office, and disqualification from holding office. The Senate can inflict no different punishment, but is not required to impose the entire penalty. A sentence of removal would be valid, although disqualification were not also imposed. But if the offence be also an indictable crime, the liability to the ordinary process of the criminal law still exists.

May the officer impeached be suspended from the exercise of his official duties during the pendency of the proceedings before final judgment of conviction or acquittal? The President, Vice-President, and judges clearly cannot be suspended, either by any act of the House of Representatives, or by any law of Congress. The Constitution certainly gives no express power to suspend; whatever authority exists must be derived by implication from other sources. One fact is absolutely conclusive upon this question, without any minute criticism of particular expressions in the Constitution. The President, Vice-President and judges while their offices exist, are placed by the Constitution in a position entirely independent of the legislature; their terms of office are fixed; they, as well as Congress, derive their authority from the fundamental law; the only mode of removing them is by an impeachment, trial and conviction. This proceeding is not a legislative but a judicial act. Congress as a body does not remove, but the House accuses and the Senate tries and convicts.

In respect to subordinate ministerial officers I think the power exists. These offices are created by law; the Constitution does not prescribe any length of term, but Congress has this matter at its complete disposal. It would seem, therefore, that the legislature may, by general statute, provide for suspending all subordinate ministerial officers from the exercise of their functions during the pendency of an impeachment against them. I do not think the measures of arrest and bail, or confinement in ordinary criminal proceedings have any analogy to this process of suspension; nor do the English precedents, however numerous, give any aid in the interpretation of the Constitution in this respect.

CHAPTER VI.

THE JUDICIAL POWERS OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

§ 729. Article III., Section I. provides that "The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Section II. is as follows: "The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and the treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty, and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more states; between a state and citizens of another state; between citizens of different states; between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states; and between a state or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before-mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as the Congress shall make." In this connection should be read Article XI. of the Amendments. "The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state."

An exhaustive treatment of the judicial powers as now exercised in fact would require me, (1) to examine what powers in the aggregate may be wielded by the national judiciary, or

in other words, what jurisdiction has the Constitution directly conferred, or authorized the Congress to confer; (2) to describe the extent to which Congress has acted, or in other words, how far it has passed laws which confer the jurisdiction which may be given; and (3) to explain the organization of the national courts, and the distribution of functions among them. The first only of these topics belongs, Lowever, to the department of Constitutional Law, and it alone will be considered in this work,

§ 730. As introductory to the particular matter of this chapter a few observations will be made upon the nature of jurisdiction in general. Jurisdiction is, in brief, the power of a court to decide. To state the same fact in another form, it is the power or capacity of a court to grant a remedy, and thus to protect some primary legal right, and enforce some primary legal duty. It may therefore be contentious, where the existence of the right and duty is denied, and must be established before the remedy is granted; or it may be ex parte or noncontentious, where the existence of the right is admitted, and only some formal act of a court is necessary in order that the right may be protected or enforced.

The jurisdiction residing in all tribunals of justice, may be considered in respect of its several kinds, classes, natures, and grades or degrees, and also in respect of the sources from which it is derived. When jurisdiction is considered in respect of its various kinds, classes, natures, and degrees, we shall find several distinct lines of division, based upon different ideas, and often crossing each other.

§ 731. In relation to the mere form and kind of the remedy administered by the courts, there are in England and America the familiar departments of civil and criminal jurisdiction; the one being the power to administer a remedy on the application of a private suitor, for the establishment, protection, or enforcement of a private legal right; the other, the power to administer a remedy on the application of the state, for the punishment of a breach of a duty to society. Again: in relation to the mere form and kind of the remedy administered, there are in England and America the well known divisions of Common Law, Equity, Admiralty, and Probate jurisdiction; and in

England the special case of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction growing out of the union of church and state. The common law jurisdiction is both civil and criminal; the admiralty, though mainly civil, has a criminal side; the equitable and the probate are purely civil.

§732. In relation to its nature, jurisdiction of all kinds is either original or appellate. All the courts which exercise any power to administer a remedy, must exercise it in one of these two forms. Original jurisdiction is the power to hear and decide a legal controversy, or to administer a remedy, in the first instance. Courts in which suits may be brought, or which may grant some special remedies, are, in respect of such suits and special remedies, tribunals of original jurisdiction. The appellate, on the other hand, is entirely a power to review the act, or decision, or determination of some other court, the appellate tribunal being generally considered as superior to the one whose decision is appealed from and reviewed. It is plain that there is nothing in the nature of things to prevent the same court from possessing both an original and an appellate jurisdiction. In fact, as the judicial machinery of England and of America is organized, there is an ascending series of courts, many of those which are intermediate having both the original and the appellate jurisdiction. In the United States system there are three grades of tribunals, the District Courts, the Circuit Courts, and the Supreme Court. The first of these possesses only an original jurisdiction; the second is clothed with both; the Supreme Court is chiefly appellate, but some special original jurisdiction of great importance is conferred upon it.

§ 733. Jurisdiction may be exclusive, or concurrent. A court possesses an exclusive jurisdiction when it alone can take cognizance of a particular class of cases, or can administer some particular remedy. Thus, by the combined operation of the Constitution, and of statutes of Congress passed in virtue thereof, the national courts have a jurisdiction exclusive of the states over certain classes of cases, as for example, suits for the infringements of patent rights, admiralty causes, and many others. Two or more courts have a concurrent jurisdiction

when the suit or proceeding might have been originally instituted in either, at the will or election of the suitor.

§ 734. In relation to the extent of the power which courts possess to hear and determine, their jurisdiction is general, or limited. The word general, used in its broadest sense, would imply that the court had authority to hear and determine any and all suits and proceedings of every description which may be instituted to enforce, protect, or establish legal rights; while the word limited would imply that the court was restricted in its authority to some particular kinds or classes of suits or proceedings. If this wide significance were given to the word general, there is no court in England or America which possesses a general jurisdiction. There is plainly none in America, because all state courts are prevented from entertaining some special classes of suits which are confided exclusively to the national tribunals, while these latter are hedged about by the provisions of the Constitution which confine their powers within comparatively narrow bounds. The word, therefore, as descriptive of jurisdiction, is used in a sense much less broad. Certain kinds of courts are, from their very nature, plainly limited; the peculiar functions which they wield forbid the use of the word general as applied to them. Thus, courts purely and distinctively admiralty, or probate, do not possess a general jurisdiction; although we might with propriety denominate them if the fact were so-courts of general admiralty, or of general probate jurisdiction, that is, courts in which all admiralty, or all probate matters might be originally brought.

§ 735. The epithet general, as descriptive of jurisdiction, and as designating a class of courts, is only applied to common law and equity tribunals. A common law court possesses general jurisdiction, when it may originally entertain all actions or proceedings by which common law remedies are administered, and rights strictly legal enforced, without restriction as to the nature of the controversy, or the situation of the parties, except such as the modes of practice and procedure adopted, have established. An equity court possesses general jurisdiction, when it may originally entertain all actions and proceedings by which equitable remedies are administered, and equitable