ground of removal, that the two companies were corporations of different States.

The sufficiency of the bond was not disputed. But the County Court refused to recognize any right of removal, and the Kentucky corporation was about to proceed in the prosecution of its case in that court, despite the application for removal. Thereupon the Delaware corporation filed in the Circuit Court of the United States a complete transcript of the proceedings in the state court.

Subsequently the present original suit in equity was instituted in the Federal court by the Mining Company against the Traction Company. The bill, repeating the allegations in the petition for removal as to the diverse citizenship of the two corporations, showed that, notwithstanding what had been done to have the cause removed, from the state court, the Traction Company was about to proceed to have the lands condemned in the case instituted in the County Court. Among other things the bill alleged that plaintiff denied the right of the Traction Company to have the lands in question condemned, and averred that the report of the commissioners was insufficient in law; that the commissioners acted improperly, unfairly and unfaithfully in their viewing of the land, in the preparation of their report and in awarding damages; that $100 was wholly inadequate as compensation, and was assessed and given under the influence of passion and prejudice, or some other illegal motive; that the land sought to be taken was worth, intrinsically, a great deal more than that amount; that the incidental damages. done to the property of plaintiff in the construction of the road, (which damages under the laws of Kentucky the said commissioners should have taken into consideration and assessed, but did not, § 836,) exceeded $2,000; that the plaintiff's property and business will not be benefited in the least degree by the construction or prudent operation of the railroad; and that "it is proposed to deprive it of over nine acres of its land, which through its location is valued at and is worth over $2,500, and is so situated that such

deprivation will irreparably injure and damage its remaining land."

The relief asked in the present suit was that the Traction Company be restrained and enjoined from further prosecuting the case in the County Court or taking any further steps therein.

The Traction Company demurred to the bill, one of the grounds of demurrer being that the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction or authority, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, to grant the injunction asked for, or any other relief. The Circuit Court sustained its jurisdiction and overruled the demurrer. The Traction Company stood by its demurrer, and a final decree was entered enjoining that company from any further prosecution of the case in the County Court.

It has been observed that the parties to the proceeding in the County Court are corporations, and therefore each is to be deemed, for the purpose of suing and being sued in the Federal court, a citizen of the State by whose laws it was created. The questions presented by the record are these: Was the proceeding in the state court a suit or controversy to which the judicial power of the United States extends? If a suit or controversy," was it removable to the Circuit Court of the United States? If removable, was it, in law, removed, and was it competent for that court, after the removal of the case, to enjoin the Traction Company from further proceeding in the state court? We recognize the importance of these questions, and have given them the fullest consideration.

Certain principles, relating to the removal of cases, have been settled by former adjudications. They are:

1. If a case be a removable one, that is, if the suit, in its nature, be one of which the Circuit Court could rightfully take jurisdiction, then upon the filing of a petition for removal, in due time, with a sufficient bond, the case is, in law, removed, and the state court in which it is pending will lose jurisdiction to proceed further, and all subsequent proceedings in that court will be void. Railroad Company v. Mississippi, 102

U. S. 135, 141; Railroad v. Kontz, 104 U. S. 5, 14; Steamship Company v. Tugman, 106 U. S. 118, 122; St. Paul & Chicago Ry. Co. v. McLean, 108 U. S. 212, 216; Crehore v. Ohio &c. Railway Co., 131 U. S. 240, 243; Kern v. Huidekoper, 103 U. S. 485, 493.

2. After the presentation of a sufficient petition and bond to the state court in a removal case, it is competent for the Circuit Court, by a proceeding ancillary in its nature—without violating section 720 of the Revised Statutes, forbidding a court of the United States from enjoining proceedings in a state court to restrain the party against whom a cause has been legally removed from taking further steps in the state court. French, Trustee, v. Hay, 22 Wall. 238, 252; Dietzsch v. Huidekoper, 103 U. S. 494, 496, 497; Moran v. Sturges, 154 U. S. 256, 270. See also, Sargent v. Holton, 115 U. S. 348; Harkrader v. Wadley, 172 U. S. 148, 165; Gates v. Bucki, 53 Fed. Rep. 961; Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Kuteman, 54 Fed. Rep. 547; In re Whitelaw, 71 Fed. Rep. 733, 738; Iron Mountain R. R. Co. v. Memphis, 96 Fed. Rep. 113; James v. Central Trust Co., 98 Fed. Rep. 489.

3. It is well settled that if, upon the face of the record, including the petition for removal, a suit does not appear to be a removable one, then the state court is not bound to surrender its jurisdiction, and may proceed as if no application for removal had been made. Stone v. South Carolina, 117 U. S. 430, 432; Carson v. Hyatt, 118 U. S. 279, 281; Marshall v. Holmes, 141 U. S. 589, 595; Burlington &c. Railway Co. v. Dunn, 122 U. S. 513, 515.

So that the fundamental question here is whether the case, brought in the County Court, was a removable one. If it was, then the decree of the Circuit Court, restraining the Traction Company from taking further steps in the local court, after the removal of the case to the Federal court, was right; but if the case was not a removable one, then the decree was erroneous. The rule is now settled that, under the judiciary act of 1887, 1888, a suit cannot be removed from a state court, unless

it could have been brought originally in the Circuit Court of the United States. Tennessee v. Union & Planters' Bank, 152 U. S. 454; Mexican Nat. R. R. v. Davidson, 157 U. S. 201; Metcalf v. Watertown, 128 U. S. 586; Minnesota v. Northern Securities Co., 194 U. S. 48.

Why could not the proceeding instituted in the County Court have been brought originally in the Federal court? The case, as made in the County Court, was, beyond question, a judicial proceeding; it related to property rights; the parties are corporate citizens of different States; and the value of the matter in dispute exceeded the amount requisite to give jurisdiction to the Circuit Court. It was therefore a proceeding embraced by the very words of the Constitution of the United States which declares that the "judicial power shall extend to controversies between citizens of different States,' as well as by the act of 1887 (§ 1), which declares "that the Circuit Courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of two thousand dollars, in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different States." In view of these explicit provisions it is clear that the proceeding in the County Court was a suit or controversy within the meaning both of the Constitution and of the judiciary act. We could not hold otherwise without overruling former decisions of this court. Let us see whether this be not so.

Referring to the clause of the Constitution defining the judicial power of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the court in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 819, said: "This clause enables the judicial department to receive jurisdiction to the full extent of the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States, when any question respecting them shall assume such a form that the judicial power is capable of acting on it. That power is capable of acting only when the subject is submitted to it, by a party

who asserts his rights in the form prescribed by law. It then becomes a case, and the Constitution declares, that the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States."

In Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 367, 376, which was a suit in the Circuit Court of the United States to condemn lands for a public building, this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Strong, said: “It is difficult then, to see why a proceeding to take land in virtue of the Government's eminent domain, and determining the compensation to be made for it, is not, within the meaning of the statute, a suit at common law, when initiated in a court. It is an attempt to enforce a legal right."

Two cases very much in point are Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403, and Searl v. School District No. 2, 124 U. S. 197. Boom Co. v. Patterson was a case of condemnation under a statute authorizing a County District Court to appoint commissioners to appraise the value of the property to be taken. The local statute provided that if the appraisement was not satisfactory, the matter could be brought before the court, where the issues of fact would be tried by a jury, unless a jury was waived. It was a case of diverse citizenship, and, upon the petition of the defendant, a citizen of another State, it was removed from the inferior local court to the Circuit Court of the United States. One question was whether the case was, in its nature, excluded from the jurisdiction of the Federal court. Referring to the contention that the proceeding to take private property for public use was an exercise by the State of its sovereign right of eminent domain, and with its exercise the United States, a separate sovereignty, had no right to interfere by any of its departments, this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Field, said: "But notwithstanding the right is one that appertains to sovereignty, when the sovereign power attaches conditions to its exercise, the inquiry whether the conditions have been observed is a proper matter for judicial cognizance. If that inquiry take the form of a proceeding before the courts between parties-the owners of the land on the one side, and