Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/623

Congress. This subject was much discussed in the case of Martin v. Hunter.^[1] On that occasion the court said^[2]

It will be observed, that there are two classes of cases enumerated in the constitution, between which a distinction seems to be drawn. The first class includes cases arising under the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States; cases affect-

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eluded at the pleasure of every plaintiff, or prosecutor. Neither of these consequences ought, without evident necessity, to be involved; the latter would he entirely inadmissible, as it would defeat some of the most important and avowed purposes of the proposed government, and would essentially embarrass its measures. Nor do I perceive any foundation for such a supposition. Agreeably to the remark already made, the national and state systems are to be regarded as one whole. The courts of the latter, will of course be natural auxiliaries to the execution of the laws of the Union; and an appeal from them will as naturally lie to that tribunal, which is destined to unite, and assimilate the principles of natural justice, and the rules of national decision. The evident aim of the plan of the national convention is, that all the causes of the specified classes shall, for weighty public reasons, receive their original or final determination in the courts of the Union. To confine, therefore, the general expressions, which give appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, to appeals from the subordinate federal courts, instead of allowing their extension to the state courts, would be to abridge the latitude of the terms, in subversion of the intent, contrary to every sound rule of interpretation.'
"A contemporaneous exposition of the constitution, certainly of not less authority, than that, which has been just cited, is the judiciary act itself. We know that in the congress, which passed that act, were many eminent members of the convention, which formed the constitution. Not a single individual, so far as is known, supposed that part of the act, which gives the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over the judgments of the state courts, in the cases therein specified, to be unauthorized by the constitution." The 25th section of the judiciary act, of 1789, ch. 20, here alluded to, as contemporaneous construction of the constitution, is wholly founded upon the doctrine, that the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court may constitutionally extend over causes in state courts. See also 1 Kent's Comm. Lect. 15; Rawle on Const. ch. 28; Sergeant on Const. ch. 7.

1. 1 Wheat. R. 304, 333.
2. Id. See also Ex parte Cabrera, 1 Wash. Cir. R. 232.