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of this State, remove said suit or proceeding to any Federal court, or shall institute any suit or proceeding against any citizen of this State in any Federal court, it shall be the duty of the Commissioner to forthwith revoke all authority to such company and its agents to do business in this State, and to publish such revocation in some newspaper of general circulation published in the State."

A State has the right to prohibit a foreign corporation from doing business within its borders, unless such prohibition is so conditioned as to violate some provision of the Federal Constitution. Among the later authorities on that proposition are Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648; Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, 583; Orient Insurance Company v. Daggs, 172 U. S. 557; Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 177 U. S. 28; New York Life Insurance Company v. Cravens, 178 U. S. 389, 395; Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Warren, 181 U. S. 73.

Having the power to prevent a foreign insurance company from doing business at all within the State, we think the State can enact a statute such as is above set forth.

The question is, in our opinion, settled by the decisions of this court. In Insurance Company v. Morse, 20 Wall. 445, a statute of Wisconsin, passed in 1870, in relation to fire insurance. companies, after providing for certain conditions upon which the foreign company might do business within the State, continued:

"Any such company desiring to transact any such business. as aforesaid by any agent or agents in this State, shall first appoint an attorney in this State on whom process of law can be served, containing an agreement that such company will not remove the suit for trial into the United States Circuit Court or Federal courts, and file in the office of the Secretary of State a written instrument, duly signed and sealed, certifying such appointment, which shall continue until another attorney be substituted."

While that statute was in force the Home Insurance Company of the State of New York established an agency in Wis

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consin, and, in compliance with the provisions of the statute, the company duly filed in the office of the Secretary of State of Wisconsin the appointment of one Durand as its agent, upon whom process might be served. The power of attorney was filed, containing the following agreement: "Said company agrees that suits commenced in the state courts of Wisconsin shall not be removed by the acts of said company into the United States Circuit or Federal courts."

After doing business in the State for some time the company issued a policy to Morse, and a loss having occurred, Morse sued the company in one of the state courts of Wisconsin to recover the amount alleged to be due on the policy. The company entered its appearance in the suit and filed its petition to remove the case, which petition was in proper form, and was accompanied by the required bond and bail. Being presented to the state court of Wisconsin, in which the suit was brought, that court held that the statute justified the denial of the petition to remove the case into the Federal court, and a trial having been had in the state court, it gave judgment for the plaintiff on a verdict found in his favor. Upon a review of the judgment by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin it was affirmed. Thereupon the insurance company sued out a writ of error from this court, and the sole question was, whether the statute and agreement were sufficient to justify the state court in refusing to permit the removal of the case to the Federal court, and proceeding to judgment therein. This court held that the agreement was void, inasmuch as, if carried out, it would oust the Federal courts of a jurisdiction given them by the Constitution and statutes of the United States. said that the statute of Wisconsin was an obstruction to the right of removal provided for by the Constitution of the United States and the laws made in pursuance thereof, and that the agreement of the insurance company derived no support from the unconstitutional statute, and it was void as it would have been had no such statute been passed. The Chief Justice, with whom concurred Mr. Justice Davis, dissented, holding that, as

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the State had the right to exclude foreign insurance companies from the transaction of business within its jurisdiction, it had the right to impose conditions upon their admission, which was a necessary consequence from the right to exclude altogether. It will be seen the statute provided that in the power of attorney, appointing an agent for the company within the State, there should be an agreement that the company would not remove a case to a Federal court, and the statute was held to be void.

Subsequently the case of Doyle v. Continental Insurance Company, 94 U. S. 535, involving the same statute, came before this court. In that case the court reaffirmed the decision of the Morse case, supra, as to the invalidity of the agreement. But in distinguishing the two cases it was said in the course of the opinion that, as the State had the right to entirely exclude such company from doing business in the State, the means by which it caused such exclusion or the motives of its action were not the subject of judicial inquiry; that the conclusion reached in the Morse case that the statute of Wisconsin was illegal was to be understood as spoken of the provision of the statute then under review, viz., that portion thereof requiring a stipulation against transferring cases to the courts of the United States; that the decision was upon that portion of the statute only, and that other portions thereof, when presented, must be judged on their merits. The court further said that the Morse case had not undertaken to decide what the powers of the State of Wisconsin were in revoking a license previously granted, as no such question had arisen upon the facts therein, and was neither argued by counsel nor referred to in the opinion, but that in the case then before the court (that of Doyle) the point as to the power of the State to revoke a license was distinctly presented. It is stated in the opinion, as follows:

"We have not decided that the State of Wisconsin had not the power to impose terms and conditions as preliminary to the right of an insurance company to appoint agents, keep

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offices, and issue policies in that State. On the contrary, the case of Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, where it is held that such conditions may be imposed, was cited with approval in Insurance Company v. Morse."

The opinion concludes as follows:

"It is said that we thus indirectly sanction what we condemn when presented directly; to wit, that we enable the State of Wisconsin to enforce an agreement to abstain from Federal courts. This is an 'inexact statement.' The effect of our decision in this respect is that the State may compel the foreign company to abstain from the Federal courts, or to cease to do business in the State. It gives the company the option. This is justifiable, because the complainant has no constitutional right to do business in that State; that State has authority at any time to declare that it shall not transact business there. This is the whole point of the case, and, without reference to the injustice, the prejudice, or the wrong that is alleged to exist, must determine the question. No right of the complainant under the laws or Constitution of the United States, by its exclusion from the State, is infringed; and this is what the State now accomplishes. There is nothing, therefore, that will justify the interference of this court."

In these two cases this court decided that any agreement made by a foreign insurance company not to remove a cause to the Federal court was void, whether made pursuant to a statute of the State providing for such agreement, or in the absence of such statute; but that the State, having power to exclude altogether a foreign insurance company from doing business within the State, had power to enact a statute which, in addition to providing for the agreement mentioned, also provided that if the company did remove a case from the state to a Federal court, its right to do business within the State should cease, and its permit should be revoked. It was held there was a distinction between the two propositions, and one might be held void and the other not.

The case of Barron v. Burnside, 121 U. S. 186, has been cited

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as overruling the Doyle case, and as holding that a statute of the nature of the one in question here is void as a violation of the Federal Constitution. In that case a statute of Iowa was under consideration. It is set out in the report. The first section provides for an application by the foreign company to the Secretary of State, requesting that a permit may be issued to the corporation to transact business in the State. It also provides that the application shall contain a stipulation that the permit shall be subject to each of the provisions of the act. The third section provides that if any cases commenced in a state court were removed by the corporation into a Federal court, the corporation should thereupon forfeit any permit issued or authority granted to it to transact business in the State. The fourth section provides for punishing the agents, officers or servants of the corporation for doing business as such in the State, if the corporation had not complied with the statute and taken out and retained a valid permit to do business within the State. The corporation had not, in fact, taken out a permit. Barron, the plaintiff in error, was a servant of the corporation, and was engaged as engineer in running a train of the corporation, which started from Chicago and was running in the State of Iowa. He was arrested in Iowa for acting as the agent of the company in that State, while the company had no permit. Having been arrested, he applied to the Supreme Court of the State for a writ of habeas corpus, which was issued and a return made, and the case heard upon an agreed statement, containing the above facts. The state court upheld the validity of the statute, and the case was brought to this court by writ of error, where the judgment was reversed and the statute held invalid.

In the opinion delivered in this court it will be observed that the agreement or stipulation provided for in the statute was the material fact upon which the court proceeded, and it was held that the statute did require such agreement. The various requirements mentioned in the first section of the statute were referred to as forming in fact but one proceeding and as indis

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