202 U. S. Argument for Appellants. as may be, to the practice in state courts, has no application to equity or admiralty causes. Blease v. Garlington, 92 U. S. 8; Bucher v. Cheshire R. R., 125 U. S. 582. Though state legislatures may abolish, in state courts, the distinction between actions at law and actions in equity, by enacting that there shall be but one form of action, which shall be called "civil action," yet the distinction between the two sorts of proceedings cannot be thereby obliterated in the Federal courts. Thompson v. R. R. Companies, 6 Wall. 134. The allegations of the bill raise Federal questions by setting out the claim of title by complainants and the clouds cast on such title by the defendants, claiming under a treaty and various laws of the United States and its predecessor in title and sovereignty as well as various acts of the legislature of California which are in violation of the Constitution. The admissions and averments in the answer are in answer to the charge in the bill, that the city's claim to the river and its waters and the waters in complainants' lands, is rested in part upon a construction of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which construction, and that alleged to be placed upon the act of Congress of March 3, 1851, are set forth with particularity. Whether such admissions in defendant's answer to the averments of the bill in this respect, will be considered as strengthening such averments of the bill, must depend upon whether this court will look beyond the bill in determining whether a Federal question is presented there; and if so, whether there be any matter in the answer defeating such jurisdiction. In either event, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is fairly drawn into this cause, and whether the averments of the bill alone, or such averments and the admissions of the answer, he considered, the construction of that instrument must be had in order to a proper determination of the controversy here. The amended bill is framed according to the rules of equity pleading established by this court under § 917 of the Revised Statutes, and in all respects follows well settled practice in Argument for Appellants. 202 U.S. equity. Under Equity Rule 21, the complainant has a right to state defendant's claims and in certain suits they form the very gist of the action. Having been properly pleaded, it is for the court to determine whether or not they form a logical and necessary portion of complainants' case. If they do, there is no doubt that the court may regard them in determining its jurisdiction. When the claim of the defendant is no longer a supposed pretense or excuse, but a specific cloud on title, evidenced by written instruments and records and specific acts, the plaintiff is unable to state his cause of action at all without alleging it. Such allegations are no longer the charging part of the bill but its very substance. If not alleged, evidence will not be received regarding them. Foster's Federal Practice, § 67; Crockett v. Lee, 7 Wheat. 522. The acts of the legislature of the State of California complained of are prima facie valid and a cloud on title, and complainants have a right in equity to have the same removed and the claims of defendant thereunder quieted. 7 Cyc. 255, Article "Cloud on Title." Courts of equity always show the highest solicitude regarding land titles and will afford a remedy appropriate to the circumstances of each case. Sharon v. Tucker, 144 U. S. 533. Complainants claim protection under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in that the legislative acts and municipal acts and ordinances pleaded, deprive, or attempt to deprive, them of their property without due process of law. If the complainants have the title in their lands which they allege, an act of the legislature of. California granting to defendant the exclusive right to all the waters in the river Los Angeles is an attempt to deprive complainants of property protected by the Constitution. As a matter of fact, it has unsettled all land titles in the valley through which the Los Angeles river runs. Defendant claims every benefit of these legislative acts. It denies that complainants ever owned any of the waters in their lands. Coupled with this, it attempts the disclaimer as to "vested" rights. Having denied the vested rights, the disclaimer becomes but another way by which defendant asserts title. The proposition is untenable that the city of Los Angeles, even through its common council, could disclaim, deny or in any way affect the validity of a legislative enactment. No power outside of a judicial tribunal is clothed with any such authority. It would be a dangerous doctrine to establish in this country, to hold that the exercise of powers by the legislature of a State, or the effect of its enactments, can be so revised and annulled by a party to a suit. No authority is anywhere shown as coming from the city council, authorizing or empowering its counsel, appearing in this case, to make any such disclaimer as is attempted to be made in the answer. The acts, ordinances and charters in favor of defendant, alleged in the bill, impair the obligation of the contracts made through and by the several patents of the United States to the predecessors in title of complainants. The complainants are subjected to the deprivation of property rights, privileges and immunities secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, under color of the statutes of the State of California, referred to in the bill, and in violation of section 1979, Title XXIV of the Revised Statutes. Mr. W. B. Matthews and Mr. J. R. Scott, with whom Mr. Henry T. Lee was on the brief, for appellee: As the requisite diversity of citizenship does not exist, the court has no jurisdiction of this suit unless it is one arising under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States. A case arises under the Constitution, a law or a treaty of the United States, only when its correct decision depends upon the construction of the Constitution or of such law or treaty. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 379; Osborne v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 822; Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U. S. 264; Argument for Appellee. 202 U. S. Bankers' Casualty Co. v. Minn., St. P. &c. Ry., 192 U. S. 371, 381; New Orleans v. Benjamin, 153 U. S. 411. The jurisdiction of the court must be made to appear from complainants' statement of their own claims, and not from their statement of the nature of the defendant's claim. While the appellants, in the prayer of the bill, ask for a decree quieting their title to the lands described in the bill, it is evident that they did not intend by their pleading to state a cause of action to quiet title under the old chancery practice. See Boston &c. Mining Co. v. Montana Ore Co., 188 U. S. 632. It is apparent that this bill was intended to be framed under section 738, Code of Civil Procedure of California. This statute is similar to statutes in many other States, upon the same subject, and it has the effect of enlarging the ancient jurisdiction of courts of equity in respect to suits to quiet title. Wehrman v. Conklin, 155 U. S. 314, 325. These enlarged equitable rights are administered in Federal courts, so far as they do not conflict with any provision of the Constitution or with the statutes of the United States. Broderick's Will, 21 Wall. 503; Holland v. Challen, 110 U. S. 15, 26; United States v. Wilson, 118 U. S. 86; Frost v. Spitley, 110 U. S. 557. Section 738 of the Code of Civil Procedure of California, was copied from the old Practice Act of that State, Laws Cal. 1851, pp. 92, 93, in reference to which the Supreme Court of California, in the case of Head v. Fordyce, 17 California, 151, said: "The act was intended to embrace every description of claim whereby the plaintiff might be deprived of the property, or its title clouded, or its value depreciated, or whereby the plaintiff might be incommoded or damnified by the assertion of an outstanding title, already held, or to grow out of the adverse pretension." The allegations of the bill, that the adverse claims of the city to the waters of the Los Angeles river, and the waters in the lands of the complainants, are based upon an erroneous construction of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, etc., are un necessary to a statement of appellants' case in a suit to quiet title to such property under the enlarged equitable jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. These allegations are plainly intended to raise a Federal question where none would otherwise appear, and they are, therefore, improper. Tennessee v. Union & Planters' Bank, 152 U. S. 454; Boston &c. Mining Co. v. Montana Ore Co., 188 U. S. 632; Arkansas v. Kansas & Texas Coal Co, 183 U. S. 185; Florida Central &c. Railroad v. Bell, 176 U. S. 321. The bill discloses an entire misconception, on the part of the appellants, of the nature and purpose of a suit to remove a cloud, in two particulars: first, such a suit is aimed at an instrument or record and not at mere threats, claims, or pretensions; and, second, it is not available for the purpose of having a statute canceled, or adjudged to be void. Castro v. Barry, 79 California, 443, 446; Pixley v. Huggins, 15 California, 127; Parker v. Shannon, 121 Illinois, 452; Burr v. Hunt, 18 California, 303; Hannewinkle v. Georgetown, 15 Wall. 547. It is manifest that, by the force of the terms used, a statute, which is alleged to be unconstitutional, cannot, at the same time, be alleged to constitute a cloud upon a title. If it is unconstitutional, it is a nullity. An unconstitutional law is void and is no law. Siebold's Case, 100 U. S. 376. This is a general rule of equity in suits to remove a cloud on a title and it is embodied in sections 3412 and 3413, of the Civil Code of California, which provide substantially that where an instrument is void on its face or upon the face of another instrument which is necessary to the use of the former in evidence, it is not to be deemed capable of creating a cloud. Williams v. Corcoran, 46 California, 553. So in this case the statutes and charters which are declared in the bill to be obnoxious to the Constitution of the United States, if they are subject to that objection, are void on their face, and therefore do not constitute a cloud on the title of appellant. The question of the repugnancy of the acts of the legislature |