In the case of foreign nations (States), the government acknowledged by the President is always recognized in the courts of justice.

Questions for 'Common Law Courts.

1. Where is your Common Law Court's supporting government?

2. Where is your sheriff (executive officer)?

3.Who are the People?

4. Who are your elected political representatives?

5. Do you wonder why today's courts do not recognize your so-called common law State (nation) or Court

In the case of the City of Berne v. The Bank of England, 9 Ves. 348, it was held that 'a judicial court cannot take notice of a foreign government not acknowledged by the government of the country in which the court sits.' (*cited as important legal theory)

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JOHN V. PARKER, Chief Judge.

Petitioner's shield of the "Common Law" as an "Unenfranchised Sovereign Individual of the United States of America, a Republic," provides him with precisely the same degree of protection from federal income taxation as did the Ghost Dance of the Sioux warrior from the repeating rifles of the federal Calvary--ZERO.

[599 F.Supp. 126, George E. McKINNEY, Sr. v. Donald REGAN, Secretary of the Treasury, et al., Civ. A. No. 84-470-A., United States District Court, M.D. Louisiana, Nov. 19, 1984.]

http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/2278/mckinney.html

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As for American law, what is important is what was perceived to be the common law and what American courts chose to accept of it.(15) For our purposes, we must start with Pound's assertion that "[f]or most practical purposes, American judicial history begins after the Revolution."(16) As Pound points out, the courts of that day were made up in large part of untrained magistrates. One judge of Rhode Island's highest court in 1814 was a blacksmith, another a farmer. Of the three justices of New Hampshire's Supreme Court, one was a clergyman and one a physician. The distinguished jurist Justice James Kent put it this way in 1791: "There were no reports or state precedents. . ." We had no law of our own and nobody knew what [the law] was . . . "(17) New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky in fact legislated against the citation of English decision. As Pound states, "[I]n the rude pioneer community the main point is to keep the peace . . . There the refined scientific law that weighs and balances and deliberates and admits of argument is out of place. A few simple rules which everyone understands and a swift and decisive tribunal best serve such a community."(18) And as one New Hampshire judge reportedly said in 1880, "We decline to listen to musty, old, motheaten common law."(19) 15. See State v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 283 Or. 147, 152 n.7, 582 P.2d 1352, 1356 n.7 (1978)., 16. R. POUND, THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMON LAW 113 (1921)., 17. Id., 18. Id. at 117., 19. Locke, Right of Access to Great Ponds by the Colonial Ordinance, 12 ME. L. REV. 148 (1918), quoted in Note, Waters and Watercourses --Right to Public Passage Along Great Lakes Beaches, 31 MICH. L. REV. 1134, 1138 (1933).

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English common law was not uniformly accepted as "the law of the land" in the time of the framers. The fact is that when the Constitution was ratified there was a significant school of though which held that statute law popular in France, rather than common law, was the standard best used. And despite the claim that common law was used to protect the common man, it was widely held in the time of the framers than that common law was the province of the landowner and the lord of the manner. This belief added to the unpopularity of strict English common law in many circles. In fact the uniform acceptance of English common law is belayed by the expressed rejection of English common law as the basis of law in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and the Kentucky Territory. In addition this expressed rejection of English Common Law, many states, Virginia and Delaware, in particular, said in their state Constitutions that all common law existing prior to 1776 in their state remained in force as long as they were not repugnant to "the rights and privileges as expressed" in their state constitutions. A few states, the best example being Massachusetts, had a long history of statue law which ran well counter to English Common law. The supremacy of statue law and Constitutions to common law is an unquestioned fact of law.

It is no wonder that the framers set the Constitution up as the "Supreme law of the Land"

In the Federalist Papers # 80,which addresses Article IV you will see that there is not only no mention of Blackstone , but that there is also no mention of the notion that the privileges and immunities in Article IV include freedom from taxes on personal income. Instead the operative section says:

"It may be esteemed the basis of the Union, that ``the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.'' And if it be a just principle that every government OUGHT TO POSSESS THE MEANS OF EXECUTING ITS OWN PROVISIONS BY ITS OWN AUTHORITY, [my emphasis] it will follow, that in order to the inviolable maintenance of that equality of privileges and immunities to which the citizens of the Union will be entitled, the national judiciary ought to preside in all cases in which one State or its citizens are opposed to another State or its citizens. To secure the full effect of so fundamental a provision against all evasion and subterfuge, it is necessary that its construction should be committed to that tribunal which, having no local attachments, will be likely to be impartial between the different States and their citizens, and which, owing its official existence to the Union, will never be likely to feel any bias inauspicious to the principles on which it is founded. "

It is no wonder that in light of these historical facts the Supreme Court in Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. (75 U.S.) 168 , 180 (1869) that Article IV, Section 2 does not maintain and preserve any and all common law privileges, but rather: "It was undoubtedly the object of the clause [section 2] in question to place the citizens of each State upon the same footing with citizens of other States, so far as the advantages resulting from citizenship in those States are concerned. It relieves them from the disabilities of alienage in other States: it inhibits discriminating legislation against them by other States; it gives them the right of free ingress into other States, and egress from them; it insures to them in other States the same freedom possessed by the citizens of those States in the acquisition of and enjoyment of property, and in the pursuit of happiness; and it secure to them in other State the equal protection of their laws.”

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How is it that equity has the power to invade at will the provinces of other courts?

What object has equity in assuming jurisdiction over rights which it is the special province of other courts to protect?

What is the extent of that jurisdiction?

The answer to the first of these questions will be found in the fact that the jurisdiction of equity is a prerogative jurisdiction; i. e., it is exercised in legal contemplation by the sovereign, who is the fountain from which all justice flows, and from whom, therefore, all courts derive their jurisdiction.

The answer to the second question is that the object of equity, in assuming jurisdiction over legal rights, is to promote justice by supplying defects in the remedies which the courts of law afford.

The answer to the third question is that the jurisdiction is coextensive with its object; that is, equity assumes jurisdiction over legal rights so far, and so far only, as justice can be thereby promoted. But then the question arises, How does it happen that the protection afforded by courts of law to legal rights is insufficient and inadequate, and how is it that equity is able to supply their shortcomings?

The answer to these questions, so far as regards the largest and most important part of the jurisdiction exercised by equity over legal rights (namely, that exercised over common law rights), will be found chiefly in the different methods of protecting rights employed by courts of common law and courts of equity respectively, i. e., in the different methods of compulsion or coercion employed by them.

A court of common law never lays a command upon a litigant, nor seeks to secure obedience from him. It issues its commands to the sheriff (its executive officer); and it is through the physical power of the latter, coupled with the legal operation of his acts and the acts of the court, that rights are protected by the common law. Thus, when a common-law court renders a judgment in an action that the plaintiff recover of the defendant a certain sum of money as a compensation for a tort or for a breach of obligation, it follows up the judgment by issuing a writ to the sheriff, under which the latter seizes the defendant’s property, and either delivers it to the plaintiff at an appraised value in satisfaction of the judgment, or sells it, and pays the judgment out of the proceeds of the sale. Here, it will be seen, satisfaction of the judgment is obtained partly through the physical acts of the sheriff, and partly through the operation of law. By the former, the property is seized and delivered to the plaintiff, or seized and sold, and the proceeds paid to the plaintiff. By the latter, the defendant’s title to the property seized is transferred to the plaintiff, or his title to the property is transferred to the purchaser, and his title to its proceeds to the plaintiff. So if a judgment be rendered that the plaintiff recover certain property in the defendant’s possession, on the ground that the property belongs to the plaintiff, and that the defendant wrongfully detains it from him, the judgment is followed up by a writ issued to the sheriff under which the latter dispossesses the defendant, and puts the plaintiff in possession. This is an instance, therefore, in which a judgment is enforced through the physical power of the sheriff alone. If, however, the property be movable, and the defendant remove or conceal it so that the sheriff cannot find it, the court is powerless. So, under a judgment for the recovery of money, the court is powerless, if the defendant (not being subject to arrest) have no property which is capable of seizure, or none which the sheriff can find; and it matters not how much property incapable of seizure he may have. Even when the defendant is subject to arrest, his arrest and imprisonment are not regarded by the law as a means of compelling him to pay the judgment; but his body is taken (as his property is) in satisfaction of the judgment.

Nor is our common law peculiar in its method of protecting rights; for the same method substantially is and always has been employed in most other systems of law with which we are acquainted. Nemo potest precise cogi ad factum was a maxim of the Roman law, and it has been adhered to in those countries whose systems of law are founded upon the Roman law.

Equity, however, has always employed, almost exclusively, the very method of compulsion and coercion which the common law, like most other legal systems, has wholly rejected; for when a person is complained of to a court of equity, the court first ascertains and decides what, if anything, the person complained of ought to do or refrain from doing; then, by its order or decree, it commands him to do or refrain from doing what it has decided he ought to do or refrain from doing; and finally, if he refuses or neglects to obey the order or decree, it punishes him by imprisonment for his disobedience. Even when common law and equity give the same relief, each adopts its own method of giving it. Thus,’ if a court of equity decides that the defendant in a suit ought to pay money or deliver property to the plaintiff, it does not render a judgment that the plaintiff recover the money or the property, and then issue a writ to its executive officer commanding him to enforce the judgment; but it commands the defendant personally to pay the money or to deliver possession of the property, and punishes him by imprisonment if he refuse or neglect to do it.

This method was borrowed by the early English chancellors from the canon law, and their reasons for borrowing it were much the same as those which caused its original adoption by the canonists. The canon-law courts had power only over the souls of litigants; they could not touch their bodies nor their property. In short, their power was spiritual, not physical, and hence the only way in which they could enforce their sentences was by putting them into the shape of commands to the persons against whom they were pronounced, and inflicting upon the latter the punishments of the church (ending with excommunication) in case of disobedience. If these punishments proved insufficient to secure obedience, the civil power (in England) came to the aid of the spiritual power, a writ issued out of chancery (de ezeomin it- nicato capiendo), and the defendant was arrested and imprisoned.

When the English chancellor began to assume jurisdiction in equity he found himself in a situation very similar to that of the spiritual courts. As their power was entirely spiritual, so his was entirely physical. Through his physical power he could imprison men’s bodies and control the possession of their property; but neither his orders and decrees, nor any acts as-such done in pursuance of them, had any legal effect or operation; and hence he could not affect the title to property, except through the acts of its owners. Moreover, his physical power over property had no perceptible influence upon his method of giving relief. Even when he made a decree for changing the possession of property, it took the shape, as we have seen, of a command to the defendant in possession to deliver possession to the plaintiff; and it was only as a last resort that the chancellor issued a writ to his executive officer, commanding him to dispossess the defendant and put the plaintiff in possession.

Such, then, being the two methods of giving relief, it is easy to understand why that of equity has supplemented that of the common law; for the former is strong at the very points where the latter is weak.

It has been said that the extent of the jurisdiction exercised by equity over common-law rights is measured by the requirements of justice. But what are the requirements of justice? In order to answer that question we must first know definitely in what particulars the common law fails to give to common-law rights all the protection which it is possible to give, and which, therefore, ought to be given; and we shall have taken an important step in that direction if we classify all the remedies furnished by the common law, and compare them with the classification before made of judicial remedies generally.

Common-law actions, like actions generally, are either in personam or in rem. Common-law actions in personam are founded upon the actual commission of a common-law tort or the actual breach of a common-law personal obligation. Common-law actions in rem are founded upon the ownership of corporeal things, movable or immovable. The relief given in a common-law action in personam is always the same; namely, a compensation in money for the tort or the breach of obligation, the amount of which is ascertained or assessed by a jury under the name of damages.’ The relief given in common-law actions in rem is also always the same, namely, the recovery of the res; but, then, it is to be borne in mind that the only action strictly in rem that lies for a movable res is the very peculiar action of replevin; and, when that action cannot be brought, the only available actions are trover, in which the value of the res in money can alone be recovered, and detinue, in which either the res itself or its value in money is recovered, at the option of the defendant. Indeed, as has been already seen, the common law has not generally the means of enabling a plaintiff to recover the possession of a movable res against the will of the defendant. In replevin that object is accomplished by dispossessing the defendant of the res, and placing the same in the plaintiff’s possession, at the very commencement of the action; but that would be obviously improper except when the defendant has acquired the possession of the res by dispossessing the plaintiff of it. The obstacle in the way of recovering possession of the res itself in an action of detinue does not arise from the nature of the action, but from the common-law mode of enforcing a judgment. Detinue is in its nature an action purely in rem; and it only ceased to be so in practice because a judgment in rem was found to be wholly ineffective; and consequently a judgment was rendered in the alternative, namely, for the recovery of the res itself or its value in money.

1 Our law regards a debt as a specific thing belonging to the creditor and in possession of the debtor; and hence the remedy specially provided for the breach of an obligation to pay a debt, namely, the action of debt, is technically an action in rem. Sometimes this is the only remedy; but in most cases the creditor has an election between an action of debt, founded upon the debt itself and an action of assumpsit or covenant, founded upon the contract by which the debt was created. In the former action, the judgment is that the plaintiff recover the debt itself as a specific thing; in the two latter, the judgment is that the plaintiff recover damages for the detention of the debt. Still, this is only a technical distinction, for the same amount is recovered either way, and the mode of enforcing the judgment is the same.[A Brief Survey of Equity Jurisdiction (excerpts),Harvard Law Review, Vol. I, October 15, 1887, No. 3.]

A Brief Survey of Equity Jurisdiction-Harvard Law Review, Vol. I, October 15, 1887, No. 3.

Equity had precedence over the common law because its degrees applied to the person of the defendant and disobedience to a decree was a contempt of court.

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The Federal Guarantee to the Citizen that His State

In the first case in which the Supreme Court was called upon to enforce this guarantee it decided that the question which of two rival governments existing in a State was the lawful government of the State was not a judicial but a political question; that is, that it was to be decided by tbe legislative and executive departments and not by the judiciary.

The case arose out of conditions bordering upon civil war in the State of Rhode Island in 1842, resulting from an attempt of certain citizenda of that State to change the organic law of Rhode Island from government under a charter granted by Charles II, which it had continued as its form of government after the Revolution, to government under a new constitution framed by the people. The trouble originated in the fact that while it was alleged that a majority of the people desired a new constitution, there was no provision in the existing law for the calling of any convention. The charter government continued, notwithstanding certain people assembled and framed and attempted to put into operation a new government. One Dorr was chosen governor by the adherents of the new government, and at once came in conflict with the old regime. The dispute was popularly knowm as "Dorr's Rebellion," and the situation soon led to military conflict, the arrest, trial, and conviction of Dorr, and his sentence to imprisonment for life (although he was subsequently pardoned). In the excitement the Federal judiciary was appealed to, and to the appeal it gave the above reply.

The Federal executive and other departments had held intercourse with the old government and so continued to recognize it, and, although neither of the State governments could, as they were administered then, be said to be a republican government, under the decision that it was a political question, to be disposed of by Congress, the facions in Rhode Island were allowed to flounder on, and finally untangle their troubles for themselves without Federal interference. So in that instance this Federal guarantee of a republican government proved to be not a very practical thing.(122)

The next occasion upon which the Supreme Court considered this Federal guarantee was after the great Civil War. The State of Texas attempted, in 1861, to secede. Her government and her people waged war on the United States for four years. In 1865 she was overcome by force of arms, and her territory was occupied by the military forces of the United States, and her government was temporarily administered by provisional appointees of the President of the United States and afterwards by governors appointed under an act of Congress, by a military commander, Texas being a part of Military District No. 5, composed of Texas and Louisiana, pursuant to an Act of Congress of March, 1867. A State convention, assembled under the authority of the United States in 1866, passed an ordinance looking to the recovery of certain bonds alleged to belong to the State, and one J. W. Throckmorton, a governor whom that convention had elected, authorized the bringing of the suit. Two subsequent military governors, Hamilton and Pease, further ratified this action. The bill was an original bill filed by Texas as a State in the Supreme Court, and while this condition of her statehood continued it prayed an injunction concerning certain bonds and their delivery to the State. The defense, among other things, questioned:

1. The authority of the parties named to prosecute a suit in the name of Texas.

2. The right of Texas, after her course in the Civil War, to sue as a State of the Union. It fell to the lot of Chief Justice Chase to decide the status of the States which had attempted to secede, after they were conquered by the United States and before they were fully restored to their relations as States of the Union. In a great opinion the following points were decided:

1. That the term State, as used in the Constitution, most frequently expresses the combined idea of people, territory, and government; a political community of free citizens, occupying a territory of defined boundaries, and organized under a government sanctioned and limited by a written constitution, and established by the consent of the governed.

2. That the Union of these States under a common Constitution, forming a distinct and greater political unit, is that which was designated by the Constitution as the United States, and made, of the people and States composing it, one people and one country.

3. That the guarantee to every State of a republican form of government was a guarantee to the people of that State.

4. That the Union was indissoluble.

5. That the States nevertheless possessed a right of self-govermment, sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right not expressly or by fair implication delegated to the Union; that without the States in union there could be no such political body as the United States.

6. That the preservation and the maintenance of their governments was as much within the care of the Federal authority as was the preservation of the national government itself.

7. That the United States was an indestructible government of indestructible States.

8. That the guarantee of republican government in the Union, to the State, was as binding on the United States as the guarantee of perpetual union, and that Texas was entitled to the performance of that guarantee by the final act whereby she became a new member of the Union.

9. That her attempt at secession and all acts intended to give it effect were null.

10. That the State continued to exist as a member of the Union, notwithstanding its temporary government had been destroyed to preserve the Union.

11. That the United States, having preserved its own existence, was engaged in performing its equally sacred obligation to provide a republican form of government to the State.

12. That this was a political guarantee to be performed by the Congress.

13. That Congress was empowered to judge of the ways and means of accomplishing,that result, and the provisional and temporary military governments then existing were lawful means to that end in a case in which the hostile State government had been destroyed, and until new and loyal republican State governments could be organized.

14. That it behooved the judiciary to recognize the continual existence of the seceding States as members of the Union, notwithstanding the temporary suspension of their relations to the Union by the force of the events above referred to.

No epitome of this great decision can do it justice. It is among the most luminous expositions extant of the vital questions of whichh it treats, and was followed thenceforth in every department of the government.(123)

In a later case the point was made that the form of government of a State was not republican in the sense guaranteed by the Constitution; that is to say, that certain State statutes in the frame and execution were not. The Supreme Court reiterated that the question was a political question, and that if the "form of governament" existing in a State was recognized by the legislative and executive departments, the judiciary ought not to question it, and must follow the interpretations of the State laws placed on them by the highest State court.(124)

In a very recent case the Supreme Court, called upon to decide upon the case of rival contestants for the office of governor of a State, declined to do so, declaring that it was pre-eminently a case for decision by the court of last resort in the State. When the Federal guarantee off a republican form of governwent, and the XIV Amendment were invoked, it dismissed the contention by declaring that the enforcement of that guarantee was intrusted to the political department of the government, and that the powers of the judiciary concerning it were not so enlarged by anything in the XIV Amendment as to give the court power to review the judgment of a State court of last resort on a question of State elections.(125)

(122) Luther v. Borden, (1849) 7 How. U.S. 1.

123) Texas v. White, (1868) 7 Wall. U.S. 700.

(124) In re Duncan (1891) 139 U. S. 449.

(125) Taylor v. Beckham, (1900) 178 U. S. 548.

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Mr. Justice WOODBURY

U.S. Supreme Court

LUTHER v. BORDEN, 48 U.S. 1 (1849)

Hence the judiciary power is not regarded by elementary writers on politics and jurisprudence as a power co ordinate or commensurate with that of the people themselves, but rather co ordinate with that of the legislature. Kendall v. U. States, 12 Peters, 526. Hence, too, the following view was urged, when the adoption of the Constitution was under consideration:-'It is the more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.' (Federalist, No. 77, by Hamilton.) 'Nor does the conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both,' &c., &c.

But how would this superiority be as to this court, if we could decide finally on all the political claims and acts of the people, and overrule or sustain them according only to our own views? So the judiciary, by its mode of appointment, long duration in office, and slight accountability, is rather fitted to check legislative power than political, and enforce what the political authorities have manifestly ordained. These last authorities are, by their pursuits and interests, better suited to make rules; we, to expound and enforce them, after made.

There are several other questions, also, which may arise under our form of government that are not properly of judicial [48 U.S. 1, 56] cognizance. They originate in political matters, extend to political objects, and do not involve any pecuniary claims or consequences between individuals, so as to become grounds for judicial inquiry. These questions are decided sometimes by legislatures, or heads of departments, or by public political bodies, and sometimes by officers, executive or military, so as not to be revisable here. (See Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Peters, 497.) (*cited as important legal theory)

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STATE OF GA. v. STANTON, 73 U.S. 50

(1867)<>The CHIEF JUSTICE

This court has no jurisdiction.

The distinction between judicial and political power is so generally acknowledged in the jurisprudence both of England and of this country, that we need do no more than refer to some of the authorities on the subject.

The Attorney-General quite understates the effects of these Reconstruction Acts. Their actual effect is to restrain at once the holding of any election within the State for any [73 U.S. 50, 64] officers of the present State government by any of the State authorities; to direct all future elections in the State to be held under the direction of, and by officers appointed by, the military commander; and that all persons of certain classes described shall be the electors permitted to vote at such election.

It is, therefore, an immediate paralysis of all the authority and power of the State government by military force; a plain setting aside of the present State government, and depriving it of the necessary means of continuing its existence. It is substituting in its place a new government, created under a new constitution, and elected by a new and independent class of electors

But these defendants cannot compel the registration. These laws compel no man in Georgia, black or white, to be registered; nor do they authorize the military commander to seize and punish any one for not going to the election. It is left entirely to the citizens to decide for themselves whether they shall be registered or not. You cannot very well stop them. What next? An election is held. Who votes at the election? Just who chooses. How do you know that anybody is going to attend that election? [73 U.S. 50, 60] How do you know that an election will be ordered, or that, if ordered, Georgia is going to accept the offer made by Congress? The people that the State of Georgia comes here to protect, can protect themselves against all this mischief by not going to the election, because the mischief is the election of a government that is going to displace the existing government. But suppose the people go to the election and vote for delegates; the delegates are not obliged to go to the convention; there is no law to punish them for not attending.

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Reconstruction by Frederick Douglass As originally published in The Atlantic Monthly December 1866

civil war: A war between opposing groups within the same state. http://august1.com/pubs/dict/

For nothing is better settled than that military law applies only to the military; but 'martial law' is made here to apply to all. (Hough on Courts-Martial, 384, note; 27 State Trials, 625, in Theobald Wolfe Tone's case.)

So it is a settled principle even in England, that, 'under the British constitution, the military law does in no respect either supersede or interfere with the civil law of the realm,' and that 'the former is in general subordinate to the latter' (Tytler on Military Law, 365); while 'martial law' overrides them all.

When there is a conflict between a statute and the common law, the statute takes precedence.[BURGESS COMMERCIAL LAW,1921, page 4}]

Secession