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and after final judgment of discharge, as was contained in the act of 1842.

Upon the face of this act, certainly, it is impossible to put any other construction than that the one federal question is withdrawn from the state court for final decision by the circuit judge without a jury, and that the prisoner must be discharged, if that question be decided in his favor, and that, too, whether there is any provision already made by Congress for trying him or not. It was clearly intended to preclude all further trial, if, and only if, the federal question was decided in his favor, except that the decision of the circuit judge was to be reviewed in this court.

Meantime came the case of Ex parte Jenkins, 2 Wall. Jr. 521, 526, and the Fugitive Slave Law Cases.

In this condition of the statutes and the decisions, the revision of the statute was made in 1874, Rev. Stat. c. 13, $$ 751-766, "Habeas Corpus."

It cannot be doubted that the effect of the revision is, and was intended to be, to make the procedure and the power and duty of the judge issuing the writ uniform and the same in all the cases covered by the several successive acts, and now embodied in § 753; to withdraw the federal question, on which the petitioner claims justification and exemption, away from the state court for full and final determination by the federal judge without a jury; and to discharge him from the custody of the state court, when he establishes, by proof to the satisfaction of the federal judge, that he is entitled to his discharge, but if he fails to make out such right, then to remand him to the state court's custody.

No other meaning than this can be imputed to the words in § 761: "and thereupon to dispose of the party as law and justice may require" in view of the explicit duty to discharge contained in the Acts of 1842 and 1867, which were being condensed and revised, and of the obvious intent to subject all cases alike to the same regulation.

Under this statutory scheme of habeas corpus, it is wholly immaterial whether there is any provision by federal criminal law conferring jurisdiction upon any court over the prisoner

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when discharged. Congress has by this very act made what it deemed to be suitable provision for the case by substituting for a trial by jury, under federal authority, of the one question of justification, a trial by a judge without a jury, and by the Supreme Court on appeal. If he makes out such justification before that tribunal, the necessary theory of the act is that he is to be deemed innocent; that he has committed no crime; that he has only done what the supreme law of the country has required him to do. If, however, he fails to make out his alleged justification under federal authority, then he is remanded for trial on the charge made in the state court.

It is certainly too late at this day to question or discuss the power of Congress to provide, by means of this scheme of habeas corpus procedure for the removal from the state court into the federal court, for examination and determination, of this single question of federal authority, or of custody in violation of the federal Constitution and laws, when it arises in any case, civil or criminal, in a state court.

This exercise of power under the Constitution is far within that which was conceded to Congress by this court in Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U. S. 257.

In truth the alarm which is suggested at the idea of its being entrusted to a federal court, consisting of two judges, to try, subject to a review in this court, the question of federal authority and consequent immunity, as being a possible mode of escape for a party possibly guilty of murder, without any trial, is based upon no foundation.

The single question is to be fully tried, not upon affidavits, but upon testimony - not ex parte, but after a full hearing of both sides. And the power entrusted to the federal court over this one question is not so great as the same power over the whole case, which is entrusted to the ordinary committing magistrate, or to the judge on the trial, on the motion to quash, or on a motion in arrest of judgment after verdict. It is, in legal apprehension, the same power which is given to this court, upon the single federal question, on writ of error.

No case appears to have arisen under section 7 of this act for twenty years after its passage. When the execution of the

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obnoxious Fugitive Slave law exposed the marshals to violent. opposition and attack in the discharge of the duties imposed upon them by Congress, and to arrest, indictment and trial in the state courts on charges of assault or murder, for acts necessarily done by them in the performance of such duties, they immediately appealed to the federal courts for the protection afforded by this section seven, and the Circuit Courts have uniformly used it for the efficient protection and relief of all federal officers so charged and in custody, and this, as we submit, with the implied assent of Congress and the express approval of this court. The result of this line of decisions is so cogent, in support of the action of the court below in this case, as to command careful attention here. See Ex parte Jenkins, 2 Wall. Jr. 521 (1853); Ex parte Robinson, 6 McLean, 355; Ex parte Robinson, 4 Am. Law Reg. 617; In re McDonald, 9 Am. Law Reg. 661; United States ex rel. Roberts v. Jailor of Fayette County, 2 Abbott (U. S.) 265.

In this state of the adjudications under the seventh section of the Act of 1833, Congress revised the entire series of statutes in regard to habeas corpus in the manner already pointed out. It must be deemed to have known and approved the settled construction which the federal courts, for more than twenty years, had given to the Act of 1833; and when it incorporated in section 753 the cases covered by that act with the cases covered by the Judiciary Act and the Acts of 1842 and 1867, and enjoined upon the Circuit Courts, in all the cases alike, the duty to make a full and exhaustive inquiry into the facts, and to hear the cause and render final judgment of discharge, if law and justice so required, it must be deemed to have intended to sanction and confirm the exercise of the jurisdiction which the federal courts, under the more limited scope of the Act of 1833, had habitually asserted. McDonald v. Hovey, 110 U. S. 629; Duramus v. Harrison, 26 Alabama, 326; Sedgwick on Construction of Stat. (2d ed.) 229, note, and cases cited.

After the revision, other cases occurred, where the Circuit Courts released upon habeas corpus parties held in custody by the state courts for alleged crimes against the State. Ex parte

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Bridges, 2 Woods, 428; Ramsey v. The Jailor, 2 Flipp. 457; In re Brosnahan, 18 Fed. Rep. 62. These must have been the cases to which this court referred in Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 251, when it said that in "cases of urgency involving the authority and operations of the general government, or the obligations of this country to, or its relations with, foreign nations, the courts of the United States have frequently interposed by writs of habeas corpus and discharged prisoners who were held in custody under state authority."

III. The personal protection of Mr. Justice Field by Neagle was a duty imposed upon him by authority of the United States, and the homicide necessarily committed by him in rendering that protection effectual was "an act done by him in pursuance of a law of the United States," in the sense of the statute; and his detention therefor by the state court on a charge of murder was "in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States" in the sense of the statute.

It is not pretended that there is any single specific statute making it his duty to furnish this protection. The authority arose directly and necessarily out of the Constitution and positive congressional enactments. Whatever is necessarily implied is as much a part of the Constitution and statutes as if it were actually expressed therein.

The corporate government established by the Constitution is a nation, absolutely sovereign over every foot of soil and over every person within the national territory and within the sphere of action assigned to it. Within that sphere, its Constitution and laws are the supreme law of the land, and its proper instrumentalities of government can be subjected to no restraint, and can be held to no accountability by any other power whatsoever.

It has, necessarily, the inherent power of protecting itself and its agents in the exercise of all its constitutional powers, and of executing its own laws by its own tribunals, without any interruption from a State or any state authorities.

The government of the United States and the government of a State are distinct and independent of each other, within their respective spheres of action, although existing and exercising their powers within the same territorial limits.

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Neither government can intrude within the jurisdiction of the other, or authorize any interference therein, by its judicial officers, with the action of the other. But whenever any conflict arises between the enactments of the two sovereignties, or in the enforcement of their asserted authorities, those of the national government have supremacy, until the validity of the different enactments and authorities is determined by the tribunals of the United States.

In such case, the surrender to a state court of the right to determine the existence of its sovereignty is the surrender of sovereignty itself. Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304 (1816); McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819); Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264 (1821); Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 506 (1858); Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1879); Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U. S. 257 (1879).

Such absolute and perfect protection being thus guaranteed to them by the Constitution, this at least must necessarily follow that if, when attacked in the discharge of their duties, they protect themselves, or are protected by others, whose aid in the emergency they require, such protection is not merely self-defence authorized by the law of nature or the common law, but is an act clearly authorized by, and done in pursuance of, the Constitution, which enjoins them to proceed against all obstacles in the discharge of their duties.

But for the letter of the law, as it is so stoutly insisted that we must have "a law" to authorize the protection of the judge: Article III., Section 1, of the Constitution, declares that "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish;" and the second section proceeds to define the cases to which this judicial power shall extend, and as Jay, C. J., says, in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 475, this shows the precise sense and latitude in which the words "to establish justice," as used in the preamble, are to be understood.

To carry into practical operation the provisions of the Constitution, "to establish justice," and bring it home to the people, Congress has divided the United States into judicial