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Show 40G ArrENDIX. 556.) These cases will 5:peak for themselves; but I may remark as to the last one, that the very same objection was made there and here. The party wa convicted of contempt in not obeying a deere<'. He claimed his discharge on lwbeas corpus b cause the chancellor had no jurisdiction to make the decree, being interested in the cause himself. But the Court of Queen\; Bench held thai if iha.t wa.s a defence it should haYc been made on the tri al for contempt, and the conviction was conclusive. We cannot choose bnt hold tltc same rule here. Any other would be a violation of the ln.w which is established ~md sustained by all anihority and all reason. But certainly the want of jurisdiction alleged in this case would not even have been a defclt c:e on the trial. The proposition that a court is powerless to pu11ish for disorderly conduct, or disobedience of its process in a case which it ought ultimately to dismiss, for want of jurisdiction, is not only unsupported by judicial authority, but we think it is new even as an argument at the bar. "'\Vc, ourselves, have heard many cases through and through before we became convinced that it was our duty to remit the parties io another tribunal. But we never thought that our process could be defied in uch cases more than in others. There arc some proceedings in which the want of juris diction would be seen at the fir::.t blush; but there arc others in which the court must inquire into all the facts before it can possibly know whether it has jurisdiction or not. Any one who obstructs or bafilcs a judicial investigation for that purpose, is unques tionably guilty of a crime, for which he may, and onght to be tried, convicted, and puni::;hed. Suppose a local action to be brought in the wrong county; this is a defence to the action, but a defence which must be made out like any other. \Vhile it is pending, neither a party, nor an officer, r ... or any other person, can safely insult the court, or resist its order. The court may not have power to decide upon the merits of the case; but it has undoubted power to try whether the wrong was done within its jurisdiction or not. Suppose l\Ir. \Villiamson to be called before the circuit court of ihe United States as a witness in a trial for murder, alleged to be committed on the high seas. Can he refuse to be sworn and at his trial for contempt, justify himself on the ground that the murder' wns committed within ihc limits of a State, and thereby triable only in a St:lte court? If he can, he can justify perjury for the same reason. But i';UCh a defence for either crime, has never been heard of since the beginning of the world. 1\luch less can it be shown, after conviction, as a ground for declaring the sentence void. The wish which the petitioner is convicted of disobeying was logal on its APPENDIX. face. It enjoined upon him a simple duty, which he ought to have understood and performed without h esitation. That he did not do so is a fac~ conclusively es tabli~hed by the adjudication which the court made upon it. I ay the wish "·as legal, because the act of Congress ~ivcs to all the courts of the Uuited States the power" to issue writs of habeas corpus, when necessary for the ex ercise of their jurisdiction, and agreeable to the principl e~• and usages of law." Chi .f Justice Marshall decided in Burr's trial, that the principles and usages referred to in this act were those of the cormnon law. A part of the jurisdiction of the district court consists in r estoring fngiti' c slaves; and the habeas corpus may be used in aid of it when necessary. It was awarded here u pon the application of u person who complained that hi,· slaves were detained from him. Unless they were fugitiYe slaves they could not be slaYcs at all, according to the petitioner's own doctrine, and if the judge took that view of the subject, he was bound to award the writ: . If the persons mentioned on it had turned out on the hearing to be fugltlvc·s from labor, the duty of the district judge to r estore them, or hi~ power to brino- them before him on a lwbfas corpus, would have been cl1sputed by b none except the very few who think that the constitution and law on that snbject ought not to be ohcyed. The duty of the court to enquire into the facts on which its j uri. diction depends is as plain as its duty 1~ot to .exc~ed it when it i~ ascertained. But l\lr. 'ViHiamson stopped the mYestlgailon in li,mine; and the consecp.1ence is, that c\·cry thing in the case remains unsettled, whether the persons named in the writ were sla.Yes or free . \Vhethcr :Mr. ' Vhceler was the owner of them.- whether they were unlawfully taken from him - whether the court had. jurisdiction to rcstoi:c t them- all these points arc left open for w:mt of a proper return. H 1 ~ not our bus;ncss to say how they ought to be decided i but we doubt not that the learned and upright magistrate who pres1. de s m. t}1 e (r 1 8 t 1.1· ct court would have decided them ns rightly as any judge in all ihc country. illr. "'\Villiamson had no righ t to arrest the inquiry because he supposed that arl error would be committed on the question of jurisdiction, or :my other question. If the asserti·O ns w h.tC 11 1n ·s couns el J10W• make on t.h e law and the facts be correct, he preven ted au adjudication jn favor of ln~ pro.tegc ,, and thus did them a wrono-, which is 'Probably a greater ofrencc m lns 0 "'.11 eyrs than any thing he cobu ld do no-a·m s t l\1 r. 'Vl1 eclcr's rio-hts There IS · no reason to believe th n.t any trouble whaieYer would ha.ve come out of the case, if he had. made a true, full, and spe ·ial return of all the facts; for then the ri 1rh ts of nll pnr tics, black and white, could have been settled, or 0 • 1 the matter dismissed for want of jurisdictiou if the bw s.o reqmrec · |