CHAP. Vin.] CORPORATION AND STATE. [§ 469. Iu construing the statutes of a state, the Federal Supreme Court will follow as far as may be the courts of the state whose statute it is construing ; J but when the highest court of a state has held repeatedly that certain state statutes are valid, and when rights have vested under them, the Federal Supreme Court will not follow in construing such statutes any oscillations of the state court ; at least when the Supreme Court is deciding upon the legal effect of transactions taking place before the change in state judicial opinion had tran- spired. 2 § 469. We now come to the relations between the state and the corporation other than the legal relations occa- sioned by the contract between them ; to relations, between that is, existing between the lawgiver as such and a ndthecor- citizens. Reverting for an instant to the distinc- P°r atlon o other than tion before mentioned between the state considered legal reia- • • • <■ tions occa- as the ultimate political power thereof and the state sioned by legislature, it may be added that, though the powers of the legislature are more restricted than those of the state, Bridge, 3 Wall. 51. And when a state statute creates a contract, and a subsequent statute is alleged to impair the obligation of that con- tract, and the highest court of law or equity in the state construes the first statute in such a manner that the second statute does not impair the contract, whereby the second statute remains valid under the United States constitution, the Fed- eral Supreme Court may pass on the decision. Bridge Proprietors v. Ho- boken Co., 1 Wall. 116. The Fed- eral question relied on must have been raised on the trial in the state court. Susquehanna Boom Co. v. West Branch Boom Co., 110 U. S. 57; Brown v. Colorado, 106 U. S. 95. The question whether a state may tax the franchises of a corporation derived from acts of Congress is re- movable to the Federal courts. Southern Pacific R. R. Co. v. Cali- fornia, 118 U. S. 109. The constitution of a state is a "law" within the meaning of the clause in the Federal constitution which forbids a state to pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts. Railroad Co. v. McClure, 10 Wall. 511. 1 See Wright ». Nagle, 101 U. S. 791; Secombe v. Railroad Co., 23 Wall. 108; but compare Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U. S. 20; see, also, Beauregard v. New Orleans, 18 How. 497, 502; Bank of Hamilton v. Dud- ley's Lessee, 2 Pet. 492, 524; Elmen- dorf v. Taylor, 10 Wheat. 152, 159; Green v. Neal's Lessee, 6 Pet. 291, 298. A decision by a state court that a statute of the state is in ac- cordance with the state constitu- tion binds the Federal courts. Rail- road Co. v. Georgia, 98 U. S. 359. 2 Gelpcke v. City of Dubuque, 1 Wall. 175 ; Havemeyer v. Iowa County, 3 Wall. 294; see Olcott v. Supervisors, 16 Wall. 678; Douglas 457
