Kaukauna Water Power Company v. Green Bay and Mississippi Canal Company‪.‬

(1) The only question involved in this case proper for us to consider, is whether the act of the legislature of Wisconsin of August 8, 1848, reserving to the State the water power created by the erection of the dam over the Fox River, as construed by the Supreme Court of the State, and the proceedings thereunder, operated to deprive the plaintiffs in error of their property without due process of law. Notwithstanding the inhibition of the Constitution is not distinctly put in issue by the pleadings, nor directly passed upon in the opinion of the court, it is evident that the court could not have reached a conclusion adverse to the defendant company without holding, either that none of its property had been taken, or that it was not entitled to compensation therefor, which is equivalent to saying that it had not been deprived of its property without due process of law. This court has had frequent occasion to hold that it is not always necessary that the Federal question should appear affirmatively on the record, or in the opinion, if an adjudication of such question were necessarily involved in the disposition of the case by the state court. Willson v. Blackbird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245; Armstrong v. Athens County, 16 Pet. 281; Chicago Life Insurance Co. v. Needles, 113 U.S. 574; Eureka Lake Co. v. Yuba County, 116 U.S. 410.