highest court is final no matter how harsh or oppressive the act may be. In Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U. S. 491, involving the state power of taxation, the Court said: "It may therefore, be regarded as the established doctrine of this court, that so long as the state, by its system of taxation does not intrench upon the legitimate authority of the Union, or violate any right recognized or secured to the citizen by the constitution of the United States, this court as between the citizen and his state, can afford no relief against state taxation, however unjust, oppressive or onerous." The Federal courts have nothing whatever to do with the policy or expediency of state laws, nor is the hardship or injustice of such laws necessarily an objection against their constitutional validity. "The rule, briefly stated, is that whenever an act of the legislature is challenged in court the inquiry is limited to the question of power, and does not extend to the matter of expediency, the motives of the legislators, or the reasons which were spread before them to induce the passage of the act. This principle rests upon the independence of the legislature as one of the co-ordinate departments of the government." Angle v. Chicago, St. Paul, etc., Railway, 151 U. S. 1. There is no denial of due process when the law is executed according to the established forms and usages of a particular state, provided they embody the fundamentals, no matter how much they may differ in form from the laws of another state. As Mr. Justice Bradley said in a leading case: "The Fourteenth Amendment does not profess to secure to all persons in the United States the benefit of the same laws and the same remedies. Great diversities in these respects may exist in two states separated only by an imaginary line. On one side of this line there may be a right of trial by jury, and on the other side no such right. Each state prescribes its own modes of judicial proceeding. If diversities of laws and judicial proceedings may exist in the several states without violating the equality clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no solid reason why there

may not be such diversities in different parts of the same state." Bowman v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22. As the Court well said in a kindred case, involving the presence of due process in a proceeding for the collection of state taxes, it is always necessary "to distinguish between the essentials of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment and matters which may or may not be essential under the terms of a state assessing or taxing law. The two are neither correlative nor coterminous. The first, due process of law, must be found in the state statute and can not be departed from without violating the constitution of the United States. The other depends on the law-making power of the states, and, as it is solely the result of such authority, may vary or change as the legislative will of the state may see fit to ordain. It follows that to determine the existence of one (due process of law) is the final province of this court, while the ascertainment of the other (that is, what is merely essential under the state statute) is a state question within the final jurisdiction of the courts of last resort in the several states. When, then, a state court decides that a particular formality was or was not essential under the state statute, such decision presents no federal question, providing always the statute, as thus construed, does not violate the constitution of the United States by depriving of property without due process of law. This paramount requirement being fulfilled, as to other matters, the state's interpretation of its own laws is controlling and decisive." Castello v. McConnico, 168 U. S. 674. In upholding the validity of a state statute limiting the hours of labor in mines, the Court, in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, said: "We have no disposition to criticise the many authorities which hold that state statutes restricting the hours of labor are unconstitutional. Indeed, we are not called upon to express an opinion upon this subject. It is sufficient to say of them that they have no application to cases where the legislature had adjudged that a limitation is necessary for the

preservation of the health of employees, and there are reasonable grounds for believing that such determination is supported by the facts. The question in each case is whether the legislature has adopted the statute in exercise of a reasonable discretion, or whether its action be a mere excuse for an unjust discrimination, or the oppression, or spoliation of a particular case. The distinction between these two different classes of enactments can not be better stated than by a comparison of the views of this court found in the opinion in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, and Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703, with those later expressed in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356." Mere errors and irregularities in the decision of a state court acting within its jurisdiction, do not involve a denial of due process, so long as the fundamentals are observed. In Arrowsmith v. Harmoning, 118 U. S. 194, a case in which a minor complained that he had been deprived of due process in a sale of his estate by his guardian under a judicial order, the court said: "The bond in question was a matter of procedure only, and if it ought to have been required the court erred in ordering a sale without having first caused it to be filed and approved. At most, this was an error of judgment in the court. The constitutional provision is, 'Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.' Certainly a state can not be deemed guilty of a violation of this constitutional obligation simply because one of its courts, while acting within its jurisdiction, has made an erroneous decision." In Iowa Central Railroad Co. v. Iowa, 160 U. S. 389, wherein it was held that the refusal of a jury trial is not a denial of a right protected by the Federal constitution, even though it may have been clearly erroneous to construe the laws of the state as justifying the refusal, the Court said: "As said by this court, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Fuller, in Leeper v. Texas, 139 U. S. 462, 468: 'Law in its regular course of administration through courts of justice is due process, and when secured by the

law of the state the constitutional requirement is satisfied.' There was a 'regular course of administration' in the case at bar, as that term was employed in the case cited. It is manifest that it was never contemplated by the framers of the constitution that this court should sit in review, as an appellate court, of such a question as that presented by the record in the case at bar, viz., whether or not the highest court of a state erred in holding that it could rightfully determine from the statements in the pleadings filed by both parties to a controversy pending before it, that the averments of an answer set forth no defense to the claim of the plaintiff."

But while it is thus settled that erroneous decisions of a state court do not deny due process so long as they are limited to questions involving conformity with the constitution and laws of the state, the fact remains that such decisions must not deprive a person of those fundamental rights which the Federal constitution guarantees. Such rights must not be abridged either by the law which the court is administering or by the conduct of the court itself while acting under it. In United States v. Walker, 109 U. S. 258, the Court said: "In the case of Windsor v. McVeigh, 93 U. S. 274, Mr. Justice Field, after a review of the cases bearing upon this subject, announces their result as follows: 'The doctrine invoked by counsel, that when a court has once acquired jurisdiction it has a right to decide every question which arises in the case, and its judgment, however erroneous, can not be collaterally assailed, is undoubtedly correct as a general proposition, but is subject to many qualifications in its application. It is only correct when the court proceeds, after acquiring jurisdiction of the cause, according to established modes governing the class to which the case belongs, and does not transcend, in the extent or character of its judgment, the law which is applicable to it.'" Such was the basic principle of the decision in Wetmore v. Karrick, 205 U. S. 141, in which the Court said: "To sanction a proceeding rendering a new judgment without notice at a

subsequent term, and hold that it is a judgment rendered with jurisdiction, and binding when set up elsewhere, would be to violate the fundamental principles of due process of law as we understand them, and do violence to that requirement of every system of enlightened jurisprudence which judges after it hears, and condemns only after a party has had an opportunity to present his defense. By the amendment and new judgment the proceedings are given an effect against the defendant in error which they did not have when he was discharged from them by the judgment of dismissal. By the judgment of dismissal the court lost jurisdiction of the cause and of the person of the defendant. A new judgment in personam could not be rendered against the defendant until, by voluntary appearance or due service of process, the court had again acquired jurisdiction over him. As a matter of common right, before such action could be taken he should have an opportunity to be heard and present objections to the rendition of a new judgment, if such existed." In Wood v. Chesborough, 228 U. S. 672, the court reiterated the long established doctrine so clearly announced in West Chicago Street R. Co. v. Illinois, 201 U. S. 506, to the effect that "A state court can not, by resting its judgment upon some ground of local or general law, defeat the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States, if a Federal right or immunity was specially set up or claimed which, if recognized and enforced, would require a different judgment." In restating that rule in Wood v. Chesborough the Court said "that the sufficiency of the Federal right set up can not be evaded if necessary to the determination of the case, and, it may be admitted, that of such necessity this court must in each instance decide. To the extent necessary to do so the power exists as a necessary incident to a decision upon the claim of denial of the Federal right." In Chapman v. Goodnow, 123 U. S. 540, it was held that "If a Federal question is fairly presented by the record and its decision is actually necessary to