dinate to the supreme; in the latter, the local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them within its own sphere.

In this relation, the federal government cannot be deemed a national one, since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the states a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects. This, as a general exposition of the constitution, appears, to me, perfectly correct:-it ascertains, upon principles that result from the relation in which the national and state governments stand to each other, the complete independence of each; principles, which were again recognised in the resolutions passed by the assembly of Virginia, in 1799, and which were before alluded to. Looking into the constitution with these lights, I have not been able to perceive in it any ground for the position that the state authorities can be controlled by the general authority, or any portion of it, nor that the latter has the power to establish the tribunal which is to decide controversies between them, without any appeal by the former to that instrument. That appeal will now be made; and, in making it, I shall pass by the preamble to the constitution, because I cannot perceive that any inference can be drawn from it favourable to the claim of power now set up: of which I am the more confident, inasmuch as it has not been resorted to, in the work before cited, for that purpose; and because also, the construction given to that part of the instrument by the report, on which the resolutions before referred to were founded, has generally been admitted to be correct. That construction restricts the means of obtaining the great objects, proposed in the preamble, to the special grant of power which are to be found in the constitution. The 3d article of the constitution is an example of those means, particularly applying to the case under consideration. It declares, that "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme court, and such other courts as the congress may from time to time ordain and establish: the judges both of the Supreme and inferior courts shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance inoffice." How it is possible to extract from any expression in this article an authority to this court to exercise any of the judicial powers of the United States, I have not been able to perceive. That the state courts by any reasonable construction of the article, can be included in it, I think impossible. They are not ordained or established by the congress; nor is there any thing in the general tenure of the offices of the state judges, which can bring them within its operation. They are not responsible to the general government for the performance of their duty; and irresponsibility to that power which imposes a duty, would be a new principle obviously incompatible with the acknowledged principles of our institutions.

The authors of the work referred to, admit, [p. 223,] that the article recited, wears the appearance of confining the causes of federal cognizance to the federal courts, and deduce from it a different conclusion by a train of reasoning which seems to confound judicial power with the subjects that may come within its cognizance. The appellate power of the Supreme court of the United States, which is defined in the 2d section of the article, is not confined to cases decided in the inferior federal courts, to which it plainly refers, but is supposed to extend to all cases of the same description in whatever court they may have been decided, as if the decisions of courts founded on the lex loci necessarily subjected them to the appellate jurisdiction of the government, the laws of which may come in question. The words of the 2d member of that section are, " in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, &c. the Supreme court shall have original jurisdiction:" in all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact. The obvious relation which appellate power, vested in the Supreme court by the foregoing expressions, bears to the inferior tribunals, to be ordained and established by congress in virtue of the first section of the same article, is too manifest to be questioned: but, this construction is fortified by other considerations. The appellate jurisdiction is given both as to law and fact, and without power in congress to regulate the proceedings in the state courts, if extended to those courts, would be impracticable, according to the common law rule of trial, which prevailed in most, if not all, of the state courts.

An appeal from the facts would be impossible, without a reexamination of the witnesses from remote distances, or by depositions, in violation of the practice in most, if not all, of the state courts. The 9th article of the amendments to the constitution, furnishes additional light on this view of the subject. Plainly referring to the courts of the United States, it declares that, at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. The objects of this amendment are, first, to preserve the trial by jury in the federal courts; and, secondly, to take from those courts the power of re-examining any fact, tried by a jury, otherwise than according to the principles of the common law. The two provisions, taken in connexion, as they are found in the article, exclude the idea of the relation of either of them to the state courts; a circumstance of considerable weight, when it is considered that one of the objects is to regulate the proceedings in the federal courts founded on the appellate power both as to law and fact, derived from the 3d article before referred to. I conclude, therefore, that neither from the letter, nor from a view of any practicable result, can a construction be given to that article which could extend the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme court to the state courts. My confidence in the correctness of that conclusion would be somewhat diminished, if I could possibly foresee all of the dangerous consequences that have been anticipated by the counsel who contend for the authority of the Supreme court. The power which is given to congress to ordain and establish inferior courts, was evidently intended to enable the national government to institute in each state or district of the United States

a tribunal competent in the determination of all matters of national jurisdiction within its limits, whenever deemed necessary by congress.

To have relied on the state authorities, as the means of exercising its most essential powers, would have totally changed the character of the national government, and reduced it to a state of imbecility little short of that of the former confederation. The great and radical vice in that system was in the principle of legislation for states or governments, as contradistinguished from the individuals of whom they consist. On a nearer view of the present system, it will be found to have escaped the enfeebling consequences of that principle; for though, in relation to the objects and limitations of its powers, and to the sources from which it derives those powers, it may be deemed a federal government; yet, in relation to the objects on which it operates, it is certainly a national one. Legislating for individuals, it contains, within itself, [see the Federalist] every power requisite to the complete execution of the trust confided to it, free from every other control, but a regard to the public good: and the sense of its constituents. The argument, then, that, unless the state courts admit the right of appeal to the Supreme court, the great rational objects of the federal government will be unattainable, loses all its force. If it were true, that the cases of national jurisdiction enumerated in the constitution could be finally and conclusively decided in the state courts, without power in the general government, through its own courts, to take jurisdiction of those cases either before or after those decisions, as it may be important to the nation, there would be some cause for alarm-but the foregoing remarks lead to no such conclusion.*

The principle on which the state courts take jurisdiction of the cases enumerated in the constitution, is common to all courts having jurisdiction of the controversy before them. They decide in conformity to the law of any government that may come in question.* This principle does not deny to the federal government, in common with other governments, through its own courts, to decide the same case where the parties are within its jurisdiction. Without the means of enforcing and giving, to its treaties, its laws, and its acts, an uniform construction, it would be incompetent to attain the great objects of its institution. Moving within the circle of its constitutional powers, its authority will be exercised, in a great degree, without the range of the state authorities. The difficulty which presents itself to the operation of the general and state governments, on the same objects, has been felt in many cases: but it is one which grows out of the system itself, and, without a change of that system, cannot be entirely obviated.-That it may be much diminished by a prudent exercise of the powers appertaining to each, has been proved by experience. Legislating for individuals who are equally the citizens of the