of men from stations in which they have served their country long and usefully, on which they depend for subsistence, and from which it will be too late to resort to any other occupation for a livelihood, ought to have some better apology to humanity, than is to be found in the imaginary danger of a superannuated bench.
Publius.
No. LXXX.
By Alexander Hamilton.
A further view of the judicial department, in relation to the extent of its powers.
To judge with accuracy of the due extent of the federal judicature, it will be necessary to consider, in the first place, what are its proper objects.
It seems scarcely to admit of controversy, that the judiciary authority of the union ought to extend to these several descriptions of cases.
- To all those which arise out of the laws of the United States, passed in pursuance of their just and constitutional powers of legislation:
- To all those which concern the execution of the provisions expressly contained in the articles of union:
- To all those in which the United States are a party:
- To all those which involve the peace of the confederacy, whether they relate to the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, or to that between the states themselves:
- To all those which originate on the high seas, and are of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction; and lastly,
- To all those in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial and unbiassed.
The first point depends upon this obvious consideration, that there ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What, for instance, would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? The states, by the plan of the convention, are prohibited from
