Cases arising under treaties,made under the authority of the United States,and those "affecting ambassadors and other public ministers end consuls,"could not properly be entrusted to any other than the federal tribunals.Treaties are made under the common authority of the States,and all,alike,are bound for the faithful observance of them.Ambassadors and other public ministers and consuls are received under the common authority of all the States,and their duties relate only to matters involving alike the interests of all.The peace of the country,and the harmony of its relations with foreign powers,depend,in a peculiar degree,on the good faith with which its duties in reference to these subjects are discharged.
Hence it would be unsafe to entrust them to any other than their own control;
and even if this were not so,it would be altogether incongruous to appeal to a State tribunal,to enforce the rights,the obligations or the duties of the United States.For like reasons,cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction are properly entrusted to the federal tribunals.
Controversies to which the United States shall be a party should,upon general principles,belong only to her own courts.There would be neither propriety nor justice in permitting any one State to decide a case in which all the States are parties.In like manner,those between two or more States ?between a State and citizens of another State,where the State is plaintiff ?(it cannot be sued)?and between citizens of different States,could not be entrusted to the tribunals of any particular State interested,or whose citizens are interested therein,without danger of injustice and partiality.Jurisdiction is given to the federal courts,in these cases,simply because they are equally interested for all the parties,are the common courts of all the parties,and therefore are presumed to form the only fair and impartial tribunal between them.The same reasoning applies to cases between citizens of the same State,claiming lands under grants of different States.Cases of this sort involve questions of the sovereign power of the States,and could not,with any show of propriety,be entrusted to the decision of either of them,interested as it would be to sustain its own acts,against those of the sister State.The jurisdiction in this case is given upon the same principles which give it in cases between two or more States.
Controversies between a State or the citizens thereof,and foreign States,citizens or subjects,depend on a different principle,but one equally affecting the common rights and interests of all the States.A foreign State cannot,of course,be sued;she can appear in our courts only as plaintiff.Yet,in whatever form such controversies,or those affecting the citizens of a foreign State,may arise,all the States have a deep interest that an impartial tribunal,satisfactory to the foreign party,should be provided.The denial of justice is a legitimate,and not an unfruitful cause of war.As no State can be involved in war without involving all the rest,they all have a common interest to withdraw from the State tribunals a jurisdiction which may bring them within the danger of that result.All the States are alike bound to render justice to foreign States and their people;and this common responsibility gives them a right to demand that every question involving it shall be decided by their common judicatory.
This brief review of the judicial power of the United States,as given in the Constitution,is not offered as a full analysis of the subject;
for the question before us does not render any such analysis necessary.
By design has been only to show with what extreme reserve judicial power has been conferred,and with what caution it has been restricted to those cases,only,which the new relation between the States established by the Constitution rendered absolutely necessary.In all the cases above supposed,the jurisdiction of the federal courts is clear and undoubted;and as the States have,in the frame of the Constitution,agreed to submit to the exercise of this jurisdiction,they are bound to do so,and to compel their people to like submission.But it is to be remarked,that they are bound only by their agreement,and not beyond it.They are under no obligation to submit to the decisions of the Supreme Court,on subject matter not properly cognizable before it,nor to those between parties not responsible to its jurisdiction.23Who,then,is to decide this point?Shall the Supreme Court decide for itself,and against all the world?It is admitted that every court must necessarily determine every question of jurisdiction which arises before it,and,so far,it must of course be the judge of its own powers.If it be a court of the last resort,its decision is necessarily final,so far as those authorities are concerned,which belong to the same system of government with itself.
There is,in fact,no absolute and certain limitation,in any constitutional government,to the powers of its own judiciary;for,as those powers are derived from the Constitution and as the judges are the interpreters of the Constitution,there is nothing to prevent them from interpreting in favor of any power which they may claim.The Supreme Court,therefore,may assume jurisdiction over subjects and between parties,not allowed by the Constitution,and there is no power in the Federal Government to gainsay it.Even the impeachment and removal of the judges,for ignorance or corruption,would not invalidate their decisions already pronounced.
Is there,then,no redress?The Constitution itself will answer this question in the most satisfactory manner.
