Thornhill et al. and Williams v. Bank of Louisiana. courts, assume jurisdiction themselves, and give to a state law the effect of repealing and suspending an act of congress expressly authorized by the constitution. This cannot be allowed. No mole of proceeding authorized by a state law can be permitted to have this effect. If the forfeiture, under the state law, of the charter of the bank raises an obstacle to the jurisdiction of the federal courts, then the claim authorizing the forfeiture of the charter is suspended by the federal law. To hold otherwise is to allow the states, by a particular form of liquidation, to override a law of congress on a subject on which congress, by the constitution, has supreme power. Under the state law of eighteen hundred and forty-two the courts are not authorized to forfeit the charters of the banks, and there stop. They are required to proceed by the appointment of commissioners to the liquidation of the affairs of the bank; in effect, to administer a bankrupt law of the state. Is it possible that, by so short and simple a method, the state courts can wrest from the federal courts a jurisdiction conferred exclusively on them? I do not undertake to decide what effect the decree of the sixth court forfeiting the charter of the bank may have as between the state and the bank; but I hold the state court had no power and jurisdiction to render a decree which could take from the federal courts a power and jurisdiction given them by act of congress; that, for all the purposes of the bankrupt act, and the liquidation of its affairs thereunder, the Bank of Louisiana still exists as a corporate body, and may be proceeded against as such in bankruptcy. A corporation may still exist for the purposes of liquidation, although its charter may have been surrendered or forfeited. In Commercial Bank v. W. W. Villavaso, 6 Annual La. Rep. 542, it was held that a commercial bank, having gone into liquidation under the act of March, eighteen hundred and forty-two, was no reason why the commissioners appointed to liquidate its affairs should not use the corporate Thornhill et al. and Williams v. Bank of Louisiana. name of the bank in collecting its assets by judicial proceedings. It results from these views that the sixth district court had no power to appoint commissioners in liquidation for the Bank of Louisiana; that the attempt to appoint such commissioners is a void act; that the commissioners named by the court do not represent the bank; that they are without right or authority to interfere in these proceedings; that they are not aggrieved by the adjudication of the district court of the United States for the district of Louisiana; and that for these reasons, if no other, their petition for review should be dismissed. Without further prolonging this opinion, I hold upon the other questions raised in the case: (1) that this court has territorial jurisdiction to hear this petition in review, in chambers, at any place within the fifth judicial circuit; (2) that the adjudication in bankruptcy made by the United States district court may be reviewed by petition of review addressed to the circuit court or any justice thereof; and (3,) that the judgment of the United States district court adjudging the Bank of Louisiana a bankrupt is sustained by the admitted facts in this case, and ought not to be disturbed. DECREE. It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the petition of review filed in this court on the twenty-second day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy, by Charles E. Willoz, Philip H. Morgan, and Henry Bezon, as commissioners of the Bank of Louisiana, in the cases of John Thornhill et al. v. Bank of Louisiana, and Mrs. S. Williams v. Bank of Louisiana, be, and the same is hereby, dismissed out of this court, at their costs; that the judgment of the United States district court for the district of Louisiana, rendered on the eleventh day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy, whereby, on the hearing of the cases aforesaid, the Bank of Louisiana was adjudged a bankrupt, be affirmed and that the order heretofore made that all further proceed Thornhill et al. and Williams v. Bank of Louisiana. ings in said district court be suspended, and the marshal enjoined from taking any action under the judgment rendered by the said United States district court in said suits until the further order of this court, be, and the same is hereby, rescinded and revoked; and that the clerk of the circuit court of the United States for the fifth judicial circuit and district of Louisiana enter this order and decree upon the minutes of said court and certify the same to the clerk of the United States district court for the district of Louisiana. UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT-LOUISIANA. Where a party appeals from the decision of the United States circuit court to the United States supreme court, the allowance of the appeal is to relate back to the time when the original application was made for an appeal to the judge of the circuit court, and entitles a party to a stay of proceedings. Decreed that all orders in the above entitled cause made by the circuit or district courts since the date of the injunction granted by the circuit judge, be vacated and annulled, and it is ordered that all things be restored to the condition in which they stood at the date of said injunction. THORNHILL et al. v. BANK OF LOUISIANA. WILLIAMS v. BANK OF LOUISIANA.* BRADLEY, J.-In this case, we have taken the matter into consideration, and have come to the conclusion that the appellant was entitled to a supersedeas. By the act of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, section twenty-three, a writ of error, (which was the only process then given for resort to an appellate court) as well in equity as in common law cases was a supersedeas and a stay of execution in cases only where the writ of error was served by a copy thereof being lodged for the adverse party in the clerk's office, where the record remained, within ten days, (Sundays exclusive) after rendering the judgment or passing the decree complained of. A writ of error is no longer the process for reviewing 3 N. B. R. 110. Thornhill et al. and Williams v. Bank of Louisiana. the decrees in equity or admiralty. By the act of March third, eighteen hundred and three, it is declared that from all final judgments or decrees in any of the district courts of the United States, an appeal, where the matter in dispute shall exceed the sum of fifty dollars, shall be allowed to the circuit court; and from all final judgments or decrees rendered in any circuit court, in any cases of equity, admiralty, or maritime jurisdiction, etc., an appeal, where the matter in dispute exceeds two thousand dollars, shall be allowed to the supreme court of the United States, and such appeal shall be subject to the same rules, regulations and restrictions as are prescribed in the law in cases af writs of error. This clause adopts the rules, regulations and restrictions contained in the act of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine-the time within which the writ of error must be lodged in the clerk's office, in order to operate as a supersedeas, the citation to the adverse party, the security to be given to the plaintiff in error the directions in reference to all these things are applicable to appeals under the act of eighteen hundred and three, and are to be substantially observed, except where the appeal is made at the same term and in open court, when a citation is not necessary. Now, it is evident that the twenty-third section of the act of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine cannot be literally complied with in cases of appeal. For example, the writ of error or a copy of it cannot be filed for the adverse party in the clerk's office within ten days, for there is no writ of error. Only the spirit of the act of seventeen hundred and eightynine can, in many particulars, be carried out. In cases of appeal, the appeal may be taken orally in court. No written application need be made, either in court or to the judge. It is so held by the supreme court in 18 Howard. In such a case, a copy of the writ of error, or copy of anything like a writ of error, or analagous to it cannot be filed. But it is evident that something must be done by the appellant within ten days, in order to comply with the spirit of the act of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, that is, he Thornhill et al. and Williams v. Bank of Louisiana. must take his appeal and present his bond to the court or judge within that time, and he must file in the clerk's office either the bond or some other paper, or an entry must be made upon the minutes of the court, or something else must be done to show that the appeal has been taken within the ten days. In this case the petition of appeal was presented to the judge within the ten days, accompanied by the bond. The bond was approved by the judge, but the petition of appeal was not allowed, because in his opinion it was not a case for an appeal. The approval of the bond was endorsed by the judge on the bond, and his disallowance of the petition of appeal was endorsed on the petition and both were filed within five days in the clerk's office. Now, it is evident that the party did all that he could possibly do in order to entitle himself to the protection of the law, except one thing, which he proceeded to do. He repaired to a justice of the supreme court, after having made his application to the judge of the circuit court and having been refused, and thereupon the justice of the supreme court allowed the appeal. A new petition of appeal, it is true, was presented, but the facts were fully stated therein-the fact of the former petition of appeal being presented and overruled, as well as the fact of the decree from which the appeal was taken. The associate justice of the supreme court allowed the appeal, and approved of the identical bond which had been previously presented to and approved by the circuit judge. This new petition of appeal, with the allowance on it, was filed on twenty-fourth of March, some twenty-one days after the decree was rendered. Now, the question is whether the allowance of the appeal in this case is to relate back to the time when the original application was made for an appeal to the judge of the circuit court. We are of the opinion that it does; that this party has done everything that in him lay to entitle him to a suspension of proceedings. At any rate, in the circuit court, |