Opinion of the Court. 291 U.S. The statute as amended engaged in interstate commerce." was intended to embrace all locomotives, cars, and similar vehicles used on any railroad which is a highway of interstate commerce. Southern Ry. Co. v. United States, 222 U.S. 20. With respect to such vehicles, the duty to protect employees by the prescribed safety appliances exists even though the vehicles and the employee injured through the failure to provide such protection are at the time engaged in intrastate commerce. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U.S. 33; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Layton, supra. The Federal Act in its application to such a case is thus in pari materia with the statute of Kentucky which prescribes the liability of carriers for injuries to employees while employed in intrastate commerce and which, in effect, reads into the provisions of the statute the requirements of the Federal Act for the safety of employees. There apears to be no anomaly in enforcing the state law with this defined content. The Federal Safety Appliance Acts prescribed duties, and injured employees are entitled to recover for injuries sustained through the breach of these duties. Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co., 196 U.S. 1; St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U.S. 281; Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Rigsby, supra. Questions arising in actions in state courts. to recover for injuries sustained by employees in intrastate commerce and relating to the scope or construction of the Federal Safety Appliance Acts are, of course, federal questions which may appropriately be reviewed in this Court. St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Taylor, supra; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Layton, supra. But it does not follow that a suit brought under the state statute which defines liability to employees who are injured while engaged in intrastate commerce, and brings within the purview of the statute a breach of the duty imposed by the federal statute, should be regarded as a suit arising under the laws of the United States and cognizable in the 205 Opinion of the Court. federal court in the absence of diversity of citizenship. The Federal Safety Appliance Acts, while prescribing absolute duties, and thus creating correlative rights in favor of injured employees, did not attempt to lay down rules governing actions for enforcing these rights. The original Act of 1893 made no provision for suits, except for penalties. That Act did impliedly recognize the employee's right of action by providing in § 8 that he should not be deemed to have assumed the risk of injury occasioned by the breach of duty. But the Act made no provision as to the place of suit or the time within which it should be brought, or as to the right to recover, or as to those who should be the beneficiaries of recovery, in case of the death of the employee. While dealing with assumption of risk, the statute did not affect the defense of contributory negligence and hence that defense was still available according to the applicable state law. Schlemmer v. Buffalo, R. & P. Ry. Co., 220 U.S. 590; Minneapolis, St. P. & S. S. M. Ry. Co. v. Popplar, 237 U.S. 369, 371, 372. In these respects the amended Act of 1903 made no change, notwithstanding the enlargement of the scope of the statutory requirements. The Act of 1910, by a proviso in § 4 relating to penalties (36 Stat. 299), provided that nothing in that section should "be construed to relieve such carrier from liability in any remedial action for the death or injury of any railroad employee" caused by the use of the prohibited equipment. The Safety Appliance Acts having prescribed the duty in this fashion, the right to recover damages sustained by the injured employee through the breach of duty sprang from the principle of the common law (Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, supra, at pp. 39, 40°) and was left to be enforced accordingly, or, in case of the death of In Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U.S. 33, the action was brought in the state court and was removed to the federal court upon the ground that the defendant was a federal corporation. 291 U.S. Opinion of the Court. the injured employee, according to the applicable statute." St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Taylor, supra, at p. 285; Minneapolis, St. P. & S. S. M. Ry. Co. v. Popplar, supra. When the Federal Employers' Liability Act was enacted, it drew to itself the right of action for injuries or death of the employees within its purview who were engaged in interstate commerce, including those cases in which injuries were due to a violation of the Safety Appliance Acts. Such an action must be brought as prescribed in the Federal Employers' Liability Act, and if brought in the state court, it cannot be removed to the federal court, although violation of the Safety Appliance Acts is involved. See St. Joseph & G. I. Ry. Co. v. Moore, 243 U.S. 311. With respect to injuries sustained in intrastate commerce, nothing in the Safety Appliance Acts precluded the State from incorporating in its legislation applicable to local transportation the paramount duty which the Safety Appliance Acts imposed as to the equipment of cars used on interstate railroads. As this Court said in Minneapolis, St. P. & S. S. M. Ry. Co. v. Popplar, supra, as to an action for injuries sustained in intrastate commerce: "The action fell within the familiar category of cases involving the duty of a master to his servant. This duty is defined by the common law, except as it may be modified by legislation. The federal statute, in the present case, touched the duty of the master at a single point and, save as provided in the statute, the right of the 'In St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U.S. 281, 285, the Court said: "The accident by which the plaintiff's intestate lost his life occurred in the Indian Territory, where, contrary to the doctrine of the common law, a right of action for death exists. The cause of action arose under the laws of the Territory, and was enforced in the courts of Arkansas." The question whether the action was triable in those courts was held not to present a federal question, but the question as to the interpretation of the Safety Appliance Act of 1893 did present the federal question which was reviewed by this Court. plaintiff to recover was left to be determined by the law of the State." We are of the opinion that the second paragraph of the complaint set forth a cause of action under the Kentucky statute and, as to this cause of action, the suit is not to be regarded as one arising under the laws of the United States. In view of the diversity of citizenship and the residence of petitioner, the District Court of the Northern District of Indiana had jurisdiction. As the Circuit Court of Appeals did not consider any questions save those relating to the jurisdiction of the District Court, the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals will be reversed and the cause remanded to that court with directions to consider such other questions as may be presented by the appeal. Reversed. UNITED STATES v. CHAMBERS ET AL. APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA. No. 659. Argued January 16, 17, 1934.-Decided February 5, 1934. 1. The Court takes judicial notice of the fact that the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, was consummated on December 5, 1933. P. 222. 2. Upon the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, the Eighteenth Amendment became inoperative, and neither the Congress nor the courts could give it continued validity. P. 222. 3. The National Prohibition Act, to the extent that its provisions rested upon the grant of authority to Congress by the Eighteenth Amendment, immediately fell with the withdrawal by the people of the essential constitutional support. P. 222. 4. Prosecutions for violations of the National Prohibition Act in a State, pending when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, can not be continued. P. 222. Argument for the United States. 291 U.S. 5. In case a statute is repealed or rendered inoperative, no further proceedings can be had to enforce it in pending prosecutions unless competent authority has kept it alive for that purpose. P. 223. 6. Section 13 of the Revised Statutes, providing that penalties and liabilities incurred under a statute are not to be extinguished by its repeal unless the repealing act shall so expressly provide, etc., is inapplicable where the statute imposing the penalties is rendered inoperative by the power of the people exercised through a constitutional amendment. P. 223. 7. Instances in which Congress has provided for the transfer of cases pending in territorial courts as an incident to the exercise of its power to admit new States into the Union, present no analogy to a case in which the power of Congress over the subject-matter has been withdrawn by a constitutional amendment. P. 225. 8. Prosecution for crimes is but an application or enforcement of the law, and if the prosecution is to continue the law must continue to vivify it. P. 226. 9. It is a continuing and vital principle that the people are free to withdraw authority which they have conferred and, when withdrawn, neither Congress nor the courts can assume the right to continue to exercise it. P. 226. 5 F.Supp. 153, affirmed. APPEAL under the Criminal Appeals Act from a judgment quashing an indictment for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act, and for possessing and transporting intoxicating liquor in violation of that Act. Solicitor General Biggs, with whom Mr. Robert P. Reeder was on the brief, for the United States. The common law rule, if applicable, would seem to cover all pending cases, in trial and appellate courts. As was said in Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Dennis, 224 U.S. 503, 506, the rule even "requires the reversal of a judgment which was right when rendered." Green v. United States, 67 F. (2d) 84, was an instance of dismissal by an appellate court. In the court below, conspiracies punishable under § 37 of the Criminal Code were affected by the rule. Indeed, this rule would effect an "automatic amnesty for crimes." Pickett v. United States, 216 U.S. |