to revise a decision or order made by a judge of a circuit or district court at chambers.1

§ 205 a. Neither the Supreme Court, nor any other court of the United States, has power to issue a habeas corpus to bring up a prisoner, who is in custody under a sentence or execution of a state court, for any other purpose than to be used as a witness, whether the process under which he is imprisoned be civil or criminal. Therefore, where a writ was applied for, to bring up a person confined by the sentence of a state court, in order that he might bring a writ of error to review the judgment of the state court, the application was refused.2

1 In the Matter of Metzger, 5 Howard, 176.

2 Ex parte Dorr, 3 Howard, 103.

CHAPTER III.

THE APPELLATE JURISDICTION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, WITH REFERENCE TO THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

§ 206. THE final judgments, orders, and decrees of the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, in which the matter in dispute is of the value of one thousand dollars and upwards, may be re-examined and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court, by writ of error or appeal, to be prosecuted in the same manner, under the same regulations, and with the same proceedings, as in the case of writs of error on judgments, or appeals upon orders or decrees rendered in the other circuit courts. Where the matter in dispute is of the value of $100, and of less value than $1,000, any justice of the Supreme Court may allow a writ of error, if he shall be of opinion that the question of law is of such extensive interest and importance as to render the final judgment of the Supreme Court desirable; and if the writ of error, when so granted, with the order of the judge thereon, is lodged in the clerk's office of the proper county, within thirty days after the end of the term at which the judgment has been rendered, it operates as a supersedeas.1

§ 207. The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction of cases brought from the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia on a certificate of division of opinion of the judges;2 or of

1 Act of Feb. 27, 1801, ch. 15, 8; Act of April 2, 1816, ch. 39, ₹ 1, 2, 3; The United States v. Hooe, 1 Cranch, 318.

Ross v. Triplett, 3 Wheat. 600.

In all cases

writs of error to that court in criminal cases.1 in which writs of error lie, the same rules are applicable in determining whether the amount in dispute appears to be within the jurisdiction, as in writs of error to the other circuit courts, except that the amount required is one thousand dollars. The jurisdiction includes appeals from the Orphan's Court through the Circuit Court, where the matter in dispute exceeds the value of one thousand dollars. But the judgment or decree must be final. Where the Orphan's

Court directed an issue to be sent for trial in the Circuit Court, which issue was "whether the petitioner was the widow of the deceased or not," and the Circuit Court proceeded to try the issue, and the jury, under the instructions of the court, found that the petitioner was not the widow, it was held that exceptions to these instructions could not be reviewed by the Supreme Court on a writ of error, the certificate of the finding of the jury, transmitted by the Circuit Court to the Orphan's Court not being such a final judgment, order, or decree as is contemplated by the statute, since the Orphan's Court would still have to pass a decree in order to settle the rights of the parties.

1 The United States v. Moore, 3 Cranch, 159.

2 Scott v. Lunt, 6 Peters, 349.

Nichols v. Hodges, 1 Peters, 562.

Van Ness v. Van Ness, 6 Howard, 62.

CHAPTER IV.

THE APPELLATE JURISDICTION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, WITH REFERENCE TO THE STATE COURTS.

§ 208. FEW topics within the subject of this work are of more importance, and few involve more extensive inquiries, than the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States exercised over the judgments of the state courts, by the operation of the 25th section of the Judiciary Act. The Constitution having extended the judicial power to all cases arising under the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, it is obvious that there may, and must be, cases of this description, which can be reached by the judicial power of the Union only in the appellate form. These cases are those which originate in the state courts, but which involve the construction, operation, or effect of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. The judicial power of the United States is incapable of being extended to every case of this kind, in the form of original jurisdiction; for cases must arise in the state courts, of which they have a rightful original jurisdiction, and in which some provision of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States may be drawn in question; and unless the judicial power of the United States could be extended to these cases in the appellate form, it would not reach them at all, and thus the provision of the Constitution, which extends the judicial power to all such cases, would fail to be executed, excepting as to those which originated in the courts of the United States.1

1 Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304.

§ 209. The importance and necessity of preserving the paramount authority of the Constitution of the United States, and of all laws enacted or treaties entered into pursuant to its provisions and powers, and the equally great importance of a uniformity of decision upon all subjects within the purview of the Constitution, render it apparent that the appellate power of the national judiciary must be extended to some cases originating in the state courts. This can be done in two modes, both of which have been to some extent employed: namely, by removal of the cause from the state court in which it is pending, before final judgment, or by removing the record after final judgment has been rendered, by means of a writ of error, for the purpose of a revision of the grounds of the judgment, so far as they involve matter of law. It is with the latter that we are now concerned.

§ 210. This great object has been effected by means of the provisions of the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, which form a comprehensive and admirable system of great efficacy. Its purpose was to define the classes of cases, originating in state tribunals, to which the appellate power of the national judiciary should extend, by means of a writ of error, in order to preserve the supremacy and to secure the uniform construction of the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States. Without such definition, it is obvious that the appellate power granted by the Constitution to the national judiciary would have remained, as to all the cases arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, in state courts, a naked power, without exact and specific objects of its application; and without the provision of a writ of error, or some analogous mode of extending this power to its objects, it would have remained incapable of exercise. In examining this great statute, therefore, it should be kept in view, that its leading purpose was to define the objects to which the appellate power of the national judiciary over state tribunals is to attach. It was passed, not to create a power, but to provide the means of carrying into effect a pre-existing