possess to remove suits from state courts, to the national courts; and this forms the second ground, upon which the argument, we are considering, has been attempted to be sustained.

§ 1739. "This power of removal is not to be found in express terms in any part of the constitution; if it be given, it is only given by implication, as a power necessary and proper to carry into effect some express power. The power of removal is certainly not, in strictness of language, an exercise of original jurisdiction; it presupposes an exercise of original jurisdiction to have attached elsewhere. The existence of this power of removal is familiar in courts, acting according to the course of the common law, in criminal, as well as in civil cases; and it is exercised before, as well as after judgment. But this is always deemed, in both cases, an exercise of appellate, and not of original jurisdiction. If, then, the right of removal be included in the appellate jurisdiction, it is only, because it is one mode of exercising that power; and as congress is not limited by the constitution to any particular mode, or time of exercising it, it may authorize a removal, either before, or after judgment. The time, the process, and the manner, must be subject to its absolute legislative control. A writ of error is, indeed, but a process, which removes the record of one court to the possession of another court, and enables the latter to inspect the proceedings, and give such judgment, as its own opinion of the law and justice of the case may warrant. There is nothing in the nature of the process, which forbids it from being applied by the legislature to interlocutory, as well as final judgments. And if the right of removal from state courts exist before judgment, because it is includ

ed in the appellate power, it must, for the same reason, exist after judgment. And if the appellate power, by the constitution, does not include cases pending in state courts, the right of removal, which is but a mode of exercising that power, cannot be applied to them. Precisely the same objections, therefore, exist as to the right of removal before judgment, as after; and both must stand, or fall together. Nor, indeed, would the force of the arguments on either side materially vary, if the right of removal were an exercise of original jurisdiction. It would equally trench upon the jurisdiction, and independence of state tribunals.

§ 1740. "The remedy, too, of removal of suits would be utterly inadequate to the purposes of the constitution, if it could act only on the parties, and not upon the state courts. In respect to criminal prosecutions, the difficulty seems admitted to be insurmountable; and in respect to civil suits, there would, in many cases, be rights without corresponding remedies. If state courts should deny the constitutionality of the authority to remove suits from their cognizance, in what manner could they be compelled to relinquish the jurisdiction? In respect to criminal cases, there would at once be an end of all control; and the state decisions would be paramount to the constitution. And though, in civil suits, the courts of the United States might act upon the parties; yet the state courts might act in the same way; and this conflict of jurisdictions would not only jeopard private rights, but bring into imminent peril the public interests. On the whole, the court are of opinion, that the appellate power of the United States does extend to cases pending in the state courts; and that the 25th section of the judiciary act, which authorizes the exercise of this jurisdiction in the

specified cases, by a writ of error, is supported by the letter and spirit of the constitution. We find no clause in that instrument, which limits this power; and we dare not interpose a limitation, where the people have not been disposed to create one.

§ 1741. "Strong as this conclusion stands upon the general language of the constitution, it may still derive support from other sources. It is an historical fact, that this exposition of the constitution, extending its appellate power to state courts, was, previous to its adoption, uniformly and publicly avowed by its friends, and admitted by its enemies, as the basis of their respective reasonings, both in and out of the state conventions. It is an historical fact, that, at the time, when the judiciary act was submitted to the deliberations of the first congress, composed, as it was, not only of men of great learning and ability, but of men, who had acted a principal part in framing, supporting, or opposing that constitution, the same exposition was explicitly declared, and admitted by the friends, and by the opponents of that system. It is an historical fact, that the Supreme Court of the United States have, from time to time, sustained this appellate jurisdiction in a great variety of cases, brought from the tribunals of many of the most important states in the Union; and that no state tribunal has ever breathed a judicial doubt on the subject, or declined to obey the mandate of the Supreme Court, until the present occasion. This weight of contemporaneous exposition by all parties, this acquiescence of enlightened state courts, and these judicial decisions of the Supreme Court, through so long a period, do, as we think, place the doctrine upon a foundation of authority, which cannot be shaken, with

out delivering over the subject to perpetual, and irremediable doubts.'

1 The same subject is most elaborately considered in Cohens v. Virginia, (6 Wheat. R. 413 to 423,) from which the following extract is taken. After adverting to the nature of the national government, and its powers and capacities, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall proceeds as follows. "In a government so constituted, is it unreasonable, that the judicial power should be competent to give efficacy to the constitutional laws of the legislature? That department can decide on the validity of the constitution, or law of a state, if it be repugnant to the constitution, or to a law of the United States. Is it unreasonable, that it should also be empowered to decide on the judgment of a state tribunal, enforcing such unconstitutional law? Is it so very unreasonable, as to furnish a justification for controling the words of the constitution?

"We think it is not. We think that in a government, acknowledgedly supreme with respect to objects of vital interest to the nation, there is nothing inconsistent with sound reason, nothing incompatible with the nature of government, in making all its departments supreme, so far as respects those objects, and so far as is necessary to their attainment. The exercise of the appellate power, over those judgments of the state tribunals, which may contravene the constitution, or laws of the United States, is, we believe, essential to the attainment of those objects.

"The propriety of entrusting the construction of the constitution, and laws made in pursuance thereof, to the judiciary of the Union, has not, we believe, as yet been drawn into question. It seems to be a corollary from this political axiom, that the federal courts should either possess exclusive jurisdiction in such cases, or a power to revise the judgment rendered in them by the state tribunals. If the federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction in all cases arising under the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States; and, if a case of this description, brought in a state court, cannot be removed before judgment, nor revised after judgment, then the construction of the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, is not confided particularly to their judicial department; but is confided equally to that department, and to the state courts, however they may be constituted. Thirteen independent courts,' says a very celebrated statesman, (and we have now, more than twenty such courts,) of final jurisdiction over the same causes, arising upon the same laws, is a hydra in government, from which, nothing but contradiction and confusion can proceed.'

"Dismissing the unpleasant suggestion, that any motives, which may not be fairly avowed, or which ought not to exist, can ever influence a state, or its courts, the necessity of uniformity, as well as correctness, in expounding the constitution and laws of the United States, would itself

§ 1742. Another inquiry is, whether the judicial power of the United States in any cases, and if in any, in

suggest the propriety of vesting in some single tribunal the power of deciding, in the last resort, all cases, in which they are involved.

"We are not restrained, then, by the political relation between the general and state governments, from construing the words of the constitution, defining the judicial power, in their true sense. We are not bound to construe them more restrictively than they naturally import.

"They give to the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction in all cases, arising under the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States. The words are broad enough to comprehend all cases of this description, in whatever court they may be decided. In expounding them, we may be permitted to take into view those considerations, to which courts have always allowed great weight in the exposition of laws.

"The framers of the constitution would naturally examine the state of things, existing at the time; and their work sufficiently attests, that they did so. All acknowledge, that they were convened for the purpose of strengthening the confederation, by enlarging the powers of the government, and by giving efficacy to those, which it before possessed, but could not exercise. They inform us, themselves, in the instrument they presented to the American public, that one of its objects was to form a more perfect Union. Under such circumstances, we certainly should not expect to find, in that instrument, a diminution of the powers of the actual government.

"Previous to the adoption of the confederation, congress established courts, which received appeals in prize causes, decided in the courts of the respective states. This power of the government, to establish tribunals for these appeals, was thought consistent with, and was founded on, its political relations with the states. These courts did exercise appellate jurisdiction over those cases, decided in the state courts, to which the judicial power of the federal government extended.

"The confederation gave to congress, the power of establishing courts, for receiving and determining, finally, appeals in all cases of captures.'

"This power was uniformily construed to authorize those courts to receive appeals from the sentences of state courts, and to affirm or reverse them. State tribunals are not mentioned; but this clause, in the confederation, necessarily comprises them. Yet the relation between the general and state governments was much weaker, much more lax, under the confederation, than under the present constitution; and the states being much more completely sovereign, their institutions were much more independent.

"The convention, which framed the constitution, on turning their