The Supreme Court has not jurisdiction on a writ of error to the
supreme court of a state in which the judgment of the court was not
necessarily given on a point which was presented in the case
involving the constitutionality of an act of the Legislature of the
State of Illinois asserted to violate a contract.
The Supreme Court will not, when requested by the counsel for
plaintiffs and defendants in error in a case in which it has not
jurisdiction to affirm or reverse the judgment of the court from
which the same has been brought by a writ of error to a state
court, examine into the questions in the case and decide upon them.
Consent will not give jurisdiction. When the act of Congress has so
carefully and cautiously restricted the jurisdiction conferred upon
this Court over the judgments and decrees of the state tribunals,
the Court will not exercise jurisdiction in a different spirit.
The plaintiffs in error instituted a suit in the Circuit Court
of the State of Illinois, claiming, by a bill filed in that court,
to hold, under an act of the Legislature of Illinois, an exclusive
right to erect a ferry on the Mississippi River from land owned by
them to the City of St. Louis, Missouri. The defendants in the suit
denied the right thus set up and claimed the right to set up
another ferry, from Illinois to St. Louis, under other acts of the
Legislature of Illinois. The case was, after a decree of the
circuit court in favor of the defendants, carried by the plaintiff
by appeal to the supreme court of the state, where judgment in
favor of the defendants was affirmed. The plaintiffs prosecuted
this writ of error on the ground that the act of the Legislature of
Illinois, passed subsequent to the act which had authorized the
plaintiffs to erect their ferry, was a violation of the contract
made with the plaintiffs by the act of assembly.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, which was in
favor of the defendants, was given upon other questions presented
in the case besides those on the contract made by the first act of
the assembly of Illinois. The counsel for the plaintiffs in error
proposed to the court
Page 41 U. S. 526
that a decision upon the whole merits of the case should be
made, although it might be considered that the Court had not
jurisdiction of the case on the writ of error, the questions in the
case being of great importance and the parties being willing and
desirous to have them decided by this Court.
TANEY, CH.J., delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is brought here by writ of error to the Supreme Court
of Illinois under the 25th section of the act of 1789.
It appears that the Legislature of Illinois, by a law passed
March 2, 1819, granted to a certain S. Wiggins, his heirs and
assigns, the right to establish a ferry, upon his own lands, across
the Mississippi, near the Town of Illinois.
By a subsequent Act of March 2, 1839, the Legislature of
Illinois granted to the County of St. Clair in that state and to
certain commissioners in behalf of the county the right to locate a
road and landing between Cahokie Creek and the Mississippi River,
opposite to St. Louis. And the commissioners appointed by this law
proceeded to lay out the road and establish the landing to certain
lands which belonged to the plaintiffs in error and to which, by
sundry conveyances, they derived title from the said Wiggins. The
plaintiffs in error thereupon filed their bill in the circuit court
of the state praying that the County of St. Clair and the said
commissioners should be enjoined from further proceedings under the
act of assembly last above mentioned. The respondents, the present
defendants in error, appeared and demurred generally to the bill,
and upon final hearing of the cause, the demurrer was sustained by
the court and the bill dismissed. From this decision the
complainants appealed to the supreme court of the state, where the
decree of the circuit court was affirmed. The points proposed to be
raised here are 1st, whether the act of assembly of 1819, was not a
contract with the said Wiggins, his heir and assigns, and 2d,
whether the act of 1839 does not impair the contract.
Page 41 U. S. 527
These points are not directly stated in the pleadings, nor are
they noticed in the decree of the circuit or supreme court of the
state. Yet if it appeared from the bill that the court could not
have sustained the demurrer, without considering and deciding these
points; if they were necessarily involved in the decision of the
case, as presented by the bill and demurrer, this Court would have
jurisdiction, upon the writ of error, although they are not
expressly stated in the decrees to have been raised and
decided.
It is unnecessary for the purposes of this opinion to state the
contents of the bill. Indeed, as concerns the question before us,
it could not well be understood, without giving the whole bill in
its own words. It is sufficient to say that we have carefully
examined it, and are satisfied, that the points proposed to be
raised here were not necessarily involved in the judgment given by
the state court. On the contrary, we think it may have come to the
conclusion, that the demurrer ought to be sustained on other
grounds, and that the bill was not so framed as to require a
decision upon these questions.
It is true that the plaintiffs and defendants in error have both
waived all objections to jurisdiction, and have pressed the court
for a decision on the principal points. But consent will not give
jurisdiction. And we have heretofore, on several occasions, said
that when the act of Congress has so carefully and cautiously
restricted the jurisdiction conferred upon this Court, over the
judgments and decrees of the state tribunals, it would ill become
the court to exercise it in a different spirit. And it certainly
could not be justified in expressing an opinion favorable or
unfavorable as to the correctness of this decree, when it has not
the power to affirm or reverse it.
The writ of error must therefore be
Dismissed.
