582 Opinion of JACKSON, J. however, not from Art. III nor any other single provision of the Constitution, but because "behind the words of the constitutional provisions are postulates which limit and control." Chief Justice Hughes in Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 323. The permeative nature of this doctrine was early recognized during the Constitutional Convention. Objection that the present provision giving federal courts jurisdiction of cases arising "under this Constitution" would permit usurpation of nonjudicial functions by the federal courts was overruled as unwarranted since it was "generally supposed that the jurisdiction given was constructively limited to cases of a Judiciary nature." 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, 430. And this statute reflects that doctrine. It does not authorize or require either the district courts or this Court to participate in any legislative, administrative, political or other nonjudicial function or to render any advisory opinion. The jurisdiction conferred is limited to controversies of a justiciable nature, the sole feature distinguishing them from countless other controversies handled by the same courts being the fact that one party is a District citizen. Nor has the Congress by this statute attempted to usurp any judicial power. It has deliberately chosen the district courts as the appropriate instrumentality through which to exercise part of the judicial functions incidental to exertion of sovereignty over the District and its citizens. Unless we are to deny to Congress the same choice of means through which to govern the District of Columbia that we have held it to have in exercising other legislative powers enumerated in the same Article, we cannot hold that Congress lacked the power it sought to exercise in the Act before us. It is too late to hold that judicial functions incidental to Art. I powers of Congress cannot be conferred on Opinion of JACKSON, J. 337 U.S. courts existing under Art. III, for it has been done with this Court's approval. O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U. S. 516. In that case it was held that, although District of Columbia courts are Art. III courts, they can also exercise judicial power conferred by Congress pursuant to Art. I. The fact that District of Columbia courts, as local courts, can also be given administrative or legislative functions which other Art. III courts cannot exercise, does but emphasize the fact that, although the latter are limited to the exercise of judicial power, it may constitutionally be received from either Art. III or Art. I, and that congressional power over the District, flowing from Art. I, is plenary in every respect. It is likewise too late to say that we should reach this result by overruling Chief Justice Marshall's view, unless we are prepared also to overrule much more, including some of our own very recent utterances. Many powers of Congress other than its power to govern Columbia require for their intelligent and discriminating exercise determination of controversies of a justiciable character. In no instance has this Court yet held that jurisdiction of such cases could not be placed in the regular federal courts that Congress has been authorized to ordain and establish. We turn to some analogous situations in which we have approved the very course that Congress has taken here. Congress is given power by Art. I to pay debts of the United States. That involves as an incident the determination of disputed claims. We have held unanimously that congressional authority under Art. I, not the Art. III jurisdiction over suits to which the United States is a party, is the sole source of power to establish the Court of Claims and of the judicial power which that court exercises. Williams v. United States, 289 U. S. 553. In that decision we also noted that it is this same Art. I power that is conferred on district courts by the 582 Opinion of JACKSON, J. Tucker Act 20 which authorizes them to hear and determine such claims in limited amounts. Since a legislative court such as the Court of Claims is "incapable of receiving" Art. III judicial power, American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 546, it is clear that the power thus exercised by that court and concurrently by the district courts flows from Art. I, not Art. III. Indeed, more recently and again unanimously, this Court has said that by the Tucker Act the Congress authorized the district courts to sit as a court of claims 21 exercising the same but no more judicial power. United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 591. And but a few terms ago, in considering an Act by which Congress directed rehearing of a rejected claim and its redetermination in conformity with directions given in the Act, Chief Justice Stone, with the concurrence of all sitting colleagues, reasoned that "The problem presented here is no different than if Congress had given a like direction to any district court to be followed as in other Tucker Act cases." Pope v. United States, 323 U. S. 1, 14. Congress has taken us at our word and recently conferred on the district courts exclusive jurisdiction of tort claims cognizable under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 60 Stat. 842, 843, also enacted 20 Act of March 3, 1887, c. 359, 24 Stat. 505. 21 This concurrent jurisdiction of the district courts has frequently been referred to in opinions of this Court with no indication that it presented any constitutional problem with respect to the jurisdiction of either the district courts or this Court. See, for example, Pope v. United States, 323 U. S. 1; United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584; United States v. Shaw, 309 U. S. 495; Williams v. United States, 289 U. S. 553; Nassau Smelting Works v. United States, 266 U. S. 101; United States v. Pfitsch, 256 U. S. 547; Tempel v. United States, 248 U. S. 121; United States v. Greathouse, 166 U. S. 601; United States v. Jones, 131 U. S. 1. The legislative basis for the grant of jurisdiction to the district courts is delineated in Bates Mfg. Co. v. United States, 303 U. S. 567. Opinion of JACKSON, J. 337 U.S. pursuant to Art. I powers.22 See Brooks v. United States, ante, p. 49. Congress also is given power in Art. I to make uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies. That this, and not the judicial power under Art. III, is the source of our system of reorganizations and bankruptcy is obvious, Continental Bank v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 294 U. S. 648. Not only may the district courts be required to handle these proceedings, but Congress may add to their jurisdiction cases between the trustee and others that, but for the bankruptcy powers, would be beyond their jurisdiction because of lack of diversity required under Art. III. Schumacher v. Beeler, 293 U. S. 367. In that case, Chief Justice Hughes for a unanimous court wrote that, by virtue of its Art. I authority over bankruptcies, the Congress could confer on the regular district courts jurisdiction of "all controversies at law and in equity, as distinguished from proceedings in bankruptcy, between trustees as such and adverse claimants" to the extent specified in § 236 of the Bankruptcy Act as amended. Such jurisdiction was there upheld in a plenary suit, in a district court, by which the trustee sought equitable relief rely 22 The suggestion here that claims against the United States, adjudicated by the Court of Claims and by the district courts solely by virtue of the waiver of sovereign immunity and the jurisdiction granted under the Tucker Act, may be cases arising "under the laws of the United States" is both erroneous and self-defeating. The unanimous decision in the Williams case, 289 U. S. 553, holds clearly to the contrary, stating, at 289 U. S. 577, that controversies to which the United States may by statute be made a party defendant "lie wholly outside the scope of the judicial power vested by Art. III . . . ." And see Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 321. Moreover, the Tucker Act simply opens those courts to plaintiffs already possessed of a cause of action. If that is sufficient to make the case one arising under the laws of the United States, the same is true of this suit and all others like it. No one urges that view of the present statute, nor could they. See note 23 and text. 582 Opinion of JACKSON, J. ing on allegations raising only questions of Ohio law concerning the validity under that law of a sheriff's levy and execution. Possession by the trustee not being shown, and there being no diversity, jurisdiction in the district court could flow only from the statute. Chief Justice Hughes noted that the distinction between proceedings in bankruptcy and suits at law and in equity was recognized by the terms of the statute itself, but held that "Congress, by virtue of its constitutional authority over bankruptcies, could confer or withhold jurisdiction to entertain such suits and could prescribe the conditions upon which the federal courts should have jurisdiction. . . . Exercising that power, the Congress prescribed in § 23b the condition of consent on the part of the defendant sued by the trustee. Section 23b was thus in effect a grant of jurisdiction subject to that condition." 293 U. S. 367, 374. He concluded that the statute granted jurisdiction to the district court "although the bankrupt could not have brought suit there if proceedings in bankruptcy had not been instituted . . . ." 293 U. S. 367, 377. And he stated the correct view to be that § 23 conferred substantive jurisdiction, 293 U. S. 367, 371, disapproving statements in an earlier case that Congress lacked power to confer such jurisdiction. Id. at 377. Thus, the Court held that Congress had power to authorize an Art. III court to entertain a non-Art. III suit because such judicial power was conferred under Art. I. Indeed, the present Court has assumed, without even discussion, that Congress has such power. In Williams v. Austrian, 331 U. S. 642, 657, the CHIEF JUSTICE, speaking for the Court, said that ". . . Congress intended by the elimination of § 23 [from Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act] to establish the jurisdiction of federal courts to hear plenary suits brought by a reorganization trustee, even though diversity or other usual ground for federal jurisdiction is lacking." (Em 837446 0-49-42 |