so compound a system, can liquidate
the meaning of all the parts, and can adjust them to each other in a
harmonious and consistent WHOLE.

Such questions, accordingly, have arisen upon the plan proposed by the
convention, and particularly concerning the judiciary department. The
principal of these respect the situation of the State courts in regard
to those causes which are to be submitted to federal jurisdiction.
Is this to be exclusive, or are those courts to possess a concurrent
jurisdiction? If the latter, in what relation will they stand to the
national tribunals? These are inquiries which we meet with in the mouths
of men of sense, and which are certainly entitled to attention.

The principles established in a former paper(1) teach us that the States
will retain all pre-existing authorities which may not be exclusively
delegated to the federal head; and that this exclusive delegation can
only exist in one of three cases: where an exclusive authority is, in
express terms, granted to the Union; or where a particular authority is
granted to the Union, and the exercise of a like authority is prohibited
to the States; or where an authority is granted to the Union, with which
a similar authority in the States would be utterly incompatible. Though
these principles may not apply with the same force to the judiciary as
to the legislative power, yet I am inclined to think that they are, in
the main, just with respect to the former, as well as the latter. And
under this impression, I shall lay it down as a rule, that the State
courts will retain the jurisdiction they now have, unless it appears to
be taken away in one of the enumerated modes.

The only thing in the proposed Constitution, which wears the appearance
of confining the causes of federal cognizance to the federal courts,
is contained in this passage: "THE JUDICIAL POWER of the United States
shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as
the Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish." This might
either be construed to signify, that the supreme and subordinate courts
of the Union should alone have the power of deciding those causes to
which their authority is to extend; or simply to denote, that the organs
of the national judiciary should be one Supreme Court, and as many
subordinate courts as Congress should think proper to appoint; or in
other words, that the United States should exercise the judicial power
with which they are t