10 FEDERAL REPORTER.
knowledged and fundamental principle upon which equity jurisdic-
tion is founded, because there seems to have been no case calling for
its exercise under a system of tenures, a rule of seizin, and forms
of procedure now obsolete in the country of their creation, and which
never had any place in thelaws of this country. The jurisdiction
' and practice in the equity courts of the United States has a general
» correspondence with that of the chancery courts of England. But
. chancery jurisdiction and practice, like the common law, is subject
to be modified by local circumstances, or local convenience and ne-
cessity. The altered condition of society and government demands
corresponding changes in our jurisprudence. Law, like everything
else, is subject to the law of evolution. The conservatism of courts
is a guaranty that the process will not go forward more rapidly than
experience and the plainest principles of right and justice impera-
tively demand.
In answer to the argument that the subject-matter of a proceed-
ing at law in a federal court, founded on a state statute, was origi-
nally exclusively cognizable in equity, and therefore could not be
changed into a proceeding at law, the supreme court of the United
States, speaking by Mr. Justice Myrrnnws, said:
," And the remaining question, therefore, becomes, not so much whether
congress may, by appropriate legislation, transmute an equitable into a legal
procedure, as whether it can in anywise change the rules of pleading and pro-
cedure as to courts, either of law or equity, in force in England at the time of
the adoption of the constitution, or whether, by the adoption —of that instru-
ment, all progress in the modes of enforcing rights, both at law and in equity,
was arrested and their forms forever fixed. To state the question is to an-
swer it." Em parte Boyd, 105 U. S. 647, 655.
` And see, to same effect, Ellis v. Davis, 109 U. S. 485, 497; S. C.
3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 327. °
But the case at bar falls plainly within the first and most ancient
principle of equity jurisdiction. No extension or expansion of that
jurisdiction is necessary to uphold it.
In Holland v. Ohallcn, 110 U. S. 15, S. C. 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 495,
Mr. Justice FIELD, speaking for the whole court, said:
"The truth is that the jurisdiction to relieve the holders of real property
‘ from vexatious claims to it, castiuga cloud upon their title, and thus disturb-
ingltliem in its peaceable use and enjoyment, is inherent in a court of equity.
It is true, that case was founded on a statute of Nebraska, but the
reasoning of the court in support of the jurisdiction under the stat-
ute, supports it equally independently of the statute. The court say:
" The property in this case, to quiet the title to which the present suit is
brought, is described inthe bill as unoccupied, wild, and uucultivated land.
Few persons would be willinglto take possession of such land, inclose, culti-
vate, and improve it, in the face of a disputed claim to its ownership. The
cost of such improvements would probably exceed the value of the property.
An action for ejectment for it would not lie, as it has no occupant; and if, as
contended by the defendant, no relief can be had in equity because the party