1. In a case where an alleged violation of the Constitution of
the United States is the ground of error, the Supreme Court has no
jurisdiction unless the point presented by the assignment and
joinder was raised and decided in the state court to which the writ
is directed.
2. It must appear that the point was raised in the state court,
that the party called attention to the particular clause in the
federal Constitution relied upon and to the right claimed under it,
and that the question thus distinctly presented was ruled against
him, and if these things do not appear, the judgment of the state
court cannot be reviewed here.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY.
This is a writ of error to the Superior Court of the City of New
York, and the error assigned is that the court maintained the
validity of a statute of that state by which new trustees had been
substituted in place of
Page 66 U. S. 351
those appointed by a testator, and authorized to carry into
execution the trusts created by the last will of the deceased. And
the plaintiff in error alleges that this law was a violation of
that article of the Constitution of the United States which
declares that "no state shall pass any law impairing the obligation
of contracts."
But no such point appears to have been raised in the state
court, and this article in the Constitution does not appear to have
been even referred to or noticed in any part of the proceedings.
The answer of the plaintiff in error, it is true, charges in
general terms that the law was unconstitutional and void, but from
the context it would seem that this charge was applied to the
constitution of the state rather than to that of the United States,
and even if it could be construed as applying to the latter, it has
repeatedly been declared by this Court, as will appear by the
reports of its decisions, that in order to give it jurisdiction, it
must appear that the point was raised and decided in the state
court, that the attention of the court was called to the particular
clause of the Constitution of the United States upon which the
party relied, and to the right he claimed under it, and that, with
the question thus distinctly presented, the decision was against
him.
This writ of error must therefore be
Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.