the point has
been relied on by either side, and argued before the court.

In the case before us, we have already decided that the Circuit Court
erred in deciding that it had jurisdiction upon the facts admitted by
the pleadings. And it appears that, in the further progress of the case,
it acted upon the erroneous principle it had decided on the pleadings,
and gave judgment for the defendant, where, upon the facts admitted in
the exception, it had no jurisdiction.

We are at a loss to understand upon what principle of law, applicable to
appellate jurisdiction, it can be supposed that this court has not
judicial authority to correct the last-mentioned error, because they had
before corrected the former; or by what process of reasoning it can be
made out, that the error of an inferior court in actually pronouncing
judgment for one of the parties, in a case in which it had no
jurisdiction, cannot be looked into or corrected by this court, because
we have decided a similar question presented in the pleadings. The last
point is distinctly presented by the facts contained in the plaintiff's
own bill of exceptions, which he himself brings here by this writ of
error. It was the point which chiefly occupied the attention of the
counsel on both sides in the argument--and the judgment which this court
must render upon both errors is precisely the same. It must, in each of
them, exercise jurisdiction over the judgment, and reverse it for the
errors committed by the court below; and issue a mandate to the Circuit
Court to conform its judgment to the opinion pronounced by this court,
by dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.
This is the constant and invariable practice of this court, where it
reverses a judgment for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.

It can scarcely be necessary to pursue such a question further. The want
of jurisdiction in the court below may appear on the record without any
plea in abatement. This is familiarly the case where a court of chancery
has exercised jurisdiction in a case where the plaintiff had a plain and
adequate remedy at law, and it so appears by the transcript when brought
here by appeal. So also where it appears that a court of admiralty has
exercised jurisdiction in a case belonging exclusively to a court of
common law. In these cases there is no plea in abatement. And for the
same reason, and upon the same principles, where the defect of
jurisdiction is pate