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316 3l6 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. State law, it is to be remarked that they are courts of the United States, and not courts of the State. Why is it that a United States court is given this duty of administering the law of another jurisdiction? Why did the States allow it? Why was it impor- tant that the United States should have it ? It was because, in con- troversies between its own citizens and those of other States or countries, it might be expected that the courts of any given State would not be free from bias. Accordingly we read, in No. 80 of the "Federalist," the very striking statement of Hamilton as regards the danger that might come from unjust decisions of the several States as against foreigners and citizens of other States, and the importance of that jurisdiction of the Federal courts which we are now considering : — The responsibility for an injury, he says, ought ever to be accompanied with the faculty of preventing it. As the denial or perversion of justice by the sentences of courts, as well as in any other manner, is with reason classed among the just causes of war, it will follow that the Federal judi- ciary ought to have cognizance of all causes in which the citizens of other countries are concerned. . . . The power of determining causes between two States, between one State and the citizens of another, and between the citizens of different States, is perhaps not less essential to the peace of the Union than that which has been just examined. History gives us a horrid picture of the dissensions and private wars which dis- tracted and desolated Germany prior to the institution of the Imperial Chamber by Maximilian, towards the close of the fifteenth century; and informs us, at the same time, of the vast influence of that institution in appeasing the disorders and establishing the tranquillity of the empire. This was a court invested with authority to decide finally all differences among the members of the Germanic body. ... It may be esteemed the basis of the Union that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." And if it be a just principle that every government ought to possess the means of executing its own provisions by its own authority, it will follow that in order to the inviolable maintenance of that equality of privileges and immunities to which the citizens of the Union will be entitled, the national judiciary ought to preside in all cases in which one State or its citizens are opposed to another State or its citizens. To secure the full effect of so fundamental a provision against all evasion and subterfuge, it is neces- sary that its construction should be committed to that tribunal which, having no local attachments, will be likely to be impartial between the different States and their citizens, and which, owing its official existence