The final phase of the relation of State courts has to do with their administration of federal law. Although it is the general rule that Congress cannot vest the judicial power of the United States in courts other than those created in pursuance of article III,[701] it has from the beginning of the National Government left to the State courts wide areas of jurisdiction which it might have vested exclusively in the federal courts, section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 offering the supreme illustration. But going far beyond that, in the latter years of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, Congress provided that suits by the National Government itself for fines, forfeitures, and penalties imposed by the revenue laws might be brought in State courts of competent jurisdiction as well as in the federal courts.[702] The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793,[703] the Naturalization Act of 1795,[704] and the Alien Enemies Act of 1798,[705] all imposed positive duties on State courts to enforce federal law. In 1799 the State courts were vested with jurisdiction to try criminal offenses against federal laws.[706] Extensive reliance was placed on State courts for the enforcement of the Embargo Acts;[707] and the act of March 3, 1815,[708] vested in State or county courts within or directly adjoining a federal tax-collection district cognizant "of all complaints, suits and prosecutions for taxes, duties, fines, penalties, and forfeitures."
The indifference, however, of the State courts in New England to the Embargo Acts, the later hostility of courts in the northern States to the Fugitive Slave Act, and the refusal of courts in other States to administer federal law on the general principle that the courts of no nation are bound to enforce the penal laws of another,[709] all combined to produce strong sentiments against the use of State courts to administer federal law. These sentiments came in time to be incorporated in dissenting opinions,[710] and in 1842 in Prigg v. Pennsylvania[711] the Court definitely ruled that the States could not be compelled to enforce federal law. However, it was later held that this ruling did not prevent Congress from authorizing State courts to administer federal law or the action taken by them, if they choose to do so, from being valid.[712]
Resumption of the Practice
Near the end of the nineteenth century and afterwards Congress resumed its earlier practice of vesting concurrently the enforcement of federally created rights in the State and federal courts. The administration of Indian lands and the determination of rights to inherit allotted lands[713] marked the beginning of the restoration of the use of State courts to apply federal law, and the Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908[714] carried the practice further, not only by vesting concurrent jurisdiction in suits arising under the act, in State courts but also in prohibiting the removal of cases begun in State courts to the federal courts. Soon afterwards the Connecticut courts in a compensation case applied the State's common law rules of liability contrary to the federal act and held that Congress could not require a State court to grant a remedy which local law did not permit. The Connecticut courts further held that enforcement of the federal act was contrary to the public policy of the State.[715] This decision was overruled in the Second Employers' Liability Cases,[716] where it was held on the basis of national supremacy that rights arising under the act can be enforced "as of right, in the courts of the States when their jurisdiction, as prescribed by local laws, is adequate to the occasion." Subsequently, the Supreme Court has held that the rights created under this statute cannot be defeated by forms of local practice and that it is the duty of the Supreme Court to construe allegations in a complaint asserting a right under the liability act in order to determine whether a State court has denied a right of trial guaranteed by Congress.[717]
STATE OBLIGATION TO ENFORCE FEDERAL LAW
The issue of State obligation to administer federal law was presented most recently by Testa v. Katt.[718] This case arose out of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942,[719] which provided that persons who had been overcharged in violation of the act or, in the alternative, the Price Administrator, could sue for treble damages in any court of competent jurisdiction. On the ground that one sovereign cannot enforce the penal laws of another, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that the State courts had no jurisdiction of such suits. Assuming for the purposes of the case that the treble damage provision, was "penal" in nature, Justice Black for a unanimous Court proceeded to lay to rest the principle that a State court is not bound to enforce federal criminal law as an assumption flying "in the face of the fact that the States of the Union constitute a nation" and one which disregarded the supremacy clause. Justice Black also pointed to early acts of Congress and early decisions of the Supreme Court as establishing the rule that "State courts do not bear the same relation to the United States as they do to foreign countries."[720] The Prigg case, though not overruled expressly, was ignored save for its citation in a footnote.[721]
RIGHT OF FOREIGN CORPORATIONS TO RESORT TO FEDERAL COURTS
In a series of cases the Court has been called upon to adjudicate between the power of a State to exclude foreign corporations from doing a purely domestic business within its borders and the right of such foreign corporations to resort to the federal courts. After deciding first one way and then the other, on the basis of some highly refined distinctions,[722] it finally, in 1922, came out unqualifiedly for the latter right. This was in Terral v. Burke Construction Co.,[723] in which an Arkansas statute requiring the cancellation of the license of a foreign corporation to do business in the State, upon notice that such corporation had removed a case to a federal court, was pronounced void. At the same time all contrary decisions were explicitly overruled.
Clause 3. The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. See Amendment VI, pp. [878-881].