Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/560

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532
HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
532

532 HARVARD LAW REVIEW, jury must be held sacred, whatever the other forms of procedure may be.'^i The same principle was stated with reference to statutory exten- sions of the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty in United States v. One Hundred and Thirty Barrels of Whiskey ,2 as follows : — " And it is too clear to admit of doubt that, if these are cases at com- mon law, they are within this clause of the Constitution, and the parties are entitled to a trial by jury. It is equally clear that Congress has no power under the Constitution to deprive a suitor of this right, by declar- ing that a case not properly within the jurisdiction of the admiralty shall be treated and dealt with according to the known principles of courts of admiralty." ^ The same principle was by implication at least approved in United States v. Debs.^ Judge Woods, in sustaining the validity of the fourth -section of the Anti Trust Act of 1890,^ authorizing injunctions against violations of the act, held that the case was one of equitable character, and that within the proper subjects of equita- ble cognizance, as established when the Constitution was adopted, it was competent for Congress to vest the court with the equitable power granted. And the Supreme Court in sustaining the juris- diction of the court preferred to rest its decision on the ground that apart from the statute equity could at the suit of the government enjoin an interference with the highways of interstate commerce.^ As has already been suggested upon the facts of a particular 1 Powers V. Raymond, 137 Mass. 483, 485. See also North Pennsylvania Coal Co. V. Snowden, 42 Pa. St. 488; Haines's Appeal, 73 Pa. St. 169, 171. 2 I Bond, 587, 588. 8 Compare City of Janesville v. Carpenter, 77 Wis. 288, where a statute prohibiting the driving of piles or building of pier, etc. in a certain river provided that " the doing of any such act should [shall] be enjoined at the suit of any resident taxpayer without proof that any injury or danger has been or will be caused by such act." No question of rights to navigation being involved, the court held the statute unconstitutional, and refused to enjoin such erections by the owner of the soil. They say, at p. 299 : " The legislature would have saved time and expense if it had issued the injunction in the case for which the act was made. This is the first time that any legislature of any enlightened country ever attempted to create an action without any cause of action, to authorize a complaint to be made to a court where there is nothing to complain of ; to compel the courts to enjoin the lawful use and enjoyment of our own property •without proof that any injury or danger has been or will be caused by reason of such act '; ... or to adjudicate and decide the case, and then order and compel the court to execute its judgment by issuing an injunction." 4 64 Fed. R. 724, 7";3. ^ 26 U. S. Stat. 209. 6 J?treT>chs, 158 U. S. 564.