Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/701

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
The Fœderalist.
557

jects." This constitutes the entire mass of the Judicial authority of the Union. Let us now review it in detail. It is then to extend,

First. To all cases in law and equity, arising under the Constitution and the laws of the United States. This corresponds with the two first classes of causes, which have been enumerated, as proper for the jurisdiction of the United States. It has been asked, what is meant by "cases arising under the Constitution," in contradiction from those "arising under the laws of the United States?" The difference has been already explained. All the restrictions upon the authority of the State Legislatures furnish examples of it. They are not, for instance, to emit paper money; but the interdiction results from the Constitution, and will have no connection with any law of the United States. Should paper money, notwithstanding, be emitted, the controversies concerning it would be cases arising upon the Constitution and not the laws of the United States, in the ordinary signification of the terms. This may serve as a sample of the whole.

It has also been asked, What need of the word "equity"? What equitable causes can grow out of the Constitution and laws of the United States? There is hardly a subject of litigation between individuals, which may not involve those ingredients of fraud, accident, trust, or hardship, which would render the matter an object of equitable, rather than of legal jurisdiction, as the distinction is known and established in several of the States. It is the peculiar province, for instance, of a Court of Equity to relieve against what are called hard bargains: these are contracts in which, though there may have been no direct fraud or deceit, sufficient to invalidate them in a Court of Law, yet there may have been some undue and unconscionable advantage taken of the necessities or misfortunes of one of the parties, which