jurisdiction in certain classes of cases only when the amount exceeded $5,000, there was a verdict for the plaintiff for $5,000. There were motions for new trial and in arrest, both of which were overruled. All this took some time, so that judgment was not entered upon the verdict until a trifle over four months after the latter was rendered. When the judgment was entered, it was for the precise amount of the verdict. Some days later the Court on motion of the defendant's counsel, increased it to $5,116.73, the $116.73 being interest on the amount of the verdict from the time of its rendition to the entering up of the judgment. The Supreme Court said that that amount of interest was not in controversy, as the plaintiff had not claimed it. The motive of the defendant was to get an appeal to the Supreme Court.

501. Amount in Controversy Where Defendant Makes a Counter Claim.-In cases in which the defendant has put in a counter-claim, the amount in controversy upon an appeal may depend on which party is the appellant. When there has been a judgment for the plaintiff, and the defendant appeals, the amount in controversy is the judg ment plus the counter-claim. If the defendant upon his counter-claim secures a judgment against the plaintiff, and the latter appeals, the amount in controversy is the sum of the claim and the judgment-as, for example, if the plaintiff claims $900 and the defendant counter-claims for $800, and there is a judgment for the plaintiff for $900, the defendant might appeal, because the amount in controversy from his standpoint would be $1,700. On the other hand, if the defendant recovered only $50, the plaintiff could not appeal, because the amount in controversy would be only $950.1

502. Decisions of the Circuit Court of Appeals Upon Questions Arising in Bankruptcy Proceedings Are Usually Final. The decisions of the Circuit Courts of Appeals

Northern Pacific R. R. Co. vs. Booth, 152 U. S. 671. 1 Harten vs. Loffler, 212 U. S. 397.

upon questions arising in bankruptcy proceedings under sections 24b and 25a of the Bankruptcy Act, unlike their determinations of controversies arising in bankruptcy proceedings under section 24a of that statute, are, with the exceptions stated in section 494 supra, final, subject, of course, to the right of the Supreme Court to issue a writ of certiorari if it sees fit.

503. An Order of the Circuit Court of Appeals Allowing or Rejecting a Claim Exceeding $2,000 May Under Some Circumstances Be Appealable. The only exception to the rule stated in the preceding section is that an appeal may be taken from any final decision of a Circuit Court of Appeals allowing or rejecting a claim in bankruptcy where the amount in controversy exceeds the sum of $2,000, and the question involved is either one which might have been taken by writ of error from the highest court of a State to the Supreme Court of the United States, or the determination of which, some justice of the Supreme Court shall certify, is in his opinion essential to a uniform construction of the Bankruptcy Act throughout the United States.1

CHAPTER XIX.

WRITS OF ERROR FROM SUPREME COURT TO STATE COURTS.

504. Section 25 of the Judicial Act of Sept. 24, 1789. It is probable that section 25 of the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789, has played a greater part in shaping the history of this country than any other enactment ever made by Congress. In a somewhat modified form, it now forms section 237 of the Judicial Code. That section provides, among other things, that "a final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest Court of a State in which a decision in the suit could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of their validity; or where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission held or authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege, or immunity especially set up or claimed, by either party, under such Constitution, treaty, statute, commission, or authority, may be re-examined and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court upon a writ of error."

If the Supreme Court had not been given such jurisdiction there would have been no way of insuring that the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States should be the supreme law of the land in every part of the Union. There would have been very nearly as many constructions of some of their provisions as there are States. There would have been no way of reconciling these divergent views and no way

of asserting the national authority against those prevailing in any particular State. Every State would thus have been able to nullify any law of Congress, if it had so wished, and at one time or another nearly every State has been anxious to press its opposition to some congressional action to the extreme limit of its power. It is, therefore, highly probable that without the provision in question, or something very like it, either the Union would have been long since dissolved, or would today be very unlike the one under which we live. If it had not been embodied in the original Judiciary Act, there was probably no subsequent time, prior to 1861, at which it could have been enacted without raising a controversy, which would of itself have imperilled the continuance of the Federal Government.

In the view of a very large school of political thinkers, it extended the judicial power of the United States beyond the limits of the constitutional grant. For many years the Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals of Virginia denied its validity. A very dangerous situation would have resulted had not the original section, with great foresight, provided when the Supreme Court reversed a judgment or decree of a State Court it might, in its discretion, in any case which had once before been remanded by it, proceed to a final decision and award execution. State Courts would have refused to obey its mandate, as, in fact, the Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals of Virginia did. There would have been no way, that public opinion would have sustained, of coercing the State Court into obedience. When, however, the Supreme Court issued execution directly against the individual parties to the cause, they had either to submit or take the responsibility of making armed resistance to the officers of the United States. The requirement that before execution may issue directly from the Supreme Court there must have been one remand to the State Court, is no longer law. Section 237 of the Judicial Code now provides that the Supreme Court may, at its discretion, either remand the case or award execution.

The argument for and against the constitutionality of this section need not be here considered. That question has, long ago, been settled beyond the possibility of controversy or appeal While it still was open, there was, from the standpoint of a jurist who did not think nationally and who looked more to the past than to the future, much to be urged against its validity. Few better examples of great legal ability devoted to the discussion of a question of transcendant importance are to be anywhere found than the opinion of CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL' in support of the constitutionality of the provision, and that of JUDGE ROANE2 of the Virginia Court of Appeals on the other side.

505. Right to Review is Confined to Questions Which Affect the Boundary Between Federal and State Sovereignty.-As the wording of the section plainly shows, its sole purpose is to make the Supreme Court the final arbiter of litigated questions, the answer to which depends upon the correct determination of the respective spheres of the State and Federal sovereignties. It was not passed to give the Supreme Court power to correct all the mistakes which it might think State judges had made. such errors, real or imaginary, do not affect the distribution of power between the State and Federal Governments, the latter has no concern with them.

If

506. When the Federal Question is Involved, the Right of Review is Not Limited to Any Particular Kind of Suit, Nor is the Amount in Controversy Material.— As we have seen, that jurisdiction of the lower Federal Courts which is concurrent with the Courts of the States is limited to civil suits, although a few criminal cases of a peculiar and limited character may be removed from the State to the Federal Courts. On the other hand, section 237 of the Judicial Code is equally applicable to criminal and

1Cohens vs. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264.

2 Hunter vs. Martin, 4 Munf. (18 Va.) 25.