Courts jurisdiction not included within the judicial power conferred on the United States by the Constitution. Usually when this has been done, it has been due either to careless draftsmanship or to a more or less confused or muddled understanding of some of the provisions of the Constitution itself. Very seldom have the members of the Federal Legislature had any deliberate intention unduly to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Courts of the United States. The language of the original Judiciary Act by which the Courts were given jurisdiction over all suits to which an alien was a party was one case in which the statute literally interpreted went farther than the Constitution authorized. 19. Congress Cannot Extend Original Jurisdiction of Supreme Court Further Than the Constitution Prescribes. In the famous case of Marbury vs. Madison, 1 Cranch, 175, it was decided that Congress had attempted to confer upon the Supreme Court a jurisdiction not given to that Court by the Constitution. There was no question that the Federal judicial power as defined by the Constitution properly extended to the case for which Congress had sought to provide. The legislative mistake was of a different sort. The Constitution itself defines the cases of which the Supreme Court may take original jurisdiction. It provides that "in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned" (that is to say, in all other cases to which the judicial power of the United States extends), "the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." Without paying sufficient attention to the precise wording of the provision just quoted, Congress had declared that the Supreme Court might issue writs of mandamus to officers of the United States. Mr. Marbury and several other gentlemen had by President Adams been appointed justices of the peace for the District of Columbia. The nominations were confirmed by the Senate, the commissions duly made out and signed by President Adams and given to the Secretary of State for delivery to the persons named therein. Before they were actually delivered a change of administration took place. Mr. Madison, the new Secretary of State, declined to deliver them. Mr. Marbury and the other gentlemen interested sued cut in the Supreme Court a writ of mandamus to compel Mr. Madison to do so. The Court held that it was his clear ministerial duty to give the commissions to those named in them; that the performance of such a duty could properly be compelled by mandamus, but that Congress had no power to give the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue that writ in any case over which the Constitution did not confer upon that Court such jurisdiction. 20. Constitutional Grant of Original Jurisdiction to the Supreme Court is Not Exclusive.-Congress may not add to the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as defined in the Constitution. Is the converse true? May Congress confer any of that jurisdiction on other Federal Courts? In several of the great opinions of CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL the power to do so was denied.1 In none of them was the question directly involved. Whenever it has been the Supreme Court has held that its original jurisdiction is not exclusive. As early as 1793 the Genoese consul at Philadelphia was indicted in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania for sending a threatening letter to the British Minister. Quite clearly within the constitutional, as within every other sense, he was affected by the prosecution. He contended that the Supreme Court was the only tribunal in which it could be lawfully instituted. The Circuit Court, presided over by JUSTICE CHASE, ruled against him.2 1 Marbury vs. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137; Osborn vs. United States Bank, 9 Wheat, 820. 2 United States vs. Ravara, 2 Dallas, 297. Section 13 of the original Judiciary Act now forms, almost without change of verbiage, section 233 of the Judicial Code. It reads: "The Supreme Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies of a civil nature where a State is a party, except between a State and its citizens, or between a State and citizens of other States, or aliens, in which latter cases it shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction. And it shall have exclusively all such jurisdiction of suits or proceedings against ambassadors or other public ministers, or their domestics or domestic servants, as a Court of law can have consistently with the law of nations; and original, but not exclusive, jurisdiction of all suits brought by ambassadors or other public ministers, or in which a consul or vice-consul is a party." In terms it gives other Federal Courts concurrent jurisdiction over some classes of cases of which the Constitution says the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In 1883 it was expressly decided that such legislation was constitutional. Suits against foreign consuls could be instituted in the District Courts.5 The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that its original jurisdiction over suits in which a State is a party is not necessarily exclusive of any which Congress may see fit to confer upon other Federal tribunals. The construction of the Constitutional grant of original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court is therefore now settled. Congress may not add to it. Other Courts may be permitted to share it. Practical considerations have had much to do with giving to this clause of the Constitution the construction which it. has received. It is not well that the Supreme Court shall be made a tribunal of first instance in any cases other than those expressly mentioned in the Constitution. It may be, 'Act Sept. 24, 1789, 1, Stat. 73. Act of March 3, 1911, in force Jan. 1, 1912, 36 Stat. 1156. Ames vs. Kansas, 111 U. S. 449. and often is, convenient that many of them shall be first instituted elsewhere. AS CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY pointed out in a case he heard on circuit, it hardly could have been the intention of the statesmen who framed our Constitution to require that one of our citizens, who had a claim of even less than five dollars against another citizen, clothed by some foreign government with the consular office, should be compelled to go into the Supreme Court to have a jury summoned in order to enable him to recover it; nor could it have been intended that the time of that Court, with all its high duties, should be taken up with the trial of every petty offense that might be committed by a consul in any part of the United States, that consul, too, being often one of our own citizens.” 21. The First Three Rules Limiting Jurisdiction of Federal Courts.-Thus far three general rules have been stated and illustrated: 1. That the Courts of the United States have no jurisdiction except that given them by the Constitution or by statutes passed under the Constitution. 2. That no statute can extend the jurisdiction of any one of these Courts beyond the limits of the grant of judicial power made in the Constitution. 3. That the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is fixed by the Constitution itself and cannot be extended by Congress, although it may be shared by other tribunals, State or Federal. 22. Except as to Original Jurisdiction of Supreme Court, the Jurisdiction of Every Federal Court is Statutory. The fourth great rule is that no Court of the United States, except the Supreme Court, can claim any jurisdiction unless it can point to the particular Act of Congress conferring such jurisdiction upon it. This rule is of great practical importance. The jurisdiction which Congress has in fact 'Gittings vs. Crawford, 10 Fed. Cases, 447. given to the Federal Courts is but a very small fraction of that which Congress might grant if it would. 23. The Constitutional Grant of Judicial Power is Not Self Executing.—Is the grant of judicial power in the Constitution self executing? In the case of Turner vs. Bank of North America, the suit was between a citizen of Pennsylvania and a citizen of North Carolina. The Constitution declares that the judicial power shall extend to controversies between citizens of different States. The parties to the case actually instituted were citizens of different States. Congress had, however, said that no suit might be brought in the Federal Courts by an assignee of a chose in action unless such suit could have been brought in those Courts had no assignment been made. Could Congress lawfully say that no Court of the United States should exercise jurisdiction over a class of cases clearly within the constitutional grant of judicial power? JUSTICE CHASE in 1799 answered: "The notion has frequently been entertained that the Federal Courts derive their judicial power immediately from the Constitution, but the political truth is that the disposal of the judicial power (except in a few specified instances) belongs to Congress. If Congress has given the power to this Court we possess it, not otherwise; and if Congress has not given the power to us or to any other Court, it still remains at the legislative disposal. * * * Congress is not bound, and it would perhaps be inex pedient to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts to every subject in every form which the Constitution might warrant." A half century later the point was elaborately discussed. It arose in the same way as in the earlier case. The suit was to recover upon a chose in action. The plaintiff acquired it by assignment. He and the defendant were citizens of different States. The original holder of the chose in action was a citizen of the same State as the defendant. If the Turner vs. Bank of North America, 4 Dallas, 10. |