goods of persons deceased, which belongs to the prerogative courts of the archbishops of Canterbury and York, if the deceased leaves goods to the amount of £5 (bona notabilia) in two different dioceses; other wise it belongs to the court of the bishop of the diocese. But much of the business of administering upon and determining the distribution of the estates of persons deceased passes into the court of chancery, under its jurisdiction of trusts; a large amount of property in Great Britain being put in trust under grants and wills.

COURTS OF THE U.STATES. By the constitution of the U. States, which went into operation in the year 1789, a limited extent of judicial power was confided to the government of the union, the nature of which will be best explained by quoting the very words in which it is given. The third article of the constitution declares, 1. that "The judicial power of the U. States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." 2. "The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this constitution, the laws of the 1. States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases of adıniralty and maritime jurisdiction to controversies to which the U. States shall be a party-to controversies between two or more states; between a state and citizens of another state; between citizens of different states; between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states; and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects." 3. "In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party, the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as the congress shall make." It is observable, that this enumeration of the various classes of cases to which the judicial power may extend, does not make it imperative upon congress to vest the whole jurisdiction in courts created by the general government; but leaves much to the discretion of congress, as to the establishinent

of courts, and the jurisdiction with which they shall be clothed. In point of fact, congress has never legislated to the extent of the judicial power authorized by the constitution. Some branches of it remain undisposed of; and the courts of the seyeral states are left to act upon them as matters not exclusively confided to the courts of the U. States. At the first session of congress, under the constitution, the organization of the judicial establishment was made, which has substantially remained in force ever since. By a statute passed Sept. 24, 1789, a supreme court was created, consisting of a chief justice and five associate justices, since increased to six; and two classes of inferior courts, viz., circuit courts and district courts, were also created. All the judges of the courts of the U. States are appointed by the president, by and with the consent of the senate of the U. States, and cannot otherwise be appointed.—We will now proceed to give a summary view of each of these courts, beginning with those which are the lowest in point of rank, and of the first instance.

1. The District Courts. Each state in the confederacy constitutes at least one judicial district, and the states of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia are divided into two districts by certain local limits. In each district, à court is appointed to hold sessions, consisting of a single judge. The district courts possess criminal jurisdiction, exclusively of the state courts, of all crimes and offences against the U. States, where the punishment of whipping, not exceeding 30 stripes (which is now generally abolished), or a fine not exceeding $100, or a term of imprisonment not exceeding 6 months, is to be inflicted. It also possesses civil jurisdiction of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; that is, of suits upon maritime contracts and maritime torts; of seizures in rem, and of suits in personam for penalties and forfeitures incurred under the laws of the U. States; of all causes where an alien sues for a tort only, in violation of the law of nations, or a treaty of the U. States; of all suits at common law, where the government of the U. States sue, or any officer thereof sues, under the authority of any act of congress, whatever may be the matter in dispute; and of all suits against consuls and viceconsuls. The district courts also possess the jurisdiction of circuit courts in those districts where no circuit courts are held, and also certain limited authorities under special laws.

2. The Circuit Courts. The U. States are now divided into seven circuits, in each of which a court is held, called a circuit court. It consists of two judges, one of whom is a justice of the supreme court of the U. States, and the other is the district judge of the particular district in which the court sits. The court may be held by either judge in the absence of the other; but the district judge cannot try causes brought by appeal from his own decisions. Each circuit consists of at least two states, and some of three states, and one of four states. There are six states in which no circuit court sits; and there the like duties are performed by the district judges. The circuit courts possess original jurisdiction in all civil suits at common law, or in equity, where the matter in dispute is of the sum or value of $500, or upwards, and the U. States are plaintiffs; or where an alien is a party; or where the suit is between a citizen of the state where the suit is brought, and a citizen of another state. They also possess jurisdiction in cases of patents for useful inventions, and of copyrights for books, &c. They have also exclusive jurisdiction of all crimes and offences against the U. States, not cognizable in the district courts; and concurrent jurisdiction with those courts of all crimes and offences cognizable therein. They have appellate jurisdiction of all final judgments and decrees of the district courts, in all cases where the matter in dispute exceeds $50. Civil suits can be brought in the circuit and district courts, by original process, against an inhabitant of the U. States, only in the district whereof he is an inhabitant, or in which, at the time of serving the process, he may be found; and, in cases of negotiable securities for money, except foreign bills, these courts cannot, by any transfer or assignment of such securities, maintain jurisdiction, unless their jurisdiction could have attached independent of such transfer or assignment. If a suit is commenced in a state court against an alien or citizen of another state, and the inatter in dispute exceed $500, it may be removed into the circuit court, which sits in the same state, and tried there according to certain regulations prescribed by law; and a like removal may take place where, in a suit in the state court, the parties claim title to lands under a grant thereof from different states, that is, where one party claims title under the state in which the suit is brought, and the other under another state.

3. The Supreme Court consists of seven

judges, as above stated. It sits annually at the seat of government, on the 2d Monday of January. It possesses exclusive original jurisdiction of all controversies of a civil nature, where a state is a party, except between a state and its citizens, and except, also, between a state and citizens of other states and aliens, in which latter case it has original but not exclusive jurisdiction. It possesses also, exclusively, all such jurisdiction of suits and proceedings against ambassadors, and other public ministers, or their domestics, or domestic servants, as a court of law can have or exercise consistently with the law of nations; and original, but not exclusive jurisdiction of all suits brought by ambassadors, or other public ministers, or in which a consul or vice-consul is a party. It possesses, also, appellate jurisdiction from the final judgments and decrees of the circuit courts, and of the district courts exercising circuit court powers, in all civil cases where the matter in dispute exceeds $2000 in value or amount, and the causes were originally brought in or removed into such circuit or district courts. It has also jurisdiction in cases brought by way of appeal into the circuit court from the district courts (which word appeal has here a technical and somewhat peculiar sense), but not in cases brought by writs of error from the district courts into the circuit courts. This difference is more accidental than intentional, and proceeds from the different modes of process by which suits are brought into the appellate courts according to the course of the common law. The terms of the statute conferring the jurisdiction are supposed to limit the appellate jurisdiction to cases which did not get into the circuit courts by the process of a writ of error, in its technical sense. It is difficult to make the distinction clear to lawyers bred in the civil law; it is obvious to those bred in the common law. The supreme court also possesses appellate jurisdiction from the final decisions of the state courts, in cases in which there is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the U. States, and the state court decides against its validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any state, on the ground of its being repugnant to the constitution, treaties or laws of the U. States, and the decision is in favor of its validity; or where is drawn in question the construction of any clause of the constitution, or of a treaty or statute of, or commission

held under, the U. States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege or exemption specially set up or claimed by either party, under such clause of the constitution, treaty, statute or commission. The appellate jurisdiction, however, so exercised in these cases, coming from the state courts, is confined to the points above-mentioned, and does not extend to the other merits of the case, not connected therewith, nor flowing therefrom. From this sketch, it will be perceived that the supreme court exercises, or may exercise, jurisdiction in the following classes of cases:-1. In cases where the construction of the constitution, treaties and statutes of the U. States is involved; 2. in cases where the state laws are supposed to be inconsistent with the constitution, treaties or laws of the U. States; 3. in cases of rights derived under the constitution, treaties or laws of the U. States; 4. in cases where a state is a party to the suit, or a foreign ambassador, or minister, or consul, or vice-consul; 5. in cases of controversies of a civil nature between aliens and citizens, or between citizens of one state and citizens of another state; 6. in cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. As a general description, this is sufficiently precise for the common reader. The supreme court has authority, also, in various other modes, to exercise a supervision over the acts of inferior tribunals; as, by granting writs of mandamus, to direct them to do their duty in certain cases; by granting writs of prohibition, where they exceed their authority; by granting writs of habeas corpus, to relieve parties from unjust imprisonment, &c. &c. In cases also where no appeal lies to the supreme court, the judges of the circuit courts are allowed to obtain the opinion of the supreme court, by certifying cases to that court, in which they are divided in opinion. This course is often pursued in important and difficult questions, both of civil and criminal law, and in the latter especially, because, in criminal cases, the supreme court has no direct appellate jurisdiction. The general mass of business, which employs the supreme court, consists of private controversies respecting property, or personal rights and contracts. In times of war, it also exercises a final appellate jurisdiction in prize causes, and other causes in which belligerent and neutral rights and duties are involved. For the most part, questions of national and public law are there finally discussed and settled. Its most important function, how ever, in a practical view, is the decision

of the great constitutional questions, which, from time to time, arise in the different parts of the Union. These questions are not brought forward, in a formal manner, by the government itself, to be adjudged upon a mere reference of them to the court. The court cannot take cognizance of them in such a shape, but only in a suit regularly brought before it, in which the point arises, and is essential to the rights of one of the parties. Hence it happens that a private person may litigate any question respecting the constitutionality of a law of the national or state government, whenever it is connected with his own rights, which are in controversy in a suit. Such a person may not only litigate the constitutionality of such laws, independently of the government, but even against the will of the government; and it not unfrequently happens that such questions are discussed and decided without the government having any opportu nity of interposing itself in the discussion. The constitution is deemed the supreme law of the land, which rulers, and magistrates, and legislatures are bound to obey; and if, unintentionally or otherwise, they overleap the proper boundary, and the supreme court so decide, the act of the legislatures or rulers becomes a mere nullity, and receives no sanction or support whatsoever. It may naturally be supposed, that, in many instances, such questions must involve interests of a public nature to a vast extent, as well as contests respecting the just exercise of political power, and thus give rise to very heated discussions, and sometimes to violent political struggles, which might_threaten_the very existence of the national government. But hitherto, however warm have been the preliminary controversies, and however important the rights to state sovereignty or state pride, the decisions of the supreme court have been universally respected. Indeed, the people are so well satisfied, that the great security of their civil and political liberties essentially depends upon the independent exercise of this great function, and the supreme court is accustomed to expound its opinion with so much fulness and moderation, that no instance has occurred, in which a great majority of the nation has not hitherto rested satisfied with the decision. Such is the supremacy of law in the U. States. If it be asked, in what respects the supreme court of the U. States differs, in its funetions and organization, from the highest courts of England, the following will be found the most important particulars:

1. In England, the prize and admiralty jurisdiction, the equity jurisdiction, and the common law jurisdiction, are severally intrusted to distinct courts. The supreme court of the U. States exercises all these jurisdictions, as, indeed, do the circuit courts. 2. The highest courts in England have a general jurisdiction as to all persons and all suits. The supreme court of the U. States has a limited and restricted jurisdiction over particular persons only, and particular classes of suits. 3. The courts in England have no jurisdiction over constitutional questions: an act of parliament is an act of uncontrollable sovereignty, which all courts must obey and enforce. 4. The courts in England do not exercise jurisdiction in cases between state sovereignties; or, if they do, it is a very limited and incidental jurisdiction. In many particulars, the highest courts in England and the supreme court of the U. States exercise the same powers substantially in the same way. In the first place, the general system of jurisprudence to be administered by them is, in most respects, the same. The common law governs in England. It constitutes the general basis of the jurisprudence of all the states in the Union, with the exception of Louisiana, where the civil law prevails, as it did while that territory belonged to France and Spain. The common law is, indeed, modified by the legislation of the several states, according to their pleasure, as it is by the parliament in England; and, in some of the states, there are some customs and peculiarities which grew up in early times. But they are few, and, in a general sense, unimportant. The statutes passed by the states, and the judicial constructions or interpretations of them, constitute the principal peculiarities of what is denominated local law; and these are far more uniform than at first thought would be supposed. The original circumstances of the colonies were not, as to most political and municipal arrangements, materially different. Inheriting from England the common law, they generally adopted such amendments of it as were, from time to time, made in the mother country; and, in their colonial legislation, they borrowed from each other such portions of the statutes, which were enacted and in use, as were suited to their own wants. Hence, at an early day, in almost all the colonies, they enacted nearly uniform laws as to the making of wills, as to registering of conveyances of lands, as to the descent of estates among all the children, giving, in some cases, a double share to the eldest

son, but excluding the English law of primogeniture. The system of land law, that is, the system adopted in relation to the sale and distribution of the public lands belonging to the states, constitutes, at this very time, a more important feature of difference in the legislation, and judicial interpretation of rights to landed property, than any other in the whole code of positive law. It may naturally be presumed, too, that, though the common law was the general basis of the jurisprudence of all the states, yet, in the course of time, the judicial interpretations thereof, especially when there were no printed reports, might essentially vary in the different states, in many cases; and that these diversities, us well from the different talents and acquirements of the judges, as from the uncertainty of many of the principles of decision, might create other heads of local law. It would surprise a foreigner, however, to learn how few, comparatively speaking, these now are. The regular publication of reports; the desire to give uniformity to the system; the influence of the decisions in the mother country and in the national courts, have a powerful operation upon the whole profession in this respect, and the more powerful and beneficial, because it is silent and insensible. In this way, it conduces to a general harmony and coincidence in the adminis tration of the law, by the gentle means of juridical reasoning and argument. From this general prevalence of the common law, the decisions made from time to time in England are cited in the discussions in the American courts, not as absolute authorities, but as very able expositions of the law; and, on that account, they are generally adopted. In the next place, the modes of administering justice are the same in the courts of the U. States as they are in England in like cases. In the prize and admiralty proceedings, the principles and practice of the English courts of admiralty are adopted; in equity causes, the principles and practice of the court of chancery in England; in suits at common law, the principles and practice of the courts of commendam in England. There are no courts in America which possess a general jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs, like the ecclesiastical courts in England; for, in America, there is no church estab lishment. But the business of the probate of wills, and granting administration on the estate of deceased persons, and appointing guardians to minors and others, is generally confided to orphan courts, or probate courts, exercising a jurisdiction

over these subjects very similar to the summary jurisdiction exercised by the ecclesiastical courts in England over the same subjects. The jurisprudence in America, then, not being entirely homogeneous, the supreme court, in the exercise of its jurisdiction, has an invariable regard to the local law, where it applies, and, consequently, is called upon to administer justice in many cases of a conflict of laws. In this part of its functions, it acts upon the same general principles which regulate, or ought to regulate, the tribunals of other independent states. It acts upon the same principles which the English courts would act upon; but it is called more frequently to decide on such questions, and therefore it refers more, as guides in its decisions, to the civil law writers, who have discussed this complicated subject with ability and learning. Indeed, it may be stated as a general fact, that the American courts, in questions of public and commercial law, are in the habit of paying great attention to the works of the continental jurists. The supreme court of the U. States exercises no political functions whatsoever, except the administration of public and prize law, and the decision of constitutional questions, may be so considered. It is wholly independent of the executive government, the judges holding their offices during good behavior, and receiving a salary which cannot be diminished during their continuance in office. The present salary of the chief justice is $5000, and that of each of the other judges, $4500. They are liable to impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors before the senate of the U. States, and, upon conviction by two thirds of the members present, are liable to be removed from office. Cases of impeachment of public officers are exclusively triable before the senate; and, when the president of the U. States is on trial, the chief justice of the U. States is required by the constitution to preside. As to the modes of trial: In cases of impeachment, as has been already stated, the trial is before the senate, without any jury. The trial of all crimes, in other cases, is required by the constitution to be by jury. So is the trial of all civil suits at common law, where the value in controversy exceeds $20. And, in all cases where the facts are tried by a jury, their verdict, as to the facts, has the conclusiveness given it by the common law of England. In admiralty and prize causes, and in equity causes, the questions of fact, as well as of law, are decided by the court, as they are

decided in the English courts. The general practice, in the trials by jury, is the same as in England. The mode of appointing and selecting the jurors is not uniform. In some of the states, the marshal or sheriff selects them; in others, they are drawn out of ballot boxes, which contain the names of all the persons whom the municipal authorities deem qualified to sit as jurors. The selections thus made usually embrace a very large proportion of the voters; and as many are selected and returned for a particular session of the court as the court deems the occasion to require. In some states, the same jurors sit in all causes tried at the same term; in others, a distinct jury is, or may be, returned for each cause. The courts of the U. States, sitting in any particular district, follow the local practice as to the selection of juries. In all criminal trials, the constitution guaranties to the party accused a public trial, upon a written indictment or accusation, a right to be confronted with the witnesses brought against him, and to have compulsive process for the attendance of his own witnesses, and a right to have the assistance of counsel or lawyers in his defence. The statutes of the U. States generally secure to him, in civil cases, the same privileges, except that depositions of witnesses may be used therein, in certain cases, where the witnesses cannot attend by reason of infirn.ity, or distance of place, &c. The power of pardon is exclusively confided to the president of the U. States. The judges have no express authority to recommend any person, after conviction, for a pardon; but, where the case requires it, it is not unfrequently done by them, as private persons, upon their own responsibility and sense of justice. It may be asked, Who determine finally what causes do or do not belong to the jurisdiction of the courts of the U. States? The general answer should be, that the court, before which the suit is brought, must, in the first instance, decide that question for itself; and it is finally to be decided by the highest court to which an appeal lies from that court. If it depend on matter of fact, the fact is ascertained in the usual way in which other facts are ascertained in cases of a like nature; if it depend on matter of law, then the court primarily decides on its own view of the law. In general, the judgments and decrees of courts of competent jurisdiction are held conclusive in the U. States, as they are in England. Few conflicts, as to jurisdiction, arise in the American courts, as, for the most part,