Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/509

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CH. XXXVIII.]
JUDICIARY—JURISDICTION.
501
of nations, whose right and privileges relative thereto, are regulated by the law of nations and treaties, such cases necessarily belong to national jurisdiction. 6. To controversies, to which the United States shall be a party; because in cases, in which the whole people are interested, it would not be equal, or wise, to let any one state decide, and measure out the justice due to others. 7. To controversies between two or more states; because domestic tranquility requires, that the contentions of states should be peaceably terminated by a common judicatory; and, because, in a free country, justice ought not to depend on the will of either of the litigants. 8. To controversies between a state and citizens of another state; because, in case a state (that is, all the citizens of it) has demands against some citizens of another state, it is better, that she should prosecute their demands in a national court, than in a court of the state, to which those citizens belong; the danger of irritation and criminations, arising from apprehensions and suspicions of partiality, being thereby obviated. Because, in cases, where some citizens of one state have demands against all the citizens of another state, the cause of liberty and the rights of men forbid, that the latter should be the sole judges of the justice due to the latter; and true republican government requires, that free and equal citizens should have free, fair, and equal justice. 9. To controversies between citizens of the same state, claiming lands under grants of different states; because, as the rights of the two states to grant the land are drawn into question, neither of the two states ought to decide the controversy. 10. To controversies between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects; because, as