Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/69

WINTEB V. BWINBOENB. 56 �laws of the United States within the meaning of the act. Here there is is no dispute over the original suit in admiralty. The decree in that suit and the complainants' right to it are admitted: they are not even sought to be avoided; and, upon the point under consider- ation, there is analogy betweenthe present case and Ex parte Smith, 94 U. S. 455. In that case certain parties brought an action of eject- ment in the federal court of Tennessee. The plaintiffs claimed title through certain proceedings under which the lands in suit were sold by the United States tax commissioners, by virtue of an act of con- gress providing for the collection of direct taxes in insurrectionary districts. Ail the parties to the suit were citizens of Tennessee, and jurisdiction was claimed on account of the subject-matter of the action ; but the supreme court held that, to sustain the jurisdiction, it was ineumbent on the plaintiffs to show that the action arose under the revenue laws of the United States, and that this was not shown by merely claiming a title through such laws when the title in that respect was not disputed. �The subject is also discussed in Hartelle y. Tilghman, 99 U. S. 547, where it was held that suits between citizens of the same state ean- not be sustained in the circuit court, as arising under the patent laws, where the defendant admits the validity and bis use of the plaintiff's letters patent, and a subsisting contract is shown goyerning the rights of the parties in the use of the inyentioij. In analogy to what ie said by the court in that case, it may be said ,of the case at bar that the relief sought by the present bill is not foiinded on nor does it arise from the laws of the United States authorizing or regulating proceedings in admiralty. . There is no controyersy here that requires for its decision a reference to those laws or a construction of them. There is no deniai of the force or validity of the decree in the district court, nor of complainant's right to that decree. In, no phase of the case is any federal question involved, and therefore if this were a. cause pending in the state court it could not be remoyed from the court of last resort of the state to the supreme court of the United States. Bolling v. Lersner, 91 U. S. 594. , �But it is supposed that Seymour y. The Phillips e Colbyi Const. Go. 7 Biss. 460, is an authority .which supports jurisdiction in the case at bar, under the act of 1876. I think, howeyer, thecasfis are disn tinguishable, although my first impression was.otheSFise. In the case cited the facts were that the plaintiffs recovered a judgment in the circuit court againstthe construction company, and thereupon ��� �