Miller v. Cornwall Railroad

Citations

• 168 U.S. 131
• 18 S. Ct. 34
• 42 L. Ed. 409
• 1897 U.S. LEXIS 1712

Syllabus

<p>The validity of a statute is drawn in question whenever the power to enact it, as it is by its terms, or is made to read by construction, is fairly open to denial, and is denied.</p> <p>Under Rev. Stat. § 709, if the ground on which the jurisdiction of this court is invoked to review a judgment of a state court is, that the validity of a state law was drawn in question as in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and the decision of the state court is in favor of its validity, this must appear on the face of the record before the decision below can be reexamined here.</p> <p>A suggestion of such appearance, made on application for reargument, after the judgment of the trial court is affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State, comes too late.</p> <p>This court has no jurisdiction on a writ of error to a state court to declare a state law void on account of its collision with the state constitution.</p> <p>An objection in the trial of an action in a state court that an act of the State was “ unconstitutional and void,” when construed in those courts as raising the question whether the state legislature had power, under the state constitution, to pass the act, and not as having reference to any repugnance to the Constitution of the United States, is properly construed.</p> <p>The report of this case in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania shows that it assumed that it was dealing, under the assignments of error, only with the state constitution.</p>