The injunction was granted and the law held to apply to combinations of laborers as well as capitalists. This decree was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals.

6.-United States v. Patterson et al., 55 Fed. Rep., 605; 59 Fed. Rep., 280. (Circuit Court, Massachusetts. February 28 and June 7, 1893.) Cash register case. Indictment of members of a combination formed for the purpose of controlling the price of cash registers. A demurrer was sustained as to certain counts of the indictment and overruled as to others and leave granted to file special demurrers to the counts which were sustained. The special demurrers were heard on June 1, 1893, and the demurrers overruled, the court adhering to its former ruling. Letter of Attorney-General dated October 16, 1893, shows case was allowed to lapse because of consolidation of complaining witness with defendants. 7.-United States v. E. C. Knight Company (Sugar Trust,) 60 Fed. Rep.,

306; 60 Fed. Rep., 934; 156 U. S., 1. (Circuit Court, E. D. Pennsylvania. January 30, 1894.) (Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. March 26, 1894.) United States Supreme Court. January 21, 1895.

Bill in equity to enjoin the operations of the Sugar Trust, charged with a violation of the anti-trust law, filed May 2, 1892. The bill was dismissed, January 30, 1894. Appeal was taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals and the decree affirmed. From this decision an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the decree of dismissal was affirmed.

Note:-For additional Anti-Trust suits during President Taft's administration see Appendix.

PART III

SYLLABUS OF EQUITY

JURISDICTION, PLEADING AND PRACTICE

Patriotic men-signers of the Declaration of Independence and learned in the law-in the constitutional convention opposed the extension of the Federal judicial power to equity, which applies the principles of right and justice to the legal adjustment of differences, where the law, by reason of its universality is deficient, because they thought that the only safeguards of liberty lay in each State retaining all the powers which properly belong to an independent nation.1

But, Dr. William Samuel Johnson, who studied law at Cambridge, and acquired distinction as a pleader and orator had no such distrust. As the head of the Connecticut delegation to the convention he suggested that the draft of what afterwards. became article 3, as reported by the committee of detail be amended so as to extend judicial jurisdiction to "all cases in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties, etc."

Strenuous objection was made to the proposed change by George Read, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a delegate from Delaware. James Madison, who afterwards became president of the United States, also opposed the enlargement of judicial jurisdiction.

Read objected to the vesting of dual powers in the same court, and Madison feared that equity would give a general right of expounding the Federal Constitution beyond cases of a judiciary nature. By the votes of New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, on August 27, 1787, at the close of the debate,

1 Madison Papers, p. 481.

Dr. Johnson's amendment was incorporated in the draft of the instrument to be presented to the people of the several States for ratification.

The delegates representing Delaware and Maryland, voted against the amendment, and the delegates from Massachusetts, New Jersey and North Carolina, were absent when the roll was called. Rhode Island, being satisfied with the Articles of Confederation, was not represented in the constitutional convention.1

Instead of yielding to the decision of the majority the opponents of the amendment as anti-federalists by means of a bitter and party agitation sought to prevent ratification of the great constitutional charter. They went about the country and, to confound and perplex the voters, kept asking:

"What need of the word 'equity?' What equitable causes can grow out of the Constitution, and laws of the United States?"

These tactics, while they did not prevent the ratification of the instrument, revised and corrected by Dr. Johnson, kept Alexander Hamilton and other able men busy explaining and defending the constitution.

As Publius in The Federalist, Hamilton answered the interrogatories by saying:

"There is hardly a subject of litigation between individuals which may not involve those ingredients of fraud, accident, trust or hardship, which would render the matter an object of equitable, rather than of legal jurisdiction, as the distinction is known and established in several of the States. It is the peculiar province for instance of a court of equity to relieve against what are called hard bargains: these are contracts in which, though there may have been no direct fraud or deceit sufficient to invalidate them in a court of law; yet there may have been some undue and unconscionable advantage taken of the necessities or misfortunes of one of the parties, which a court of equity would not tolerate. In such cases, where foreigners are concerned on either side, it would

1 Madison Papers, p. 481.

be impossible for the Federal judicatories to do justice without an equitable as well as a legal jurisdiction. Agreements to convey lands claimed under the grants of different States, may afford another example of the necessity of an equitable jurisdiction in the Federal courts.1

Other federalists by way of answer quoted this passage from Blackstone's introduction to his commentaries:

"Courts of equity are established for the benefit of the subject; to detect latent frauds and concealments, which the process of courts of law are not adapted to reach; to enforce the execution of such matters of trust and confidence as are binding in conscience, though not cognizable in a court of law; to deliver from such dangers as are owing to misfortune or oversight; and to give a more specific relief, and more adapted to the circumstances of the case, than can always be obtained by the generality of the rules of the positive or common law. This is the business of courts of equity, which however are only conversant in matters of property." 2

Hamilton and the other federalists might have supplemented their answers by explaining that modern definitions of equity have rarely excelled that of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, who in the early centuries said, it was "the correction of the law-where it is defective by reason of its universality." 3

Thus, it was, that the system of equity which is not a capricious relaxation of the strict rules of law, but having a "sisterly entireness" of its own, became part of the paramount law of the land, and has since been administered by the Supreme Court, the Circuit Courts of Appeal, the Circuit Court (now abolished), the District Courts, the Court of Claims and the Court of Private Land Claims. The other courts having jurisdiction at equity and common law, in some respects analogous to the Federal courts are: the District Court of Alaska, the Court of Appeals of the Indian

1 The Federalist No. LXXX.

2 Blackstone's Commentaries-introduction.

3 Ethica Nicomacha, Lib. V. C.