1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 481 
At this stage of the proceedings their petition for removal was 
docketed in the United States Circuit Court and a writ issued to 
put them in the custody of the marshal. Then, without any mo- 
tion to remand the case, the commonwealth of Virginia applied 
to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus to 
the circuit judge and marshal to return them. The court found 
the proceedings of the state in making the application proper, 
found that the law of Virginia made no discrimination among 
its citizens, white or black, as to jury service, and held that if 
the officers made such discrimination the appeal was, in the first 
instance, at all events, to the state authority, and that there was no 
case for removal, and they were directed to be returned to the state 
authorities. | 
Judge Field filed a concurring opinion. With his brilliant dis- 
cussion in it of the writ of mandamus we are not much concerned, 
but he held that the act of Congress, so far as it attempted to give 
the United States courts jurisdiction to enforce state laws, was invalid 
and unconstitutional. The constitution had fixed the limit of the 
judicial power of the nation and had confined it to cases arising 
under the laws and constitution of the United States. Neither 
words nor implication extended it to cases arising under the laws 
of the several states. The downfall of nearly all the civil rights 
legislation of Congress is here distinctly prefigured. In ex parte 
Virginia, however, the next case, a portion of such legislation was 
sustained. J. D. Cole, county judge of Pittsylvania county, Va., 
was indicted and placed in the custody of the United States mar- 
shal of his district for excluding colored citizens from juries, whose 
selection was a part of his duties. He applied to the Supreme 
Court for a writ of habeas corpus, and the state of Virginia also 
applied for his liberation that he might discharge his ordinary 
duties. 
The court concluded it was proper practice if a case for his re- 
lease had been made out, but held that the act of Congress of 
March 1, 1875, section 4—that no citizen should be disqualified 
for jury service on account of race, etc., and that any officer who 
should exercise any such discrimination in selecting jurors should be 
fined not exceeding five thousand dollars—was constitutional, Judges 
Field and Clifford again dissenting. 
The law they thought unconstitutional for lack of power on 
the part of Congress to interfere with such a purely local concern 
