CHAPTER IX
Damages
This not being a general treatise, but merely a consideration of certain phases, certain difficulties of the subject-matter, little need be said on the subject of damages.
One or two matters, however, may be of interest:
Great discussion has been had as to whether the damage must be to a trader, or to one in the way of his trade, or one in matters involving national trade. This subject seems free from difficulty. We are all citizens of a common country—a wrongful act prohibited, and by proper authority, and damage promised to those who suffer from that act, must be redressed! If there be, for example, a conspiracy against national trade, there can be no reason to doubt that any one injured by anything done as part of or in pursuance of that conspiracy should recover. The act expressly says so! There has been an undoubted wrong, from an assault upon national authority, and a damage from it, and there would seem to be no reason why there should not be a recovery. This question seems settled in Chattanooga vs. Atlanta.[1]
It is, too, often absurdly argued, that if "a means" causing damage is an act within State jurisdiction, the national jurisdiction is ousted by the State's, though the act was done in pursuance of an attack on national trade; but that is practically destroying national authority altogether, as nearly every conceivable wrongful act could be redressed
- ↑ 203 U. S. 390 (1906).
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