Although Congress can neither enlarge nor restrict the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, it may vest concurrent jurisdiction in the lower federal courts in cases over which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction.[586] Thus among the grounds given for the decision in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co.,[587] that the Court had no original jurisdiction of an action by a State to enforce a judgment for a pecuniary penalty awarded by one of its own courts, was the provision of the 13th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789[588] that "the Supreme Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of controversies of a civil nature, where a State is a party, except between a State and its citizens; and except also between a State and citizens of other States, or aliens, in which latter case it shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction." Speaking of that act with particular reference to this section, Justice Gray declared that it "was passed by the first Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing that instrument, and is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning."[589] In cases affecting consuls, moreover, the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is shared concurrently with State courts unless Congress by positive action makes such jurisdiction exclusive.[590]
The Appellate Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
SUBJECT TO LIMITATION BY CONGRESS
Unlike its original jurisdiction, the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is subject to control by Congress in the exercise of the broadest discretion. Although the provisions of article III seem, superficially at least, to imply that its appellate jurisdiction would flow directly from the Constitution until Congress should by positive enactment make exceptions to it, rulings of the Court since 1796 establish the contrary rule. Consequently, before the Supreme Court can exercise appellate jurisdiction, an act of Congress must have bestowed it, and affirmative bestowals of jurisdiction are interpreted as exclusive in nature so as to constitute an exception to all other cases. This rule was first applied in Wiscart v. Dauchy[591] where the Court held that in the absence of a statute prescribing a rule for appellate proceedings, the Court lacked jurisdiction. It was further stated that if a rule were prescribed, the Court could not depart from it. Fourteen years later Chief Justice Marshall observed for the Court that its appellate jurisdiction is derived from the Constitution, but proceeded nevertheless to hold that an affirmative bestowal of appellate jurisdiction by Congress, which made no express exceptions to it, implied a denial of all others.[592]
The McCardle Case
The power of Congress to make exceptions to the court's appellate jurisdiction has thus become, in effect, a plenary power to bestow, withhold, and withdraw appellate jurisdiction, even to the point of its abolition. And this power extends to the withdrawal of appellate jurisdiction even in pending cases. In the notable case of Ex parte McCardle,[593] a Mississippi newspaper editor who was being held in custody by the military authorities acting under the authority of the Reconstruction Acts filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the circuit court for Southern Mississippi. He alleged unlawful restraint and challenged the validity to the Reconstruction statutes. The writ was issued, but after a hearing the prisoner was remanded to the custody of the military authorities. McCardle then appealed to the Supreme Court which denied a motion to dismiss the appeal, heard arguments on the merits of the case, and took it under advisement. Before a conference could be held, Congress, fearful of a test of the Reconstruction Acts, enacted a statute withdrawing appellate jurisdiction from the Court in certain habeas corpus proceedings.[594] The Court then proceeded to dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction. Chief Justice Chase, speaking for the Court said: "Without jurisdiction the Court cannot proceed at all in any cause. Jurisdiction is the power to declare the law and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the Court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause."[595]
Although the McCardle Case goes to the ultimate in sustaining Congressional power over the court's appellate jurisdiction and although it was born of the stresses and tensions of the Reconstruction period, it has been frequently reaffirmed and approved.[596] The result is to vest an unrestrained discretion in Congress to curtail and even abolish the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and to prescribe the manner and forms in which it may be exercised. This principle is well expressed in The "Francis Wright"[597] where the Court sustained the validity of an act of Congress which limited the court's review in admiralty cases to questions of law appearing on the record. A portion of the opinion is worthy of quotation: "Authority to limit the jurisdiction necessarily carries with it authority to limit the use of the jurisdiction. Not only may whole classes of cases be kept out of the jurisdiction altogether, but particular classes of questions may be subjected to reexamination and review, while others are not. To our minds it is no more unconstitutional to provide that issues of fact shall not be retried in any case, than that neither issues of law nor fact shall be retried in cases where the value of the matter in dispute is less than $5,000. The general power to regulate implies the power to regulate in all things. The whole of a civil appeal may be given, or a part. The constitutional requirements are all satisfied if one opportunity is had for the trial of all parts of a case. Everything beyond that is a matter of legislative discretion."[598]
The Power of Congress To Regulate the Jurisdiction of the Lower Federal Courts
MARTIN v. HUNTER'S LESSEE
The power of Congress to vest, withdraw, and regulate the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts is derived from the power to create tribunals under article I, the necessary and proper clause, and the clause in article III, vesting the judicial power in the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as "the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Balancing these provisions, however, are the phrases in article III to the effect that the judicial power "shall be vested" in courts and "shall extend" to nine classes of cases and controversies and the question of what is the force of the word "shall." In Martin v. Hunter's Lessee,[599] Justice Story declared obiter that it was imperative upon Congress to create inferior federal courts and vest in them all the jurisdiction they were capable of receiving. This dictum was criticized by Justice Johnson in his dissent, in which he contended that the word "shall" was used "in the future sense," and had "nothing imperative in it."[600] And for that matter in another portion of his opinion Justice Story expressly recognized that Congress may create inferior courts and "parcel out such jurisdiction among such courts, from time to time at their own pleasure";[601] and in his Commentaries he took a broad view of the power of Congress to regulate jurisdiction.[602]