Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/553

 CH. XXXVIII.] the king in council, who exercised original jurisdiction therein, upon the principles of feudal sovereignty. This jurisdiction was often practically asserted, as in the case of the dispute between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, decided by the privy council, in 1679; and in the case of the dispute between New Hampshire and New York, in 1764. Lord Hardwicke recognized this appellate jurisdiction in the most deliberate manner, in the great case of Penn v. Lord Baltimore. The same necessity, which gave rise to it in our colonial state, must continue to operate through all future time. Some tribunal, exercising such authority, is essential to prevent an appeal to the sword, and a dissolution of the government. That it ought to be established under the national, rather than under the state, government; or, to speak more properly, that it can be safely established under the former only, would seem to be a position self-evident, and requiring no reasoning to support it. It may justly be presumed, that under the national government in all controversies of this sort, the decision will be impartially made according to the principles of justice; and all the usual and most effectual precautions are taken to secure this impartiality, by confiding it to the highest judicial tribunal.

§ 1676. Next; "controversies between a state and the citizens of another state." "There are other 69