The topic of
discussion for this Constitution Monday comes from Article III, Section 2,
Clause 1: “The judicial Power shall
extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the
Laws of the United States, and Treaties made … to Controversies to which the
United States shall be a Party….”
“Because the United States
government is the highest level of legal authority in the Union, it is only
appropriate that any issue in which it is a party should be adjudicated as a
matter of RIGHT in the highest available tribunals of the nation” (W. Cleon
Skousen in The Making of America – The
Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, p. 601).
“Among the numerous
jurisdictional grants to the new federal court system, one of the least
controversial was the proposition that the new federal courts should have
jurisdiction over any case to which the new United States was a party. The provision for jurisdiction over cases to
which the United States is a party was a comparatively late addition to the
Constitution, adopted long after the Committee of Detail had completed its
work. It seemed to reflect nothing more
than a correction of an oversight. As
Alexander Hamilton said of this jurisdictional grant: `any other plan would be contrary to
reason.’ The Federalist No. 80. Even
the Constitution’s most vigorous opponents in the Anti-Federalist camp
acknowledged the logic of this position.
Later, Chief Justice John Jay noted in Calder v. Bull (1798) that federal jurisdiction over cases
involving the United States was necessary `because in cases in which the whole
people are interested, it would not be equal, or wise, to let any one state
decide, and measure out the justice due others.’
“Today, the interesting legal
questions about this clause involve determinations of precisely what entity is
the `United States’ and when the United States has consented to be a party to a
lawsuit” (David F. Forte in The Heritage
Guide to the Constitution, p. 248).
No comments:
Post a Comment