Argument for Defendant in Error. 217 U. S. at all, is a conspiracy against interstate trade-a violation of the act of Congress, the Sherman Act, and not a violation of the anti-trust act of Tennessee. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 211, 229, 230; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 344; Railroad v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465; United States v. Swift & Co., 122 Fed. Rep. 534. The defendant cannot be punished in the present proceeding for a violation of the Sherman Act, because (1) the pleadings are not framed to that end; (2) and the state court has no jurisdiction to entertain a proceeding for that purpose. Minnesota v. Northern Securities Co., 194 U. S. 48; Loewe v. Lawlor, 130 Fed. Rep. 633. The statute of limitations in the case of a violation of the provisions of this act by a corporation, is one year. More than three years elapsed between the commission of the alleged offense, and the institution of the suit in this case; and the bar of the statute is a complete defense. Turley v. State, 3 Heisk. (Tenn.) 11; Code of Tennessee (Shannon), §§ 6736, 6942-6945, 6993, 6694. Mr. Charles T. Cates, Jr., Attorney General of Tennessee, for defendant in error: No Federal question is involved in the decision of the state court that the transactions at Gallatin complained of in the bill were forbidden by the state statute. The meaning and application of a state statute is to be determined by the decision of the state court. Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 177 U. S. 28, 42, 43; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U. S. 462, 467; Smiley v. Kansas, 196 U. S. 447, 455. That the State of Tennessee had the right to deal with the subject-matter of the act of 1903, and to prevent unlawful agreements and arrangements in festraint of trade, or which are designed or tend to prevent competition in the sale of commodities or products, and to prohibit and punish such unlawful agreements or contracts is no longer open to question. National Cotton Oil Co. v. Texas, 197 U. S. 115; Smiley v. 217 U.S. Argument for Defendant in Error. Kansas, 196 U. S. 447; Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U. S. 86. The proper construction to be given to a state statute and as to what is to be regarded as among its terms presents no Federal question. Phoenix Ins. Co. v. Gardner, 11 Wall. 204; Morley v. Lake Shore &c. Co., 146 U. S. 162. This court does not sit to review the findings of fact made in the state court, but accepts the findings of the state court upon matters of fact as conclusive. Quimby v. Boyd, 128 U. S. 489; Eagan v. Hart, 165 U. S. 188; Dower v. Richards, 151 U. S. 658; Thayer v. Spratt, 189 U. S. 346; Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U. S. 86. The acts of plaintiff in error were interstate transactions. Standard Oil Co. v. State, 117 Tennessee, 618, also approved by the Supreme Court of the State in this case. The Tennessee anti-trust act does not deprive plaintiff in error of its rights, liberty and property without due process of law, or deny to it the equal protection of the law. A complete remedy was presented by bill in equity to be conducted according to the recognized practice in courts of equity, against corporations violating the law, which has been sustained as "due process of law" by the Supreme Court of the State. State v. Schlitz Brewing Company, 104 Tennessee, 715. By this method of procedure against offending corporations, according to the well-established practice of courts of equity, the alleged offender has full opportunity to be heard upon all its defenses in the same and as full a manner as other persons or corporations sued in such courts, and the right to have any issue of fact submitted to a jury. Whether a foreign corporation is entitled to the right of a trial by jury does not involve any Federal question. The first ten amendments were not intended to restrict the powers of the State, but to operate solely on the Federal Government. Brown v. New Jersey, 175 U. S. 174; Barrington v. Missouri, 205 U. S. 483; Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131; Jack v. Kansas, 199 U. S. 372, 380. Nor are the "safeguards" of personal VOL. CCXVII-27 Argument for Defendant in Error. 217 U.S. rights, enumerated in the first eight amendments among privileges and immunities, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Twining's Case, 211 U. S. 78. The right to a trial by jury is not one of the fundamental rights inherent in national citizenship. Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90; Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, 31; Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581. Plaintiff in error is not deprived of due process of law or denied the equal protection of the law, in that it was not put to trial under an indictment as upon a criminal charge and, in this way, arbitrarily discriminated against by being denied a trial by jury, and the right to plead the statute of limitations, applicable to criminal charges, under the statutes of Tennessee, and forced to submit to a conviction upon preponderance of testimony rather than have its guilt established beyond a reasonable doubt-all of which rightsit claims, were granted to natural persons under § 3 of said act. Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. State, 19 Tex. Civ. App. 1, aff'd in Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 177 U. S. 28; WatersPierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U. S. 86; West v. Louisiana, 194 U. S. 258, 263; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U. S. 462, 468; Iowa Central Railroad Co. v. Iowa, 160 U. S. 389, 393; Louisville &c. Co. v. Schmidt, 177 U. S. 236; Hooker v. Los Angeles, 188 U. S. 314, 318; Rogers v. Peck, 199 U. S. 425. See also Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U. S. 638; Felts v. Murphy, 201 U. S. 123; Twining's Case, 211 U. S. 78; Hager v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 360. Nor was plaintiff in error discriminated against by being put to trial under a bill in equity according to the practice of courts of equity and thus denied a trial by a jury, or the right of the statute of limitations. Magoun v. Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, 179 U. S. 283; Orient Insurance Co. v. Daggs, 172 U. S. 557; Hager v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, approved in Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 598, 599. There is no palpably arbitrary classification or discrimination. A corporation cannot be imprisoned; the only method of procedure appropriate to the case, adapted to the end to be attained, is to prohibit it from carrying on its business, through the injunction process of a court of equity. An injunction issuing out of a criminal court is a thing unknown to the law. As to the statute of limitations, as this is a civil action, under the Code of Tennessee (Shannon's Code, § 4453), no statute of limitations is applicable thereto as against the State. The state court held that the offense denounced by $3 of the act of 1903 is a felony of such grade and punishment that no statute of limitations applies thereto. Therefore, plaintiff in error has not been deprived of any right. The construction and effect given by the Supreme Court of the State, to the state statute is not subject to reëxamination by this court under a writ of error. Harbinger v. Myer, 92 U. S. 111; McStacy et al. v. Friedman, 92 U. S. 723. MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court. The plaintiff in error is a Kentucky corporation and seeks to reverse a decree of the Supreme Court of Tennessee forbidding it to do business, other than interstate commerce, in the latter State. 120 Tennessee, 86. The ground of the decree is that the corporation and certain named agents entered into an arrangement for the purpose and with the effect of lessening competition in the sale of oil at Gallatin, Tennessee, and with the further result of advancing the price of oil there. The acts proved against the corporation were held to entail the ouster under a statute of Tennessee. Act of March 16, 1903. The corporation brings the case here on the contentions that the statute as construed by the court is contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment and also is an unconstitutional interference with commerce among the States. The basis of the former contention is that by § 3 of the act any violation of it is made a crime, punishable by fine, imprisonment or both, and that this section has been construed as applicable only to natural persons. Standard Oil Co. v. The State, 117 Tennessee, 618. Hence, it is said, this statute denies to corporations the equal protection of the laws. For although it is addressed generally to the prevention of a certain kind of conduct, whether on the part of corporations or unincorporated men, the latter cannot be tried without a preliminary investigation by a grand jury, an indictment or presentment, a trial by jury, the right to an acquittal unless their guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt, and the benefit of a statute of limitations of one year. Corporations, on the other hand, are proceeded against by bill in equity on relation of the Attorney General without any of these advantages, except perhaps the right to a jury. Complaint is not made of the difference between fine or imprisonment and ouster, but it is insisted that this is a general criminal statute, that ouster is a punishment as much as a fine, and that it is not a condition attached to the doing of business by foreign corporations, Carroll v. Greenwich Insurance Co., 199 U. S. 401, 409, or indeed a regulation of the conduct of corporations as such at all. Therefore the plaintiff in error complains that it is given a wrongful immunity from the procedure of the criminal law. This suit is for the same transaction for which, in the earlier case cited above, an agent of the company was indicted and fined. The foregoing argument is one of the many attempts to construe the Fourteenth Amendment as introducing a factitious equality without regard to practical differences that are best met by corresponding differences of treatment. The law of Tennessee sees fit to seek to prevent a certain kind of conduct. To prevent it the threat of fine and imprisonment is likely to be efficient for men, while the latter is impossible and the former less serious to corporations. On the other hand, the threat of extinction or ouster is not |