*38 mtnmmn · nmrommn.
U possible. There is strong reason for maintaining this position. If a
judge of a state court-—-another sovereignty as distinct from the na-
tional sovereignty as if it ruled over a diiierent terrritory-—can, under
the circumstances indicated, compel the production of a prisoner
held under the laws of the United States,-—the supreme law of the
land,-—he has the physical power to discharge him when produced,
however lawless the discharge may be, as was done, in fact, in the
Booth and Tarbtc Cases. The production of the body in court, by
means of which the court has the physical power to assume control,
is equivalent to a surrender of a prisoner. And ifone person can be
discharged by a state ofhcer, so can all, and it would be impossible
for the United States, in some contingencies, to discharge the duty
imposed upon them by the national constitution relating to fugitives
from justice, as well as to fugitives from labor, or to execute the
laws of congress passed to give effect to those constitutional rights
of the several states, as between themselves. It would be as dith-
cult to perform their duties as the supreme court in Booths Gases
said it would be to execute the criminal laws of the United States
under similar conditions.
By producing the body as required by the writ, the petitioner nec-
essarily places his prisoner within the control of the court issuing it,
and deprives himself of all power to perform the requirements of his
commission, enjoined by the superior authority of the laws of the
United States. He cannot, and he does not, owe a divided duty to
two distinct sovereignties. He cannot serve two masters. He can-
not produce his prisoner, which is equivalent to his surrender, in
obedience to the commands of the writ of habeas corpus, and at the
same time retain power to obey the mandate of the laws of the
United States and deliver him to the authorities of the state of Ore-
gon. He must obey one command or the other, and the command
to.be obeyed is the one which is superior or supreme in its authority.
But whether these reasons and others given are sound or not, the
rule as to the jurisdiction of the state courts, under the circum-
V stances indicated, appears to us to be clearly established by the high-
- est tribunal in the land, and are not open even to question here, and
cannot be disregarded by us.
We are of opinion, under the authoritative decisions cited, that the
S judge of the superior court on the petition of Bayley, as presented,
had no jurisdiction to issue the writ, and certainly, upon the petition
. and the return made to the writ by Robb, that neither the judge nor
· the court over which he presides had jurisdiction or authority to pro·
‘ ceed further, or to compel the production of the body of Bayley, or
to punish him for contempt for respectfully declining to produce the
‘ body under the circumstances of the case, in pursuance of the com-
mands of the writ.
We should not have thought it necessary to go into the case so
fully, or to have done anything beyond referring to the Booth and