Kansas v. Colorado

206 U.S. 46, 27 S. Ct. 655, 51 L. Ed. 956, 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1145
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedMay 13, 1907
Docket3, Original
StatusPublished
Cited by318 cases

This text of 206 U.S. 46 (Kansas v. Colorado) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U.S. 46, 27 S. Ct. 655, 51 L. Ed. 956, 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1145 (1907).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Brewer,

after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

While we said in overruling the demurrer that “ this court, speaking broadly,' has jurisdiction,” we contemplated further consideration of both the fact and the extent of our jurisdiction, to be fully, determined after the facts' were presented. We therefore commence with this inquiry. And first of our jurisdiction of the controversy between Kansas and Colorado.

This suit' involves no question of boundary or of the limits of territorial jurisdiction. Other and incorporeal rights • are claimed by the respective litigants. Controversies between the States are becoming frequent, and in the rapidly changing conditions of life and business are likely to become still more so. Involving as they do the rights of. political communities, which in many respects are sovereign and independent, they present not infrequently questions of far-reaching import and of exceeding difficulty.

It is well, therefore, to consider the foundations of our jurisdiction over controversies between States. It is no longer open to question that by the Constitution a nation was brought into being, and that that instrument was not merely operative to establish a closer union, or league of States. Whatever powers of government were granted to the Nation or reserved to the States (and for the description and limitation of those powers we must always accept the Constitution as alone and absolutely controlling), there was created a nation to be known as the United States of America, and as such then assumed its place among the nations of the World.

The first resolution passed by the convention that framed the Constitution, sitting as a committee of- the whole, was: “Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that a national government ought to be established, consisting of a *81 supreme legislative, judiciary, and executive.” 1 Eliot’s Debates, 151.

In M’Culloch v. State of Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 404, Chief Justice Marshall said:

“The government of the Union, then (whatever may be the influence of this fact on the case), is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people.' In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.”

See also Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 324, opinion by Mr. Justice Story.

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 441, Chief Justice Taney observed:

“The new government was not a mere change in a dynasty, or in a form of government, leaving the nation or sovereignty the same, and clothed with all the rights, and bound by all the obligations of the preceding one. But, when the present United States came into existence under the new government, it was a new political body, a new nation, then for the first time taking its place in the family of nations.”

And in Miller on the-Constitution of the United States, p. 83, referring to the adoption of the Constitution, that learned jurist said: “It was then that a nation was born.”

In the Constitution are provisions in separate articles for the three great departments of government — legislative, executive and judicial. But there is this significant difference in the grants of powers to these departments: The first article, treating of legislative powers, does not make a general grant of legislative power. It reads: “Article I, Section 1. AlJ legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress,” etc.; and then in Article VIII mentions and defines the legislative powers that are granted. By reason of the fact that there is no general grant of legislative power it has become an accepted constitutional rule that this is a government'of enumerated powers.'

*82 In M’Culloch v. State of Maryland, supra, 405, Chief Justice Marshall said:

"This government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent to have required to be enforced by all those arguments which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge. That principle is now universally admitted.”

On the other hand, in Article III, which treats of the judicial' department — and this is important for bur present consideration — we find that section 1 reads that ' “ the judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Gongress may. from time.to' time ordain and establish.” By this is granted the entire judicial power of the Nation. Section 2, which provides that "the •judicial power shall extend to all cases, in Jaw and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws .of the United States,” etc., is not a limitation nor an enumeration. It is a definite declaration, a provision that the judicial- power shall, extend to —that is, shall include — the several matters particularly mentioned, leaving unrestricted the general grant of the entire judicial power. There may be, of course, limitations on that grant of power, but if there are any they must be expressed, for otherwise the general grant would vest in the courts all the judicial power which the new Nation was capable of exercising. Construing this article in the early case of Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, the court held that the judicial power of the Supreme Court extended to a suit brought against a State by a citizen of another State. In announcing his opinion in the case, Mr. Justice Wilson said (p. 453):

“This question, important in itself, will depend on others more important still; and may, perhaps,-be ultimately resolved into one, no less radical than this — Do the people of the United States form a nation? ”'

In referencé to this question- attention may, however, properly be called to Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1.

*83 The decision in Chisholm v. Georgia led to the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, withdrawing from the judicial power of the United States every suit in law or equity commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State or citizens or subjects of a foreign state. This Amendment refers only to suits and actions by individuals, leaving undisturbed the jurisdiction- over suits or actions by one State against another. As said by Chief Justice Marshall in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 407: “The amendment, therefore, extended to suits commenced or prosecuted by individuals, but not to those brought by States.” See also South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286.

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Bluebook (online)
206 U.S. 46, 27 S. Ct. 655, 51 L. Ed. 956, 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1145, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kansas-v-colorado-scotus-1907.