_ UNITED sums v. KANE. 45
would stop an ascending train on the ground that they ought to be
"passed up again" because they hadbeen "passed down." The act
of detaining the train, including the mail car, was unlawful, and ‘
therefore the intention to retard the passage of the mail by such act
is imputed to the defendant and his associates. In other words, the
law holds them responsible for the necessary consequences of their
unlawful conduct, without reference to the motive or purpose which _
actually induced it. But even supposing that they had, at the time,
a legal right to transportation on this train free of charge, or had
even paid for their passage to Portland thereon, the act was unlaw-
ful. '
Under such circumstances it may be admitted that the defendant
would have a right peacefully to board the passenger car and to re-
main there until he reached his destination. If the conductor dis-
puted his right and sought to put him off, he might lawfully resist
force with force; and if the conductor chose to detain the train at
any point until he got oif, and the passage of the mail wasrthereby
retarded, the responsibility therefor would lie at the door of the com-
pany, and not the defendant. But in my judgment, the defendant,
even under those circumstances, would not be justified in preventing
the conductor from detaching the mail car from the train and send-
ing it on to its place of destination; and this is what the defendant
and his associates did on January 11th. The railway company, it
should be remembered, was under an obligation to carry the mail
without delay as well as the defendant. And however derelict it may
have been in the performance of the latter obligation, the defendant
was not thereby authorized to prevent the company from doing what
it could to keep its contract to carry the mail for the purpose of
thereby coercing a performance of its supposed obligation to him.
In the case of a mail-carrier, or a person on board a mail carriage,
charged with the commission of a crime, it may be absolutely neces-
. sary to temporarily obstruct the passage of the mail to secure the
arrest —f such carrier or person. _ But the arrestof these persons,
under the circumstances, is a lawful act, and the temporary incon-
venience caused thereby is submitted to rather than that persons
guilty of serious crimes should escape punishment. One public con-
venience yields something to another. But it is not only unlawful,
but riotous, to prevent, as the defendant and his associates did, the
passage of a locomotive drawing amail car with the United States
mail therein for the mere purpose of constraining the person charged
with the conduct thereof to do or refrain from doing some act collat-
eral thereto, and which he may even be under a legal obligations to .
do or omit. If the railway company was under any legal obligation
to carry these men to Portland, and refused or failed t0 do so, the
law gave them the same remedy for this breach of contract that it .
does other people. But it did not give them any right to coerce the
company by preventing it from carrying the mails according tocoin- P