was one which rendered an act punishable in a manner in which it was not punishable when it was committed. This definition is distinguished for its comprehensive brevity and precision, and it extends to laws passed after the act, and affecting a person by way of punishment of that act, either in his person or estate. Ex post facto laws relate to penal and criminal proceedings, which impose punishments or forfeitures, and not to civil proceedings, which affect private rights retrospectively. Retrospective laws and state laws, devesting vested rights, unless ex post facto, or impairing the obligation of contracts, do not fall within the prohibition 1 Ex post Facto Laws. This is one of the great constitutional questions which has been reopened and much discussed in cases arising out of the rebellion. An act of Congress provided that no one should be admitted as an attorney or counsellor to the bar of any United States court, or should be allowed to appear by virtue of any previous admission, unless he should have first taken an oath that he had not done certain acts of treason against the United States, had not held office under, or yielded voluntary support to any authority hostile to them, and would support and bear true allegiance to the Constitution. It was held, that this act, which was, of course, directed at those who had taken part in the rebellion, was both a bill of attainder and an ex post facto law, and therefore unconstitutional. Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333. See Ex parte Law, 35 Ga. 285. So, in Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, a provision in a state constitution that no clergyman should be permitted to teach, preach, or solemnize marriage, unless he should first take an oath that he had not done certain specified acts, some of which at the time of doing them were not criminal, was held void for like reasons. See, however, the very able dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Miller, in which the Chief Justice and Swayne and Davis, JJ., concurred, p. 382. But these were both cases of persons who had previously been admitted to their respective callings; and Mr. Pomeroy (Const. Law, § 532) thinks that as to future applicants the requirement of the test oath was constitutional, and cites Er parte Magruder, Supreme Ct. D. C. to that effect, § 534. Further cases on the subject are Ex parte Law, 35 Ga. 285; The Murphy & Glover Test Oath Cases, 41 Mo. 339. But in several cases it has been held that those who had taken part in the rebellion might be constitutionally deprived of the right to vote. Anderson v. Baker, 23 Md. 581; Ridley v. Sherbrook, 3 Coldw. 569; Blair v. Ridgely, 41 Mo. 63. And it is very clear that an act exempting all persons from prosecution for acts done by virtue of military authority of the United States or of the state during the late war, and made pleadable in bar of all actions then instituted or thereafter to be against any person for such acts, was constitutional. Drehman v. Stifle, 8 Wall. 595. A law imposing a less penalty than a former law which it repeals is not ex post facto as to offences committed before its passage. Commonwealth v. Wyman, 12 Cush. 237; State v. Arlin, 39 N. H. 179, 180. As to the general question, what is an ex post facto law, see Hartung v. People, 22 N. Y. 95; State v. Sullivan, 14 Rich. (S. C.) 281; State r Paul, 5 R. I. 185; Lord v. Chadbourne, 42 Me. 429; Coffin v. Rich, 45 Me. 507; Rich v. Flanders, 39 N. H. 304; Gut v. The State, 9 Wall 35. contained in the Constitution of the United States, however repugnant they may be to the principles of sound legislation. (c) 3. The States cannot control the Exercise of Federal Power. The state legislatures cannot annul the judgments, nor determine the extent of the jurisdiction, of the courts of the Union. This was attempted by the legislature of Pennsylvania, and declared to be inoperative and void by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of The United States v. Peters. (d) Such a power, as we have heretofore seen, necessarily resides in the supreme judicial tribunal of the nation. It has also been *410 adjudged, that no state court has authority or jurisdiction to enjoin a judgment of the circuit court of the United States, or to stay proceedings under it. This was attempted by a state court in Kentucky, and declared to be of no validity by the Supreme Court of the United States, in M'Kim v. Voorhies. (a)1 No state tribunal can interfere with seizures of property made by (c) Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas, 386; Satterlee v. Matthewson, 2 Peters, 413; Watson .. Mercer, 8 id. 88. (d) 5 Cranch, 115. 1 Riggs v. Johnson County, 6 Wall. 166, stated ante, 322, n. 1; The Mayor v. Lord, 9 Wall. 409; Supervisors v. Durant, ib. 415; Amy v. The Supervisors of Des Moines, 11 Wall. 136; ante, 401, n. 1. The last statement in the text of this page (410) has been twice referred to and denied to be law by the Supreme Court. Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450, 458; Buck v. Colbath, 3 Wall 334, 341. (a) 7 Cranch, 279. principle it was held that replevin did not lie in a state court against a marshal of the United States for property attached by him on mesne process from a United States court against a third person. Freeman v. Howe, sup. (reversing s. c. 14 Gray, 566); Munson v. Harroun, 34 Ill. 422. See also Taylor v. Carryl, sup. But on the other hand it has been decided, qualifying some expressions in Freeman v. Howe, that trespass does lie in a state court against a marshal for taking goods under a writ of attachment from a United States court, which did not belong to the defendant in the attachment suit. Buck v. Colbath, sup. ; Ward v. Henry, 19 Wis. 76; Booth v. Ableman, 18 Wis. 495. The rule now laid down is, "that whenever property has been seized by an officer of the court, by virtue of its process, the property is to be considered as in the custody of the court, and under its control for the time being; and that no other court has a right to interfere with that possession, unless it be some court which may have a direct supervisory control over the court whose process has first taken possession, or some superior jurisdiction in the premises." Miller, J., in Buck v. Colbath, sup. See Riggs v. Johnson County, 6 Wall. 166, 196; Taylor v. Carryl, 20 How. 583, 595. On this 587. Trover will lie in the state courts against a postmaster for improperly detaining a newspaper, although such deten. tion is under color of the laws of the United States, and the regulations of the post-office department. Teall v. Felton, 12 How. 284; affirming s. c. 1 Comst. revenue officers, under the laws of the United States; nor interrupt, by process of replevin, injunction, or otherwise, the exercise of the authority of the federal officers; and any intervention of state authority for that purpose is unlawful. This was so declared by the Supreme Court in Slocum v. Mayberry. (b) Nor can a state court issue a mandamus to an officer of the United States. This decision was made in the case of M'Cluny v. Silliman, (c) and it arose in consequence of the Supreme Court in Ohio sustaining a jurisdiction over the register of the land office of the United States, in respect to his ministerial acts as register, and claiming a right to award a mandamus to that officer to compel him to issue a final certificate of purchase. The principle declared by the Supreme Court was, that the official conduct of an officer of the government of the United States can only be controlled by the power that created him. If the officer of the United States who seizes, or the court which awards the process to seize, has jurisdiction of the subject-matter, then the inquiry into the validity of the seizure belongs exclusively to the federal courts. But if there be no jurisdiction in the instance in which it is asserted, as if a marshal of the United States, under an execution in favor of the United States against A, should seize the person or property of B, (d) then the state courts have jurisdiction to protect the person and the property so illegally invaded; and it is to be observed that the jurisdiction of the state courts in Rhode Island was admitted by 411 the Supreme Court of the United States, in Slocum v. Mayberry, upon that very ground. In the case of The United States v. Barney, (a) the district judge of Maryland carried to a great extent the exemption from state control of officers or persons in the service of the United States, and employed in the transportation of the mail. He held, that an innkeeper had no lien on the horses which he had fed, and which were employed in the transportation of the mail. The act of Congress of March, 1790, prohibited all wilful obstruction of (b) 2 Wheaton, 1. Any restraint by state authority on state officers in the execu tion of the process of their courts is altogether inoperative upon the officers of the United States in the execution of the mandates which issue to them. Baldwin, J., in McNutt v. Bland, 2 How. 17. (c) 6 Wheaton, 598. (d) Bruen v. Ogden, 6 Halst. 370; Dunn v. Vail, 7 Martin (La.), 416. (a) 3 Hall's Law Journal, 128. the passage of the mail; and a claim for debt would not justify the stopping of the mail, or the means necessary to transport it, either upon principles of common law, or upon the statute. The judge stated, in this case, that even a stolen horse found in the mail stage could not be seized; nor could the driver, being in debt, or having committed an offence, be arrested, in such a way as to obstruct the passage of the mail. But in a subsequent case in the Circuit Court of Pennsylvania, (b) it was held, that the act of Congress was not to be so construed as to endanger the public peace and safety. The carrier of the mail, driving through a populous city with dangerous rapidity, and contrary to a municipal ordinance, may be stopped, and the mail temporarily detained by an officer of the city. So, if the officer had a warrant against a felon in the stage, or if the driver should commit murder in the street, and then place himself on the mail stage box, he would not be protected from arrest, though a temporary stoppage of the mail might be the consequence.1 The public safety in one case is of more moment than the public inconvenience which it might produce in the other. (c) But while all interference on the part of the state authorities with the exercise of the lawful powers of the national government has been in most cases denied, there is one case in which * any control by the federal over the state courts, 412 other than by means of the established appellate jurisdiction, has equally been prevented. In Diggs and Keith v. Wolcott, (a) it was decided generally, that a court of the United States could not enjoin proceedings in a state court; and a decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut was reversed, because it had enjoined the parties from (b) United States v. Hart, 1 Peters, C. C. 390. (c) A toll-gate keeper, on a national road passing through a state, cannot stop the coach carrying the United States mail, for a refusal to pay toll. The remedy, if any, is by action against the contractor. Hopkins v. Stockton, 2 Watts & Serg. 153. (a) 4 Cranch, 179. 8. P. in Kittredge v. Emerson, [15 N. H. 227,] and in Dudley's Case, C. C. U. S. for Pennsylvania, 1 Pennsylvania Law Journal, 302; Carrell v. F. & M. Bank, Har. (Mich.) Ch. 197. Neither the United States nor the state courts can interfere or control the operations of each other. The courts of the United States can only interfere by their appellate jurisdiction, and the state courts have no powe: to interfere by injunction. 3 Story's Comm. on the Const. 624, 625. 1 United States v. Kirby, 7 Wall. 482. proceeding at law in a state court. So in Ex parte Cabrera, (b) it was declared, that the circuit courts of the United States could not interfere with the jurisdiction of the courts of a state. These decisions are not to be contested; and yet the district judge of the Northern District of New York, in the spring of 1823, in the case of Lansing and Thayer v. The North River Steamboat Company, enjoined the defendants from seeking in the state courts, under the acts of the state legislature, the remedies which those acts gave them. This would appear to have been an assumption of the power of control over the jurisdiction of the state courts, in hostility to the doctrine of the Supreme Court of the United States. (c) In the case of Kennedy v. Earl of Casillis, (d) an injunction had been unwarily granted, in the English Court of Chancery, to restrain a party from proceeding in a suit in the Court of Sessions in Scotland, where the parties were domiciled. It was admitted that the Court of Sessions was a court of competent jurisdiction, and an independent foreign tribunal, though subject to an appeal, like the Court of Chancery, to the House of Lords. If the Court of Chancery could in that way restrain proceedings in the Court of Sessions, the Sessions might equally enjoin proceedings in chancery, and thus stop all proceedings in either court. Lord Eldon said he never meant to go further with the injunction than the property in England; and he, on motion, dissolved it in toto. (e) * 413 * 4. The States cannot impair the Obligation of Contracts.1 We come next to a prohibition of great moment, and (b) 1 Wash. 232; United States v. French, 1 Gall. 1, s. p. (c) The assumed jurisdiction was not afterwards sustained; and a bill in equity in a state court for an injunction, though against an alien or citizen of another state, was held not to be such a suit as was removable to a circuit court of the United States. 1 Paige, 183. (d) 2 Swanst. 313. But in the subsequent case of Bushby v. Munday, 5 Mad. 297, the Vice-Chancellor granted an injunction, under special circumstances, to restrain proceedings in the Court of Sessions in Scotland. The New York Court of Chancery has disclaimed any such jurisdiction, in respect to a foreign suit previously commenced, though it was in possession of jurisdiction over the person of the party. Mead v. Merritt, 2 Paige, 402. (e) It has been assumed and asserted by official authority, that the judicial power of the United States had no power to enjoin the executive branch of the government from the execution of a constitutional duty or of a constitutional law, any inore than they could arrest the legislature itself in passing the law. Opinions of the Attorneys-General, i. 507, 508. [Ante, 296, n. 1; 323, n. 1.ļ 1 Post, 419, n. 1. |