Opinion of the Court. bringing within their precincts of certain persons by defendants. No statute of the State was referred to as applicable, but the enforcement of the police power was sought through the interposition of a court of equity by way of prevention of an impending public nuisance. The Circuit Court was of opinion that the bill could not be maintained, but, without intimating any conclusion to the contrary, or. criticising its formal sufficiency, the question that meets us on the threshold is whether the case ought to have been remanded to the state court. We need not spend any time on the contention that this was a controversy between citizens of different States. The Circuit Court correctly held otherwise. The State of Arkansas was the party complainant, and a State is not a citizen. Postal Telegraph Cable Company v. Alabama, 155 U. S. 482. We inquire, then, if the cause was removable because arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States. The general policy of the act of March 3, 1887, as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, (24 Stat. 552, c. 373; 25 Stat. 433, c. 866,) as is apparent on its face, and as has been repeatedly recognized by this court, was to contract the jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts. Those cases, and those only, were made removable under section two, in respect of which original jurisdiction was given to the Circuit Courts by section one. Hence it has been settled that a case cannot be removed from a state court into the Circuit Court of the United States on the sole ground that it is one arising under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States, unless that appears by plaintiff's statement of his own claim; and if it does not so appear, the want of it cannot be supplied by any statement of the petition for removal or in the subsequent pleadings. And moreover that jurisdiction is not conferred by allegations that defendant intends to assert a defence based on the Constitution or a law or treaty of the United States, or under statutes of the United States, or of a State, in conflict with the Constitution. Tennessee v. Union & Planters Bank, 152 U. S. 454; Chappell v. Waterworth, 155 U. S. 102; Walker v. Collins, 167 U. S. 57; Sawyer v. Kockersperger, 170 U. S. 303; Florida Central & Peninsula Railroad v. Bell, 176 U. S. 321. Opinion of the Court. In this case the State asserted no right under the Constitution or laws of the United States, and put forward no ground of relief derived from either. There were no averments on which the State could have invoked the original jurisdiction of the Circuit Court under section one of the act, and that is the test of the right of removal under section two. The police power was appealed to, the power to protect life, liberty and property, to conserve the public health and good order, which always belonged to the States, and was not surrendered to the general government, or directly restrained by the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment, in forbidding a State to make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or to deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, or to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, did not invest Congress with power to legislate upon subjects which are within the domain of state legislation. In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545, 554. It is true that when the police power and the commercial power come into collision, that which is not supreme must give way to that which is supreme. But how is such collision made to appear? Defendants argue that the Circuit Court might have properly· taken judicial notice, or did so, of the fact that the persons whose advent was objected to as perilous to the community could only be brought to Huntington by way of the Indian Territory, and also that the word "import" as used in the bill meant to bring into from another State or foreign country; that, therefore, "the question is fairly presented by the complaint whether the State of Arkansas has the authority to prevent the coal company and, the railroad company from bringing into the State over the line of this railroad, laborers from other States or foreign countries ;" and hence that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction. We do not agree with either premise or conclusion. The word "import" necessarily meant bringing into the county and town from outside their boundaries, but we do not think, taking the whole bill together, that as here used its necessary signification was the bringing in from outside of the State. Opinion of the Court. And as to judicial knowledge, the principle applies "that the right of a court to act upon what is in point of fact known to it must be subordinate to those requirements of form and orderly communication which regulate the mode of bringing controversies into court, and of stating and conducting them." Thayer, Ev. ch. VII, 281. In Mountain View Mining & Milling Co. v. McFadden, 180 U. S. 533, which was a petition for removal, the suit was one brought in support of an adverse claim under the Revised Statutes, sections 2325, 2326, and it had been previously decided that such a suit was not one arising under the laws of the United States in such a sense as to confer jurisdiction on the Federal courts regardless of the citizenship of the parties. And we said: 'It is conceded by counsel on both sides that those decisions, are controlling, unless the Circuit Court was entitled to maintain jurisdiction by taking judicial notice of the fact that the Mountain View lode claim was located upon what had been or was an Indian reservation,' and 'of the act of Congress declaring the north half of the reservation, upon which the claim was located, to have been restored to the public domain;' notwithstanding no claim based on these facts was stated in the complaint. But the Circuit Court could not make plaintiffs' case other than they made it by taking judicial notice of facts which they did not choose to rely on in their pleading. The averments brought no controversy in this regard into court, in respect of which resort might be had to judicial knowledge." Oregon Short Line &c. Railway v. Skottowe, 162 U. S. 490; Chappell v. Waterworth, 155 U. S. 102; Commonwealth v. Wheeler, 162 Mass. 429; Partridge v. Strange, Plowden, 77. But even assuming that the bill showed upon its face that the relief sought would be inconsistent with the power to regulate commerce, or with regulations established by Congress, or with the Fourteenth Amendment, as contended, it would only demonstrate that the bill could not be maintained at all, and not that the cause of action arose under the Constitution or laws of the United States. When Federal questions arise in cases pending in the state courts, those courts are competent, and it is their duty, to decide Statement of the Case. them. If errors supervene, the remedy by writ of error is open to the party aggrieved. Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 637. Decree reversed and cause remanded with a direction to remand to the state court. Costs of this court and of the Circuit Court to be paid by the appellees and defendants. WILSON v. NELSON. CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT. No. 31. Submitted April 22, 1901.-Decided December 9, 1901. When a debtor, years before the filing of a petition in bankruptcy, gives to a creditor an irrevocable power of attorney to confess judgment after maturity upon a promissory note of the debtor; and the creditor, within four months before the filing of the petition in bankruptcy against the debtor, obtains such a judgment and execution thereon; and the debtor fails, at least five days before a sale on the execution, to vacate or discharge the judgment, or to file a voluntary petition in bankruptcy; the judgment and execution are a preference "suffered or permitted" by the debtor, within 'the meaning of the bankrupt act of July 1, 1898, c. 541, §3, cl. 3, and the debtor's failure to vacate or discharge the preference so obtained is an act of bankruptcy under that act. THE Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit certified to this court the following statement of facts and questions of law: "On February 5, 1885, Cassius B. Nelson executed and delivered to Sarah Johnstone his promissory note in writing for the sum of $8960, payable 'five years or before after date,' with interest at the rate of four per cent per annum until paid. To this note was attached an irrevocable power of attorney, duly executed by the said Nelson under his hand and seal in the usual form, authorizing any attorney of any court of record in his name to confess judgment thereon after maturity of the Statement of the Case. note. This note was given for so much money at the time loaned to Nelson, and the interest on the note was paid from time to time up to November 1, 1898. Nelson was a trader, and entered into business as such at the city of Madison, Wisconsin, soon after the giving of the note, and carried on such business until his stock in trade was levied upon by the sheriff under execution as hereinafter stated. On November 1, 1898, Nelson, as he well knew, was and had long been insolvent, and thereafter continued to be and is now insolvent, his liabilities largely exceeding his assets. "On November 21, 1898, Sarah Johnstone caused judgment to be duly entered in the circuit court of the State of Wisconsin for the county of Dane against said Nelson upon the note and warrant of attorney aforesaid for the sum of $8975, damages and costs, being the face of the note and $15 costs. Upon that judgment execution was immediately thereafter issued out of the court to the sheriff of that county, who thereunder and by authority thereof on the same day levied upon the stock and goods of Nelson, and thereafter and on December 15, 1898, sold the same at public auction, and applied the proceeds thereof, to wit, the sum of $4400, upon and in part payment of the judgment so rendered. This proceeding left the said Nelson without means to meet any other of his obligations. The judgment was so entered, and the levy made, without the procurement of Nelson and without his knowledge or consent. Such judgment was not subject to attack by Nelson, and could not have been vacated or discharged by any legal proceedings which might have been instituted by him in that behalf, nor could the levy under the execution issued upon such judgment have been set aside or vacated by Nelson, except by his filing his voluntary petition in bankruptcy prior to the sale and obtaining an adjudication of bankruptcy thereunder, or by payment of the judgment. "On December 10, 1898, creditors of the said Nelson, of the requisite number and holding debts against him to the requisite amount, filed their petition against the said Nelson in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Wisconsin, sitting in bankruptcy, to procure an adjudication against |