delivered the opinion of the court.
Wе do not think that this court has jurisdiction of this case. We cannot find in the record, nor can it be inferred from any part of it, (the certificate of the Supreme Court included) which of the statutes of Ohiо were declared to be valid, which has been alleged to be in conflict with the Constitution of the United States.
The 25th section of the act to establish the judicial courts of the,JJnited States, requirеs something more definite than such a certificate, to give to this court jurisdiction.
The conflict of a Staté law with the Constitution of the United States, and a decision by a State court in favor of its validity, must appear on the fáce of the record, before it can be reexamined in this'court. It must appear in the pleadings of the spit, or from the evidence in the course of trial, in the instructions asked for, or from exceptions taken to the ruling of the court. It must be, that such a question was necessarily involved in the decision, and that the State court would not have given a judgment without dеciding it.
The language of the section is, that no other cause can be assigned, or shall be regarded as a ground of reversal, than such as appears on the face of the record.
This certificate is, that thé Supreme Court of Ohio held that certain statutes of Ohio were valid, which had been alleged to be in violation of the Constitution of the United States, without naming what those statutes were. This is neither within the letter nor spirit of the act.
If permitted; it would make the State courts judges of th.e jurisdiction of this court, and- might cause them to take jurisdiction in cases in which conflicts betwеen the State laws and the* Constitution and the laws of the United States did not exist.
T-he statutes complained of in this case should have been stated. Without that, the court cannot"apply them to the subject-matter of litigation, to determine whether or not they violated the Constitution or laws of the United States.
This" court has already passed upon a certificate of a like kind from Ohio, in thе case of the Commercial Bank and Eunice Buckingham’s Executors,
*154 It was in that viеw of the case that this court said, in its opinion, — “ It is not enough that the record, shows that the plaintiff contended and claimed, that the judgment of the court impaired the obligation of a contract and' violated the provision of the- Constitution of the United States, and that this claim was overruled by the- court, but it must appear by clear and necessary intendment, from the record, that the quеstion must have been raised and must have been decided in order to induce thé judgment.” And it was also in this view, when one State statute was said to be repugnant to another, both being admitted to be constitutiоnal, that it was said in that case, “ It is the peculiar province and privilege of the State courts to construe their own statutes,” and when they did so, “it was no part of the functions of this court to review their decisions,” or, in such cases, “ to assume jurisdiction over them, on the pretence that their judgments have impaired the obligation of contracts.”
Having said’that this cojzrt had not jurisdiction in-this сasé on account of the. insufficiency of the certificate, we now say, if it .could be made as definite as that in the case of Buckingham’s Executors, by inserting in it the statutes of Ohio, which the court supposed involved a constitutional question, that it would not give tins court jurisdiction. Then the cases would be so much alike that the Buckingham case would rule this as to the question of jurisdiction. In the Buckingham case it was urged that the penalty, in a general statute upon banks, for refusing 'tb pay their notes in specie, could not be imposed upon a bank subsequently chartered, in addition to the penalty imposed by its- charter, without a violation of the Constitution of the United States. It is urged, in argument in this’ case, that a statute passed in 1816, entitled “ an act to prohibit the issuing and circulating of unauthorized bаnk paper,” which was amended in 1839; could, not be applied to make the defend* ants liable to pay notes which were issued in 1840 by a canal company, in its corporate name, аnd which notes were meant for circulation - in the community as bank paper. It was not contended that the canal company, could legally issue such paper for circulation аs money, though it was said .they could give notes- payable to order in payment of its debts.
It was nof-denied that the company could give notes in payment of debts, but it was said, that they could not make them for that purpose and for circulation,, as bank paper. The point then raised for,decision,'was, whether the canal company could do so, without making» its stockholders and directors liable to pay them to ,the holders of the notes, under the statute of 1816, amended in 1839. The Supreme Court decided that the defendants in this case, being directors and stockholders of the *155 сanal company were liable, by the statutes of 1816 and 1839, to pay such notes. It seems to us, that the statement, gives its own answer, and that the Supreme Court, in making its decision, only gave a constructiоn to an act of Ohio, which neither of itself, nor by its application, involved in any way a repugnancy to the Constitution of the United States, by impairing the obligation of a contract. Whether the construction of the act and the charter of the canal company was correct, or.not, we do not say. We do not m^nn to discuss that point, or to give any opinion upon it; but we mean to say, that the construction does not violate a constitutional point under the 25th section of the Judiciary Statute, so as to give this court jurisdiction of this cause.
If more was wanting in aid of our сonclusion, it is to' be found in the pleadings in the case, in the evidence given on the trial, the objections made to the admissibility of certain parts of it, in the prayers of the defendant to the сourt to instruct the jury, and in the charge which the court gave. By no one of them is a constitutional question raised. It was only suggested, in argument, and on that account it was, that the court'certified that the “ validity of statutes of Ohio was drawn into question, which were said to be in violation of the Constitution.of the United States, and hot because the court considered,that such a point had been rightly raisеd before it, under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789.”
We do not think it necessary
po
repeat any thing which this court has hitherto said, from an early day to the present, .concerning the 25th section. Its interpretation will be found in the ease of Crowell
v.
Randall,
Order.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that this cause be, and the same is hereby, dismissed, for the want of jurisdiction.