Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/583

 CH. XXXVIII.] to be exercised in an original, or appellate form, or both, as congress may in their wisdom deem fit. Now, the constitution has made no distinction, except of the original and appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. It has no where insinuated, that the inferior tribunals shall have no original jurisdiction. It has no where affirmed, that they shall have appellate jurisdiction. Both are left unrestricted and undefined. Of course, as the judicial power is to be vested in the supreme and inferior courts of the Union, both are under the entire control and regulation of congress.

§ 1699. Indeed, it has been a matter of much question, whether the grant of original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, in the enumerated cases, ought to be construed to give to that court exclusive original jurisdiction, even of those cases. And it has been contended, that there is nothing in the constitution, which warrants the conclusion, that it was intended to exclude the inferior courts of the Union from a concurrent original jurisdiction. The judiciary act of 1789, (ch. 20, §§ 11, 13,) has manifestly proceeded upon the supposition, that the jurisdiction was not exclusive; but, that concurrent original jurisdiction in those cases might be vested by congress in inferior courts. It has been strongly intimated, indeed, by the highest tribunal, on more than one occasion, that the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in those cases is exclusive; but