A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 742 pages of information about A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.

A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 742 pages of information about A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.

It is clear that in States which deny to persons whose rights are secured by the first section of the bill any one of those rights all criminal and civil cases affecting them will, by the provisions of the third section, come under the exclusive cognizance of the Federal tribunals.  It follows that if, in any State which denies to a colored person any one of all those rights, that person should commit a crime against the laws of a State—­murder, arson, rape, or any other crime—­all protection and punishment through the courts of the State are taken away, and he can only be tried and punished in the Federal courts.  How is the criminal to be tried?  If the offense is provided for and punished by Federal law, that law, and not the State law, is to govern.  It is only when the offense does not happen to be within the purview of Federal law that the Federal courts are to try and punish him under any other law.  Then resort is to be had to “the common law, as modified and changed” by State legislation, “so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.”  So that over this vast domain of criminal jurisprudence provided by each State for the protection of its own citizens and for the punishment of all persons who violate its criminal laws, Federal law, whenever it can be made to apply, displaces State law.  The question here naturally arises, from what source Congress derives the power to transfer to Federal tribunals certain classes of cases embraced in this section.  The Constitution expressly declares that the judicial power of the United States “shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made or which shall be made under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States, between a State and citizens of another State, between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.”  Here the judicial power of the United States is expressly set forth and defined; and the act of September 24, 1789, establishing the judicial courts of the United States, in conferring upon the Federal courts jurisdiction over cases originating in State tribunals, is careful to confine them to the classes enumerated in the above-recited clause of the Constitution.  This section of the bill undoubtedly comprehends cases and authorizes the exercise of powers that are not, by the Constitution, within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States.  To transfer them to those courts would be an exercise of authority well calculated to excite distrust and alarm on the part of all the States, for the bill applies alike to all of them—­as well to those that have as to those that have not been engaged in rebellion.

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A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.