Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/533

 CH. XXXVIII.] be brought against a foreign minister," (said Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the court) the Supreme Court alone has original jurisdiction, and this is shown on the record. But, suppose a suit to be brought, which affects the interest of a foreign minister, or by which the person of his secretary, or of his servant, is arrested. The minister does not, by the mere arrest of his secretary, or his servant, become a party to this suit; but the actual defendant pleads to the jurisdiction of the court, and asserts his privilege. If the suit affects a foreign minister, it must be dismissed, not because he is a party to it, but because it affects him. The language of the constitution in the two cases is different. This court can take cognizance of all cases "affecting" foreign ministers; and, therefore, jurisdiction does not depend on the party named in the record. But this language changes, when the enumeration proceeds to states. Why this change? The answer is obvious. In the case of foreign ministers, it was intended, for reasons, which all comprehend, to give the national courts jurisdiction over all cases, by which they were in any manner affected. In the case of states, whose immediate, or remote interests were mixed up with a multitude of cases, and who might be affected in an almost infinite variety of ways, it was intended to give jurisdiction in those cases only, to which they were actual parties.

§ 1657. The next clause extends the judicial power "to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction."

§ 1658. The propriety of this delegation of power seems to have been little questioned at the time of adopting the constitution. "The most bigoted