in any cause.
Jurisdiction is the power to declare the law and when it ceases to
exist, the only function remaining to the Court is that of announcing
the fact and dismissing the cause."[595]

Although the McCardle Case goes to the ultimate in sustaining
Congressional power over the court's appellate jurisdiction and although
it was born of the stresses and tensions of the Reconstruction period,
it has been frequently reaffirmed and approved.[596] The result is to
vest an unrestrained discretion in Congress to curtail and even abolish
the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and to prescribe the
manner and forms in which it may be exercised. This principle is well
expressed in The "Francis Wright"[597] where the Court sustained the
validity of an act of Congress which limited the court's review in
admiralty cases to questions of law appearing on the record. A portion
of the opinion is worthy of quotation: "Authority to limit the
jurisdiction necessarily carries with it authority to limit the use of
the jurisdiction. Not only may whole classes of cases be kept out of the
jurisdiction altogether, but particular classes of questions may be
subjected to reexamination and review, while others are not. To our
minds it is no more unconstitutional to provide that issues of fact
shall not be retried in any case, than that neither issues of law nor
fact shall be retried in cases where the value of the matter in dispute
is less than $5,000. The general power to regulate implies the power to
regulate in all things. The whole of a civil appeal may be given, or a
part. The constitutional requirements are all satisfied if one
opportunity is had for the trial of all parts of a case. Everything
beyond that is a matter of legislative discretion."[598]

The Power of Congress To Regulate the Jurisdiction of the Lower Federal
Courts

MARTIN _v._ HUNTER'S LESSEE

The power of Congress to vest, withdraw, and regulate the jurisdiction
of the lower federal courts is derived from the power to create
tribunals under article I, the necessary and proper clause, and the
clause in article III, vesting the judicial power in the Supreme Court
and such inferior courts as "the Congress may from time to time ordain
and establish." Balancing these provisions, however, are the phrases in
article III to the effect that the judicial power "shall be vested" in
courts and "shall extend" to nine classes of cases and controversies and
the questi