Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/718

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574
The Fœderalist.

vested of no part of their primitive jurisdiction, further than may relate to an appeal; and I am even of opinion that in every case in which they were not expressly excluded by the future acts of the National Legislature, they will of course take cognizance of the causes to which those acts may give birth. This I infer from the nature of Judiciary power, and from the general genius of the system. The Judiciary power of every Government looks beyond its own local or municipal laws, and in civil cases lays hold of all subjects of litigation between parties within its jurisdiction, though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most distant part of the globe. Those of Japan, not less than of New York, may furnish the objects of legal discussion to our Courts. When in addition to this we consider the State Governments and the National Governments, as they truly are, in the light of kindred systems, and as parts of one whole, the inference seems to be conclusive, that the State Courts would have a concurrent jurisdiction, in all cases arising under the laws of the Union, where it was not expressly prohibited.

Here another question occurs: What relation would subsist between the National and State Courts in these instances of concurrent jurisdiction? I answer, that an appeal would certainly lie from the latter, to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Constitution in direct terms gives an appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in all the enumerated cases of Fœderal cognizance, in which it is not to have an original one, without a single expression to confine its operation to the inferior Fœderal Courts. The objects of appeal, not the tribunals from which it is to be made, are alone contemplated. From this circumstance, and from the reason of the thing, it ought to be construed to extend to the State tribunals. Either this must be the case, or the local Courts must be excluded from a concurrent