Though
these principles may not apply with the same force to the judiciary as
to the legislative power, yet I am inclined to think that they are, in
the main, just with respect to the former, as well as the latter. And
under this impression, I shall lay it down as a rule, that the State
courts will retain the jurisdiction they now have, unless it appears to
be taken away in one of the enumerated modes.
The only thing in the proposed Constitution, which wears the appearance
of confining the causes of federal cognizance to the federal courts, is
contained in this passage: "THE JUDICIAL POWER of the United States
shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the
Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish." This might
either be construed to signify, that the supreme and subordinate courts
of the Union should alone have the power of deciding those causes to
which their authority is to extend; or simply to denote, that the organs
of the national judiciary should be one Supreme Court, and as many
subordinate courts as Congress should think proper to appoint; or in
other words, that the United States should exercise the judicial power
with which they are to be invested, through one supreme tribunal, and a
certain number of inferior ones, to be instituted by them.
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