Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/447

 CH. XXXVIII.] "'The second section enumerates the cases, to which the judicial power shall extend. It gives to the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in only two cases, but in all the others, vests it with appellate jurisdiction; and that with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as the congress shall make.

"'It has long and very universally been deemed essential to the due administration of justice, that some national court, or council should be instituted, or authorized to examine the acts of the ordinary tribunals and ultimately, to affirm or reverse their judgments and decrees: it being important, that these tribunals should be confined to the limits of their respective jurisdiction, and that they should uniformly interpret and apply the law in the same sense and manner.

"'The appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court enables it to confine inferior courts to their proper limits, to correct their involuntary errors, and, in general, to provide, that justice be administered accurately, impartially, and uniformly. These controlling powers were unavoidably great and extensive; and of such a nature, as to render their being combined with other judicial powers, in the same persons, unadvisable.

"'To the natural, as well as legal incompatibility of ultimate appellate jurisdiction, with original jurisdiction, we ascribe the exclusion of the Supreme Court from the latter, except in two cases. Had it not been for this exclusion, the unalterable, ever-binding decisions of this important court, would not have been secured against the influences of those predilections for individual opinions, and of those reluctances to relinquish sentiments publicly, though, perhaps, too hastily given, which insensibly and not unfrequently infuse into the minds of the most upright men, some degree of partiality for their official and public acts.

"'Without such exclusion, no court, possessing the last resort of justice, would have acquired and preserved that public confidence, which is really necessary to render the wisest institutions useful. A celebrated writer justly observes, that "next to doing right, the great object in the administration of public justice should be to give public satisfaction."

"'Had the constitution permitted the Supreme Court to sit in judgment, and finally to decide on the acts and errors, done and committed by its own members, as judges of inferior and subordinate courts, much room would have been left for men, on certain occasions, to suspect, that was unanimously adopted. In respect to the establishment of inferior tribunals, some diversity of opinion was in the early stages of the proceedings exhibited.