sum, and the United States are plaintiffs; or an alien is a party, or the suit is between a citizen of the state where it is brought and a citizen of another state. They have also original jurisdiction in equity, and at law, of all suits arising under the acts of Congress relative to copy-rights, and the rights growing out of inventions and discoveries; and they likewise have concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts of the United States, and with the courts and magistrates of the several states, of all suits at common law, where the United States, or an officer thereof, sues under the authority of an act of Congress, how ever small the amount.

The Circuit Courts of the United States have appellate jurisdiction in all final judgments and decrees and judgments of the District Courts; and if any suit be commenced in a state court against an alien, or by a citizen of the state in which the suit is brought against a citizen of another state, the defendant, on giving security, may remove the cause to the Circuit Court for the Federal judicial district in which the suit is brought.*

A Circuit Court, although an inferior court in the language of the Constitution, is not so in the sense which the common law attaches to the term; nor are its proceedings subject to the narrow rules which apply to inferior courts of common law, or courts of special jurisdiction. On the contrary, the Circuit Courts of the United States are courts of original and durable jurisdiction, and as such, are entitled to liberal intendments in favour of their powers. They are, nevertheless, courts of limited jurisdiction, and have cognizance, not of causes generally, but only of a few, under special circumstances, amounting to

* 4 Dallas. 11. 2 ibid., 340. 5 Cranch, 185.

a small proportion of the cases which an unlimited jurisdiction would embrace; and the legal presumption is, that a cause is without their jurisdiction until the contrary appears.

III. The District Courts are derived from the same constitutional power of Congress as the Circuit Courts. They hold annually four stated terms, and special courts at the discretion of the respective judges.

The District Courts of the United States have, exclusively of the state courts, cognizance of all lesser crimes and offences against the United States, committed within their respective districts, or upon the high seas, and which are punishable by fine and imprisonment, to a small amount, and for a short term. They have also exclusive original cognizance of all civil cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; of seizures under the impost, navigation, and trade laws of the Union, where the seizures are made on the high seas or in waters within their district, navigable from the ocean by vessels of ten or more tons' burden; and also of all other seizures made under the laws of the United States; and of all suits for penalties or forfeitures incurred under those laws.

They have, moreover, cognizance, concurrent with Circuit Courts and the state courts, of causes in which an alien sues for the violation of a right accruing to him under the law of nations, or a treaty of the United States; and of all suits at common law, in which the United States are plaintiffs, and the matter in dispute is of a certain small amount. They have jurisdiction likewise, exclusive of the state courts, of all suits against consuls or vice-consuls, except of offences of a higher degree than those which have been mentioned. They have also exclusive cognizance of proceedings to repeal patents, obtained surrepti

tiously, and upon false suggestions; and of complaints, by whomsoever instituted, in cases of capture made within the waters of the United States, or within a marine league of their courts.

The judges of the District Courts have, in cases where the party has not had reasonable time to apply to the Circuit Courts, as full power as is exercised by the justices of the Supreme Court, to grant writs of injunction in equity causes, to operate within their respective districts, and continue in force until the next sitting of the Circuit Court.

IV. The Courts of the TERRITORIES of the United States have been created, from time to time, by the several acts of Congress establishing Territorial governments in those vast regions in the western parts of the Continent which were either ceded by individual states for the common benefit, upon condition that the proceeds of sales of the public lands therein should be applied to the payment of the national debt incurred during the Revolutionary war, or comprising those obtained by treaty from foreign powers, and never included within the boundaries of any of the original members of the Union. These Territories (as they are politically, as well as geographical- . ly termed) are not in either case considered distinct political societies, known to the Constitution as states; but Congress has always assumed to exercise over them supreme powers of sovereignty; and has generally adopted for that purpose the principles of an ordinance established under the confederation for governing the territory northwest of the River Ohio, which now contains the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. This ordinance was formed upon sound and enlightened principles of civil jurisprudence, and the judges appointed in that territory hold their offices during good behaviour, as

well as those in the territories which were succes sively elected from the residuary parts of it. In the existing territories of Florida, Wisconsin, and Iowa, however, the governor and members of the legislative council, as well as the judges, are appointed by the President and Senate, but are all removable at the pleasure of the President; and the judges, subject to such removal, hold for four, and the governor for three years. In the first, the judicial power is vested in two Superior Courts, and in such inferior courts and magistrates as the legislative council may establish. The legislative power in all these territories is vested in the governor, and a legislative council consisting of nine members, appointed by the President and Senate, to continue in office for five years, and of a House of Representatives, chosen by the inhabitants biennially. The Superior Courts in those territories have exclusive cognizance of all capital offences, and the trial by jury is secured, together with many other great fundamental principles of civil liberty. The legislatures are prohibited from interfering with the primary disposal of the soil, or from taxing land belonging to the United States, or from imposing higher taxes on land belonging to non-resident proprietors than on those of residents. In the organization of the territorial governments of East and West Florida, one of the Superior Courts, consisting of a single judge, is assigned to each division respectively; and has within its limits the same jurisdiction, in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, which is vested in the District Courts of the United States, in those districts in which the latter have the powers of a Circuit Court; and writs of error, and appeals from the decisions of these territorial courts, may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, in the

M

same cases, and under the same regulations, as from the Circuit Courts of the Union.

From these various regulations, it appears that Congress possesses supreme power in regard to all these territories, depending solely on the exercise of its sound discretion. Neither the District of Columbia nor a territory is a state, within the meaning of the Constitution, or entitled to claim the privileges secured to the members of the Union.* Nor will a writ

of error or an appeal lie from a territorial court to the Supreme Court, unless there be a special statutory provision for the purpose.†

"If," observes Mr. Chancellor Kent, "the government of the United States should carry into execution the project of colonizing the great valley of the Oregon west of the Rocky Mountains, it would af ford a subject of grave consideration, what would be the future civil and political destiny of that country. It would be a long time," he continues," before it would be populous enough to be created into one or more independent states; and, in the mean time, upon the doctrine taught by the acts of Congress, and the judicial decisions of the Supreme Court, the colonists would be in a state of most complete subordination, and as dependant upon the will of Congress as the people of this country would have been upon the king and Parliament of Great Britain, if they could have sustained their claim to bind us, in all cases whatsoever. Such a state of absolute sovereignty on the one hand, and of absolute dependance on the other, is not at all congenial with the free and independent spirit of our native institutions; and the establishment of distant territorial governments, ruled according to will and pleasure, would have a very natural tendency, as all * 2 Cranch, 445. 1 Wheaton, 91.

† 1 Cranch, 212. 3 ib., 159.