Opinion of the Court. MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after making the above statement, delivered the opinion of the court. Defendants set up in their answers and insisted, both before the appellate court and the Supreme Court of Illinois, that, if plaintiff had any lien upon the raft at all for his towage services, it was a maritime lien, enforceable only in the District Court of the United States as a court of admiralty. This is the only Federal question presented in the case. By article three, section two, of the Constitution, the judicial power of the general government is declared to extend to "all cases of maritime and admiralty jurisdiction;" and, by section nine of the original judiciary act of September 24, 1789, c. 20, 1 Stat. 73, 76, it was enacted "that the District Courts shall have, exclusively of the courts of the several States, exclusive original cognizance of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors, in all cases, the right of a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it." This language is substantially repeated in subdivision eight of Rev. Stat. § 563, wherein it is expressly stated that "such jurisdiction shall be exclusive, except in the particular cases where jurisdiction of such causes and seizures is given to the Circuit Courts." The scope of the admiralty jurisdiction under these clauses was considered in a number of cases, arising not long after the District Courts were established, notably so in that of De Lovio v. Boit, 2 Gall. 398, wherein Mr. Justice Story brought his great learning to bear upon an exhaustive examination of all the prior authorities upon the subject both in England and in America. But the exclusive character of that jurisdiction was never called to the attention of this court until 1866, when the States had begun to enact statutes giving liens upon vessels for causes of action cognizable in admiralty, and authorizing suits in rem in the state courts for their enforcement. The validity of these laws had been expressly adjudicated in a number of cases in Ohio, Alabama and California. The earliest case arising in this court was that of The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411, in which was considered a statute of California creating a lien for the breach Opinion of the Court. of any contract for the transportation of persons or property, and also providing that actions for such demands might be brought directly against the vessel. The act further provided that the complaint should designate the vessel by name; that the summons should be served upon the master, or person in charge, the vessel attached, and, in case of judgment recovered by the plaintiff, sold by the sheriff. An action having been brought by a passenger before a justice of the peace of the city of San Francisco for failure to furnish him with proper and necessary food, water and berths, the defence was interposed that the cause of action was one of which the courts of admiralty had exclusive jurisdiction. The case finally reached this court, where the defence was sustained, the court holding that the contract for the transportation of the plaintiff was a maritime contract; that the action against the steamer by name, authorized by the statute of California, was a proceeding in the nature and with the incidents of a suit in admiralty. Upon this point Mr. Justice Field observed: "The distinguishing and characteristic feature of such suit is that the vessel or thing proceeded against is itself seized and impleaded as the defendant, and is judged and sentenced accordingly. It is this dominion of the suit in admiralty over the vessel or thing itself which gives to the title made under its decrees validity against all the world. By the common law process, whether of mesne attachment or execution, property is reached only through a personal defendant, and then only to the extent of his title. Under a sale, therefore, upon a judgment in a common law proceeding, the title acquired can never be better than that possessed by the personal defendant. It is his title, and not the property itself, which is sold." The court also held that the statute of California to the extent to which it authorized actions in rem against vessels for causes of action cognizable in admiralty, invested her courts with admiralty jurisdiction, and to that extent was void. At the same term arose the case of The Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555, in which a statute of Iowa giving a lien for injuries to persons or property, and providing a remedy in rem against the vessel, was held to be obnoxious to the exclusive jurisdiction VOL. CLXXVII-41 Opinion of the Court. of the Federal courts. Speaking of the common law remedy, saved by the statute, Mr. Justice Miller observed: "But the remedy pursued in the Iowa courts in the case before us, is in no sense a common law remedy. It is a remedy partaking of all the essential features of an admiralty proceeding in rem. The statute provides that the vessel may be sued and made defendant without proceeding against the owners or even mentioning their names. That a writ may be issued and the vessel seized, on filing a petition similar in substance to a libel. That after a notice in the nature of a monition, the vessel may be condemned and an order made for her sale, if the liability is established for which she was sued. Such is the general character of the steamboat laws of the Western States." The same principle was applied in the case of The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624, to a statute of Alabama under which contracts of affreightment were authorized to be enforced in rem in the state courts by proceedings the same in form as those used in the courts of admiralty. This was also held to be unconstitutional. The principle of these cases was restated in The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 579, although the question settled by that case was that materialmen furnishing repairs and supplies to a vessel in her home port do not acquire thereby a lien upon the vessel by the general maritime law. To the same effect is The J. E. Rumbell, 148 U. S. 1, in which a lien by a state law for such repairs and supplies was given precedence of a prior mortgage. Finally, in the case of The Glide, 167 U. S. 606, it was held that the enforcement of such a lien upon a vessel, created by a statute of Massachusetts, for repairs and supplies in her home port, for which a remedy in personam may be had in admiralty, was exclusively within the admiralty jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and that the statute of Massachusetts, to the extent that it provided for a proceeding in rem, and for a sale of the vessel, was unconstitutional and void. See also Moran v. Sturges, 154 U. S. 256. The rule to be deduced from these cases, so far as they are pertinent to the one under consideration, is this: That wherever any lien is given by a state statute for a cause of action cognizable in admiralty, either in rem or in personam, proceedings Opinion of the Court. in rem to enforce such lien are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the admiralty courts. But the converse of this proposition is equally true, that if a lien upon a vessel be created for a claim over which a court of admiralty has no jurisdiction in any form, such lien may be enforced in the courts of the State. Thus, as the admiralty jurisdiction does not extend to a contract for building a vessel, or to work done or materials furnished in its construction, The Jefferson, (People's Ferry Co. v. Beers,) 20 How. 393; The Capitol, (Roach v. Chapman,) 22 How. 129, we held in Edwards v. Elliott, 21 Wall. 532, that, in respect to such contracts, it was competent for the States to enact such laws as their legislatures might deem just and expedient, and to provide for their enforcement in rem. The same principle was applied in Johnson v. Chicago &c. Elevator Co., 119 U. S. 388, to a statute of Illinois giving a lien upon a vessel for damage done to a building abutting on the water, upon the ground that the court had previously held that there was no jurisdiction in admiralty for damage done by a ship to a structure affixed to the land. The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20; Ex parte Phoenix Ins. Co., 118 U. S. 610. There was really another sound reason for the decision in the fact that the suit was in personam, with an attachment given upon the property of the defendant, which, as we shall see hereafter, is quite a different case from a proceeding in rem. To establish the proposition that the proceeding in this case was an invasion of the exclusive jurisdiction of the admiralty courts defendants are bound to show, first, that the contract to tow a raft is a maritime contract; second, that the proceeding taken was a suit in rem within the cases above cited, and not within the exception of a common law remedy, which section 563 was never designed to forestall. The first of these conditions may be readily admitted. That a contract to tow another vessel is a maritime contract is too clear for argument, and there is no distinction in principle between a vessel and a raft. Whether the performance of such a contract gives rise to a lien upon the raft for the towage bill admits of more doubt; indeed, the authorities, as to how far a raft is within the jurisdiction of admiralty, are in hopeless con Opinion of the Court. fusion, but for the purposes of this case we may admit that such lien exists. But, if existing, it would not oust or supplant the common law lien dependent upon possession. The real question is whether the proceeding taken is within the exception "of saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it." It was certainly not a common law action, but a suit in equity. But it will be noticed that the reservation is not of an action at common law, but of a common law remedy; and a remedy does not necessarily imply an action. A remedy is defined by Bouvier as "the means employed to enforce a right, or redress an injury." While, as stated by him, remedies for non-fulfillment of contracts are generally by action, they are by no means universally so. Thus, a landlord has at common law a remedy by distress for his rent-a right also given to him for the purpose of exacting compensation for damages resulting from the trespass of cattle. A bailee of property has a remedy for work done upon such property, or for expenses incurred in keeping it, by detention of possession. An innkeeper has a similar remedy upon the goods of his guests to the amount of his charges for their entertainment; and a carrier has a like lien upon the thing carried. There is also a common law remedy for nuisances by abatement; a right upon the part of a person assaulted to resist the assailant, even to his death; a right of recaption of goods stolen or unlawfully taken, and a public right against disturbers of the peace by compelling them to give sureties for their good behavior. All these remedies are independent of an action. Some of the cases already cited recognize the distinction between a common law action and a common law remedy. Thus in The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411, 431, it is said of the saving clause of the judiciary act: "It is not a remedy in the common law courts which is saved, but a common law remedy." To same effect is Moran v. Sturges, 154 U. S. 256, 276. In the case under consideration the remedy chosen by the plaintiff was the detention of the raft for his towage charges. That a carrier has a lien for his charges upon the thing carried, and may retain possession of such thing until such charges are |