Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/518

producing a uniformity of construction of the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States.^[1]

§ 1643. This subject was a good deal discussed in a recent case^[2] before the Supreme Court, where one of the leading questions was, whether congress could constitutionally confer upon the bank of the United States, (as it has done by the seventh section of its charter,^[3]) general authority to sue, and be sued in the circuit courts of the United States. It was contended, that they could not, because several questions might arise in such suits, which might depend upon the general principles of law, and not upon any act of congress. It was held, that congress did constitutionally possess the power, and had rightfully conferred it in that charter.

§ 1644. The reasoning, on which this decision was founded, cannot be better expressed, than in the very language, in which it was delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall. "The question," said he,

is whether it (the case) arises under a law of the United States. The appellants contend, that it does not, because several questions may arise in it, which depend on the general principles of the law, not on any act of congress. If this were sufficient to withdraw a case from the jurisdiction of the federal courts, almost every case, although involving the construction of a law, would be withdrawn; and a clause in the constitution, relating to a subject of vital importance to the government, and expressed in the most comprehensive terms, would be construed to mean almost nothing. There is scarcely any case, every part of which depends on the constitution, laws, or treaties of the United

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1. The Federalist, No. 80; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. R. 391, 392.
2. Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. R. 738, 819, 820.
3. Act of 1816, ch. 44, § 7.