extend such boycott against the Pullman cars by causing strikes among employés of all roads attempting to haul the same; that the defendants and others unknown proceeded by collecting together in large numbers, by threats, intimidation, force and violence, to prevent the said railways from employing other persons to fill the vacancies aforesaid; that the defendants and others unknown did with force and violence obstruct, derail, and wreck the engines and trains of the said railways, both passenger and freight, engaged in interstate commerce and in carrying the United States mails. Following these allegations was a prayer for an injunction. The court thereupon ordered an injunction commanding the defendants "and all persons combining and conspiring with them, and all other persons whomsoever absolutely to desist and refrain from" doing the unlawful acts specified in the bill. The injunction was served on those of the defendants who are here as

petitioners. On July 17 the district attorney filed an information for an attachment against the four defendants, and on August 1 a similar information against the other petitioners. A hearing was had before the Circuit Court, and on December 14, these petitioners were found guilty of contempt and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail for terms varying from three to six months. Having been committed to jail, they on January 14, 1895, applied to this court for a writ of error and also a writ of habeas corpus. The former was denied on the ground that the order of the Circuit Court was not a final judgment or decree. The latter is now to be considered.]

MR. JUSTICE BREWER court.

delivered the opinion of the

The case presented by the bill is this: The United States, finding that the interstate transportation of persons and property, as well as the carriage of the mails, is forcibly obstructed, and that a combination and conspiracy exists to subject the control of such transportation to the will of the conspirators, applied to one of their courts, sitting as a court of equity, for an injunction to restrain such obstruction and prevent carrying into effect such conspiracy. Two questions of importance are suggested: First. Are the relations of the general government to interstate commerce and the transportation of the mails such as to authorize a direct interference to prevent a forcible obstruction thereof? Second. If authority exists, as authority in government implies both power and duty, has a court of equity jurisdiction to issue an injunction in aid of the performance of such duty?

First. What are the relations of the general government to interstate commerce and the transportation of the mails? They are those of direct supervision, control, and management. While under the dual system which prevails with us the powers of government are distributed between the State and the Nation, and while the latter is properly styled a government of enumerated powers, yet within the limits of such enumeration it has all the attributes of sovereignty, and, in the exercise of those enumerated powers, acts directly upon the citizen, and not through the intermediate agency of the State.

"The government of the Union, then, is, emphatically and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit."

"No trace is to be found in the Constitution of an intention to

create a dependence of the government of the Union on those of the States, for the execution of the great powers assigned to it. Its means are adequate to its ends, and on those means alone was it expected to rely for the accomplishment of its ends. To impose on it the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other governments, which might disappoint its most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the Constitution." Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat., 316, 405, 424.

"Both the States and the United States existed before the Constitution. The people, through that instrument, established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon. the States." Chief Justice Chase in Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall., 71, 76.

"We hold it be an incontrovertible principle, that the government of the United States may, by means of physical force, exercised through its official agents, execute on every foot of American soil the powers and functions that belong to it. This necessarily involves the power to command obedience to its laws, and hence the power to keep the peace to that extent.

"This power to enforce its laws and to execute its functions in all places does not derogate from the power of the State to execute its laws at the same time and in the same places. The one does not exclude the other, except where both cannot be executed at the same time. In that case, the words of the Constitution itself show which is to yield. This Constitution, and all laws which shall be made in pursuance thereof, . . shall be the supreme law of the land.'" Mr. Justice Bradley in Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S., 371, 395. .

Among the powers expressly given to the national government are the control of interstate commerce and the creation and management of a post office system for the nation. . . [Here follows a consideration of the statutes passed in the exercise of these powers.]

Obviously these powers given to the national government over interstate commerce and in respect to the transportation of the mails were not dormant and unused. Congress had taken hold. of these two matters, and by various and specific acts had assumed and exercised the powers given to it, and was in full discharge