Courts in Chicago. But it may be sufficient to say that the attorney of one of these railroads recently stated that he had never lost a case for his company in these courts. Federal judges take a specific oath to do justice between the rich and the poor alike, and it is not perceived what claim property as such can legitimately make upon the attention of these courts. But it is a notorious fact that the jurisdiction of the state courts are set aside by the removal acts and all corporations, which can use the Federal jurisdictions. The Constitution itself provides that the Federal Courts shall have jurisdiction of controversies between citizens of different states. For the purposes of removal corporations are held to be citizens of the state of their creation, because conclusively presumed to be composed of citizens of that state, and these removals have been and often are made in the face of facts which overcame that presumption if it ever should have obtained.

Thus, a number of men residing in Chicago, and who are citizens of Illinois, procure the incorporation of a company under the laws of New Jersey. These men own the stock of the company, the business property may all be located in Illinois. These men demand the protecting powers of the state authorities for their New Jersey company. Yet, if the company is sued in the courts of Illinois, by a citizen of Illinois, the company removes the cause to the Federal Court on the ground that there is a controversy between citizens of different states. The point is, a corporation is not a citizen. A citizen is a person. For a corporation is an artificial body, and a modern corporation is not the

persons who procure the charter. They are not empowered as incorporators and their successors to exercise certain chartered powers. The theory of controversies between citizens of different states, entitling the Federal Courts to take jurisdiction, is exceedingly simple. As the states were independent republics it was naturally supposed that there might be local prejudice against a citizen of a different state, who should come or be brought in a state court; and that a citizen of the state in which the suit was brought would have an advantage over the citizen of another state in the local courts. The Federal Courts being inter-state tribunals, were thought to be the safest forums for the adjustment of controversies between citizens of different states. But how is there a controversy between such citizens when the chief, if not all the parties in interest in a New Jersey corporation, are citizens of Illinois, and the adverse party to the suit is a citizen of Illinois? Thus, such a New Jersey corporation can, under the system which has grown up, try its suits in the Federal Courts in every state in the Union, except New Jersey. As all the great corporations are chartered in some one of these states which has recognized the "logic of monopoly," it follows that they are independent of the state laws and the state courts. All the great railroads and all the great corporations thus seek the shelter of the Federal Courts whose independence from popular passions makes the law sure and smooth for them. It is a notorious fact, too, that the rules of the Federal Courts are so drawn that the poor have the barest chance of success. The way is bestrewn with complex

technicalities, with arbitrary rulings. There is not, in fact, the right of trial by jury in these courts; there is only the favor of such a trial upon the consent of the judge. For the judge can withdraw any case from the jury, and the practice of doing so is notoriously common. The court passes on the facts, the court instructs the jury orally, and sums up the facts, emphasizing what it chooses. If the jury returns a verdict for a poor man, the court may set it aside. And if this is done the expense and labor of another trial are peculiarly heavy. If one is rendered for a corporation it likely will not be set aside. But if it is, the corporation can serenely await the second trial. The case may be diverted upon some collateral point. A ruling of a court of appeal requires a great deal of money, for the rules of the court impose such onerous burdens upon those who appeal, such as requiring the record to be printed, that appeals are impossible to the poor. Candid consideration of the practice and the rules of these courts will convince any one that they are the courts of plutocracy; and that the poor, the maimed, the oppressed can expect neither pity nor justice in them. Of course, there are exceptions, and exceptional judges. No condemnation upon a subject of this kind can be all inclusive. Also it ought to be said that in a suit between corporations of equal power, between individuals of equal standing, or of equally indifferent standing, or between an individual and an obscure corporation as to some subject not suggestive of the sanctity of property and ordinarily in a criminal cause, a trial in a Federal Court may be fair. Nevertheless, the general condemnation that

they are the courts of plutocracy cannot be successfully assailed. What excuse can men have who take a specific oath provided by law to do justice to the rich and the poor alike, so to build up a practice and a jurisprudence that the courts are accessible only to those who have money? The peculiar constitution of the Federal Courts has made this evolution easier than it would have been with them if the judges had been elective. A deep laid plan of imperial consolidation has promoted the enlargement of the jurisdiction of these courts by casuistical reasoning and ill-concealed usurpation until their jurisdiction is practically boundless.

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"Depend upon it," wrote Alexander H. Stephens, "there is no difference between consolidation and empire; no difference between centralism and imperialism.' When the 14th amendment was added to the Constitution they were poor judges of human nature who supposed that its apparent principles of liberty were in safer hands for being centrally administered than they would have been with the states themselves. And so the brave men who went through the terrible conflict of 1861, and who are yet living, have seen an interpretation put upon its results, which, if anticipated before the war, would have prevented the firing of a shot. A union of men or of states based upon affection is a different thing from a union bound together by force, and whose units are disciplined as to matters of the purest local interest by the appointive judiciary of a consolidated government.

The war abolished the avowed and visible slavery of the negro; but, accurately speaking, what does it

amount to in the face of the use to which the 14th amendment has been put?

The 14th amendment is very easily dodged so far as the negro is concerned. And this is done without much objection and generally with applause. While this magna charta of the general government has produced perennial benefits to those whom the abolitionists could scarcely have dreamed would have derived anything out of a glorious war for liberty. The 14th amendment has committed to the care of the Federal Courts every special interest. The states may tax corporations, but the Federal Courts may invalidate the taxation; all sorts of local regulations as to railroads, street railways and what not are invalidated under it. There seems to be no subject of state action which is not covered by the 14th amendment. The result is that the states may do only what the Federal Courts decide the 14th amendment does not prohibit. Philosophically and in truth what was, what could be gained when the power of securing the equal protection of the laws and equal rights for all involved the creation of a virtual empire? What a paradox this is, which purports to secure liberty by destroying the only sources of liberty known then or now, namely, the rule of the people and the supremacy of local government in local affairs. The last few years have seen diabolical constructions placed upon the war of 1861 by the party which claims the glories of that war, and which has been paramount since the war.

If the constitutional sequence of that war is the right to subjugate weaker people and tax them without representation; if as one of its results the military