Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/461

 CH. XXXVIII.] wholly unlike those of the national government. The constitution was an act of the people of the United States to supersede the confederation, and not to be ingrafted on it, as a stock through which it was to receive life land nourishment.

§ 1589. If, indeed, the relative signification could be fixed upon the term "extend," it would not (as we shall hereafter see) subserve the purposes of the argument, in support of which it has been adduced. This imperative sense of the words "shall extend," is strengthened by the context. It is declared, that "in all cases affecting ambassadors, &c., the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction." Could congress withhold original jurisdiction in these cases from the supreme court? The clause proceeds—"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." The very exception here shows, that the framers of the constitution used the words in an imperative sense. What necessity could there exist for this exception, if the preceding words were not used in that sense? Without such exception, congress would, by the preceding words, have possessed a complete power to regulate the appellate jurisdiction, if the language were only equivalent to the words "may have" appellate jurisdiction. It is apparent, then, that the exception was intended as a limitation upon the preceding words, to enable congress to regulate and restrain the appellate power, as the public interests might, from time to time, require.

§ 1590. Other clauses in the constitution might be brought in aid of this construction; but a minute examination of them cannot be necessary, and would occupy too much time. It will be found, that, whenever a