Article 3, Section 2, Clause 1

Document 3

William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:247--48, 3:68--70, 109--11, 429--37

In respect to civil suits, all the foreign jurists agree, that neither an embassador, nor any of his train or comites, can be prosecuted for any debt or contract in the courts of that kingdom wherein he is sent to reside. Yet sir Edward Coke maintains, that, if an embassador makes a contract which is good jure gentium, he shall answer for it here. And the truth is, we find no traces in our lawbooks of allowing any privilege to embassadors or their domestics, even in civil suits, previous to the reign of queen Anne; when an embassador from Peter the great, czar of Muscovy, was actually arrested and taken out of his coach in London, in 1708, for debts which he had there contracted. This the czar resented very highly, and demanded (we are told) that the officers who made the arrest should be punished with death. But the queen (to the amazement of that despotic court) directed her minister to inform him, "that the law of England had not yet protected embassadors from the payment of their lawful debts; that therefore the arrest was no offence by the laws; and that she could inflict no punishment upon any, the meanest, of her subjects, unless warranted by the law of the land." To satisfy however the clamours of the foreign ministers (who made it a common cause) as well as to appease the wrath of Peter, a new statute was enacted by parliament, reciting the arrest which had been made, "in contempt of the protection granted by her majesty, contrary to the law of nations, and in prejudice of the rights and privileges, which embassadors and other public ministers have at all times been thereby possessed of, and ought to be kept sacred and inviolable:" wherefore it enacts, that for the future all process whereby the person of any embassador, or of his domestic or domestic servant, may be arrested, or his goods distreined or seised, shall be utterly null and void; and the persons prosecuting, soliciting, or executing such process shall be deemed violaters of the law of nations, and disturbers of the public repose; and shall suffer such penalties and corporal punishment as the lord chancellor and the two chief justices, or any two of them, shall think fit. But it is expressly provided, that no trader, within the description of the bankrupt laws, who shall be in the service of any embassador, shall be privileged or protected by this act; nor shall any one be punished for arresting an embassador's servant, unless his name be registred with the secretary of state, and by him transmitted to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. Exceptions, that are strictly conformable to the rights of embassadors, as observed in the most civilized countries. And, in consequence of this statute, thus enforcing the law of nations, these privileges are now usually allowed in the courts of common law.

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III. The maritime courts, or such as have power and jurisdiction to determine all maritime injuries, arising upon the seas, or in parts out of the reach of the common law, are only the court of admiralty, and it's courts of appeal. The court of admiralty is held before the lord high admiral of England, or his deputy, who is called the judge of the court. According to sir Henry Spelman, and Lambard, it was first of all erected by king Edward the third. It's proceedings are according to the method of the civil law, like those of the ecclesiastical courts; upon which account it is usually held at the same place with the superior ecclesiastical courts, at doctors' commons in London. It is no court of record, any more than the spiritual courts. From the sentences of the admiralty judge an appeal always lay, in ordinary course, to the king in chancery, as may be collected from statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19. which directs the appeal from the arch-bishop's courts to be determined by persons named in the king's commission, "like as in case of appeal from the admiral-court." But this is also expressly declared by statute 8 Eliz. c. 5. which enacts, that upon appeal made to the chancery, the sentence definitive of the delegates appointed by commission shall be final.

Appeals from the vice-admiralty courts in America, and our other plantations and settlements, may be brought before the courts of admiralty in England, as being a branch of the admiral's jurisdiction, though they may also be brought before the king in council. But in case of prize vessels, taken in time of war, in any part of the world, and condemned in any courts of admiralty or vice-admiralty as lawful prize, the appeal lies to certain commissioners of appeals consisting chiefly of the privy council, and not to judges delegates. And this by virtue of divers treaties with foreign nations; by which particular courts are established in all the maritime countries of Europe for the decision of this question, whether lawful prize or not: for this being a question between subjects of different states, it belongs entirely to the law of nations, and not to the municipal laws of either country, to determine it. The original court, to which this question is permitted in England, is the court of admiralty; and the court of appeal is in effect the king's privy council, the members of which are, in consequence of treaties, commissioned under the great seal for this purpose. In 1748, for the more speedy determination of appeals, the judges of the courts of Westminster-hall, though not privy counsellors, were added to the commission then in being. But doubts being conceived concerning the validity of that commission, on account of such addition, the same was confirmed by statute 22 Geo. II. c. 3. with a proviso, that no sentence given under it should be valid, unless a majority of the commissioners present were actually privy counsellors. But this did not, I apprehend, extend to any future commissions: and such an addition became indeed wholly unnecessary in the course of the war which commenced in 1756; since, during the whole of that war, the commission of appeals was regularly attended and all it's decisions conducted by a judge, whose masterly acquaintance with the law of nations was known and revered by every state in Europe.

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IV. I am next to consider such injuries as are cognizable by the courts of the common law. And herein I shall for the present only remark, that all possible injuries whatsoever, that did not fall within the cognizance of either the ecclesiastical, military, or maritime tribunals, are for that very reason within the cognizance of the common law courts of justice. For it is a settled and invariable principle in the laws of England, that every right when with-held must have a remedy, and every injury it's proper redress. The definition and explication of these numerous injuries, and their respective legal remedies, will employ our attention for many subsequent chapters. But, before we conclude the present, I shall just mention two species of injuries, which will properly fall now within our immediate consideration; and which are, either when justice is delayed by an inferior court that has proper cognizance of the cause; or, when such inferior court takes upon itself to examine a cause and decide the merits without any legal authority.

1. The first of these injuries, refusal or neglect of justice, is remedied either by writ of procedendo, or of mandamus. A writ of procedendo ad judicium, issues out of the court of chancery, where judges of any court do delay the parties; for that they will not give judgment, either on the one side or on the other, when they ought so to do. In this case a writ of procedendo shall be awarded, commanding them in the king's name to proceed to judgment; but without specifying any particular judgment, for that (if erroneous) may be set aside in the course of appeal, or by writ of error or false judgment: and, upon farther neglect or refusal, the judges of the inferior court may be punished for their contempt, by writ of attachment returnable in the king's bench or common pleas.

A writ of mandamus is, in general, a command issuing in the king's name from the court of king's bench, and directed to any person, corporation, or inferior court of judicature, within the king's dominions; requiring them to do some particular thing therein specified, which appertains to their office and duty, and which the court of king's bench has previously determined, or at least supposes, to be consonant to right and justice. It is a high prerogative writ, of a most extensively remedial nature: and may be issued in some cases where the injured party has also another more tedious method of redress, as in the case of admission or restitution to an office; but it issues in all cases where the party hath a right to have any thing done, and hath no other specific means of compelling it's performance. A mandamus therefore lies to compel the admission or restoration of the party applying, to any office or franchise of a public nature whether spiritual or temporal; to academical degrees; to the use of a meetinghouse; &c: it lies for the production, inspection, or delivery, of public books and papers; for the surrender of the regalia of a corporation; to oblige bodies corporate to affix their common seal; to compel the holding of a court; and for an infinite number of other purposes, which it is impossible to recite minutely. But at present we are more particularly to remark, that it issues to the judges of any inferior court, commanding them to do justice according to the powers of their office, whenever the same is delayed. For it is the peculiar business of the court of king's bench, to superintend all other inferior tribunals, and therein to inforce the due exercise of those judicial or ministerial powers, with which the crown or legislature have invested them: and this, not only by restraining their excesses, but also by quickening their negligence, and obviating their denial of justice. A mandamus may therefore be had to the courts of the city of London, to enter up judgment; to the spiritual courts to grant an administration, to swear a churchwarden, and the like. This writ is grounded on a suggestion, by the oath of the party injured, of his own right, and the denial of justice below: whereupon, in order more fully to satisfy the court that there is a probable ground for such interposition, a rule is made (except in some general cases, where the probable ground is manifest) directing the party complained of to shew cause why a writ of mandamus should not issue: and, if he shews no sufficient cause, the writ itself is issued, at first in the alternative, either to do thus, or signify some reason to the contrary; to which a return, or answer, must be made at a certain day. And, if the inferior judge, or other person to whom the writ is directed, returns or signifies an insufficient reason, then there issues in the second place a peremptory mandamus, to do the thing absolutely; to which no other return will be admitted, but a certificate of perfect obedience and due execution of the writ. If the inferior judge or other person makes no return, or fails in his respect and obedience, he is punishable for his contempt by attachment. But, if he, at the first, returns a sufficient cause, although it should be false in fact, the court of king's bench will not try the truth of the fact upon affidavits; but will for the present believe him, and proceed no farther on the mandamus. But then the party injured may have an action against him for his false return, and (if found to be false by the jury) shall recover damages equivalent to the injury sustained; together with a peremptory mandamus to the defendant to do his duty. Thus much for the injury of neglect or refusal of justice.

2. The other injury, which is that of encroachment of jurisdiction, or calling one coram non judice, to answer in a court that has no legal cognizance of the cause, is also a grievance, for which the common law has provided a remedy by the writ of prohibition.

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Let us next take a brief, but comprehensive, view of the general nature of equity, as now understood and practiced in our several courts of judicature. I have formerly touched upon it, but imperfectly: it deserves a more complete explication. Yet, as nothing is hitherto extant, that can give a stranger a tolerable idea of the courts of equity subsisting in England, as distinguished from the courts of law, the compiler of these observations cannot but attempt it with diffidence: they, who know them best, are too much employed to find time to write; and they, who have attended but little in those courts, must be often at a loss for materials.

Equity then, in it's true and genuine meaning, is the soul and spirit of all law: positive law is construed, and rational law is made, by it. In this, equity is synonymous to justice; in that, to the true sense and sound interpretation of the rule. But the very terms of a court of equity and a court of law, as contrasted to each other, are apt to confound and mislead us: as if the one judged without equity, and the other was not bound by any law. Whereas every definition or illustration to be met with, which now draws a line between the two jurisdictions, by setting law and equity in opposition to each other, will be found either totally erroneous, or erroneous to a certain degree.

1. Thus in the first place it is said, that it is the business of a court of equity in England to abate the rigour of the common law. But no such power is contended for. Hard was the case of bond-creditors, whose debtor devised away his real estate; rigorous and unjust the rule, which put the devisee in a better condition than the heir: yet a court of equity had no power to interpose. Hard is the common law still subsisting, that land devised, or descending to the heir, shall not be liable to simple contract debts of the ancestor or devisor, although the money was laid out in purchasing the very land; and that the father shall never immediately succeed as heir to the real estate of the son: but a court of equity can give no relief; though in both these instances the artificial reason of the law, arising from feodal principles, has long ago intirely ceased. The like may be observed of the descent of lands to a remote relation of the whole blood, or even their escheat to the lord, in preference to the owner's half-brother; and of the total stop to all justice, by causing the parol to demur, whenever an infant is sued as heir or is party to a real action. In all such cases of positive law, the courts of equity, as well as the courts of law, must say with Ulpian, "hoc quidem perquam durum est, sed ita lex scripta est."

2. It is said, that a court of equity determines according to the spirit of the rule, and not according to the strictness of the letter. But so also does a court of law. Both, for instance, are equally bound, and equally profess, to interpret statutes according to the true intent of the legislature. In general laws all cases cannot be foreseen; or, if foreseen, cannot be expressed: some will arise that will fall within the meaning, though not within the words, of the legislator; and others, which may fall within the letter, may be contrary to his meaning, though not expressly excepted. These cases, thus out of the letter, are often said to be within the equity, of an act of parliament; and so, cases within the letter are frequently out of the equity. Here by equity we mean nothing but the sound interpretation of the law; though the words of the law itself may be too general, too special, or otherwise inaccurate or defective. These then are the cases which, as Grotius says, "lex non exacte definit, sed arbitrio boni viri permittit;" in order to find out the true sense and meaning of the lawgiver, from every other topic of construction. But there is not a single rule of interpreting laws, whether equitably or strictly, that is not equally used by the judges in the courts both of law and equity: the construction must in both be the same; or, if they differ, it is only as one court of law may also happen to differ from another. Each endeavours to fix and adopt the true sense of the law in question; neither can enlarge, diminish, or alter, that sense in a single tittle.

3. Again, it hath been said, that fraud, accident, and trust are the proper and peculiar objects of a court of equity. But every kind of fraud is equally cognizable, and equally adverted to, in a court of law: and some frauds are only cognizable there, as fraud in obtaining a devise of lands, which is always sent out of the equity courts to be there determined. Many accidents are also supplied in a court of law; as, loss of deeds, mistakes in receipts or accounts, wrong payments, deaths which make it impossible to perform a condition literally, and a multitude of other contingencies: and many cannot be relieved even in a court of equity; as, if by accident a recovery is ill suffered, a devise ill executed, a contingent remainder destroyed, or a power of leasing omitted in a family settlement. A technical trust indeed, created by the limitation of a second use, was forced into a court of equity, in the manner formerly mentioned: and this species of trusts, extended by inference and construction, have ever since remained as a kind of peculium in those courts. But there are other trusts, which are cognizable in a court of law: as deposits, and all manner of bailments; and especially that implied contract, so highly beneficial and useful, of having undertaken to account for money received to another's use, which is the ground of an action on the case almost as universally remedial as a bill in equity.

4. Once more; it has been said that a court of equity is not bound by rules or precedents, but acts from the opinion of the judge, founded on the circumstances of every particular case. Whereas the system of our courts of equity is a laboured connected system, governed by established rules, and bound down by precedents, from which they do not depart, although the reason of some of them may perhaps be liable to objection. Thus, the refusing a wife her dower in a trust-estate, yet allowing the husband his curtesy: the holding the penalty of a bond to be merely a security for the debt and interest, yet considering it sometimes as the debt itself, so that the interest shall not exceed that penalty: the distinguishing between a mortgage at five per cent, with a clause of reduction to four, if the interest be regularly paid, and a mortgage at four per cent, with a clause of enlargement to five, if the payment of the interest be deferred; so that the former shall be deemed a conscientious, the latter an unrighteous, bargain: all these, and other cases that might be instanced, are plainly rules of positive law; supported only by the reverence that is shewn, and generally very properly shewn, to a series of former determinations; that the rule of property may be uniform and steady. Nay, sometimes a precedent is so strictly followed, that a particular judgment, founded upon special circumstances, gives rise to a general rule.

In short, if a court of equity in England did really act, as a very ingenious writer in the other part of the island supposes it (from theory) to do, it would rise above all law, either common or statute, and be a most arbitrary legislator in every particular case. No wonder he is so often mistaken. Grotius, or Puffendorf, or any other of the great masters of jurisprudence, would have been as little able to discover, by their own light, the system of a court of equity in England, as the system of a court of law. Especially, as the notions before-mentioned, of the character, power, and practice of a court of equity, were formerly adopted and propagated (though not with approbation of the thing) by our principal antiquarians and lawyers; Spelman, Coke, Lambard, and Selden, and even the great Bacon himself. But this was in the infancy of our courts of equity, before their jurisdiction was settled, and when the chancellors themselves, partly from their ignorance of law (being frequently bishops or statesmen) partly from ambition and lust of power (encouraged by the arbitrary principles of the age they lived in) but principally from the narrow and unjust decisions of the courts of law, had arrogated to themselves such unlimited authority, as hath totally been disclaimed by their successors for now above a century past. The decrees of a court of equity were then rather in the nature of awards, formed on the sudden pro re nata, with more probity of intention than knowledge of the subject; founded on no settled principles, as being never designed, and therefore never used, for precedents. But the systems of jurisprudence, in our courts both of law and equity, are now equally artificial systems, founded in the same principles of justice and positive law; but varied by different usages in the forms and mode of their proceedings: the one being originally derived (though much reformed and improved) from the feodal customs, as they prevailed in different ages in the Saxon and Norman judicatures; the other (but with equal improvements) from the imperial and pontificial formularies, introduced by their clerical chancellors.

The suggestion indeed of every bill, to give jurisdiction to the courts of equity, (copied from those early times) is, that the complainant hath no remedy at the common law. But he, who should from thence conclude, that no case is judged of in equity where there might have been relief at law, and at the same time casts his eye on the extent and variety of the cases in our equity-reports, must think the law a dead letter indeed. The rules of property, rules of evidence, and rules of interpretation, in both courts, are, or should be, exactly the same: both ought to adopt the best, or must cease to be courts of justice. Formerly some causes, which now no longer exist, might occasion a different rule to be followed in one court, from what was afterwards adopted in the other, as founded in the nature and reason of the thing: but, the instant those causes ceased, the measure of substantial justice ought to have been the same in both. Thus the penalty of a bond, originally contrived to evade the absurdity of those monkish constitutions which prohibited taking interest for money, was therefore very pardonably considered as the real debt in the courts of law, when the debtor neglected to perform his agreement for the return of the loan with interest: for the judges could not, as the law then stood, give judgment that the interest should be specifically paid. But when afterwards the taking of interest became legal, as the necessary companion of commerce, nay after the statute of 37 Hen. VIII. c. 9. had declared the debt or loan itself to be "the just and true intent" for which the obligation was given, their narrow minded successors still adhered wilfully and technically to the letter of the antient precedents, and refused to consider the payment of principal, interest, and costs, as a full satisfaction of the bond. At the same time more liberal men, who sate in the courts of equity, construed the instrument, according to it's "just and true intent," as merely a security for the loan: in which light it was certainly understood by the parties, at least after these determinations; and therefore this construction should have been universally received. So in mortgages, being only a landed as the other is a personal security for the money lent, the payment of principal, interest, and costs ought at any time, before judgment executed, to have saved the forfeiture in a court of law, as well as in a court of equity. And the inconvenience as well as injustice, of putting different constructions in different courts upon one and the same transaction, obliged the parliament at length to interfere, and to direct by the statutes 4 & 5 Ann. c. 16. and 7 Geo. II. c. 20. that, in the cases of bonds and mortgages, what had long been the practice of the courts of equity should also for the future be followed in the courts of law.

Again; neither a court of equity nor of law can vary men's wills or agreements, or (in other words) make wills or agreements for them. Both are to understand them truly, and therefore both of them uniformly. One court ought not to extend, nor the other abridge, a lawful provision deliberately settled by the parties, contrary to it's just intent. A court of equity, no more than a court of law, can relieve against a penalty in the nature of stated damages; as a rent of 5 l. an acre for ploughing up antient meadow: nor against a lapse of time, where the time is material to the contract; as in covenants for renewal of leases. Both courts will equitably construe, but neither pretends to control or change, a lawful stipulation or engagement.

The rules of decision are in both courts equally apposite to the subjects of which they take cognizance. Where the subject-matter is such as requires to be determined secundum aequum et bonum, as generally upon actions on the case, the judgments of the courts of law are guided by the most liberal equity. In matters of positive right, both courts must submit to and follow those antient and invariable maxims "quae relicta sunt et tradita." Both follow the law of nations, and collect it from history and the most approved authors of all countries, where the question is the object of that law: as in case of the privileges of embassadors, hostages, or ransom-bills. In mercantile transactions they follow the marine law, and argue from the usages and authorities received in all maritime countries. Where they exercise a concurrent jurisdiction, they both follow the law of the proper forum: in matters originally of ecclesiastical cognizance, they both equally adopt the canon or imperial law, according to the nature of the subject; and, if a question came before either, which was properly the object of a foreign municipal law, they would both receive information what is the rule of the country, and would both decide accordingly.

Such then being the parity of law and reason which governs both species of courts, wherein (it may be asked) does their essential difference consist? It principally consists in the different modes of administring justice in each; in the mode of proof, the mode of trial, and the mode of relief. Upon these, and upon two other accidental grounds of jurisdiction, which were formerly driven into those courts by narrow decisions of the courts of law, viz. the true construction of securities for money lent, and the form and effect of a trust or second use; upon these main pillars hath been gradually erected that structure of jurisprudence, which prevails in our courts of equity, and is inwardly bottomed upon the same substantial foundations as the legal system which hath hitherto been delineated in these commentaries; however different they may appear in their outward form, from the different taste of their architects.

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 4, Article 3, Section 2, Clause 1, Document 3
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a3_2_1s3.html
The University of Chicago Press

Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765--1769. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

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