ty of
these States restricted by the laws, and the interpretation of the
laws--Consequently, the danger of the several States is more apparent
than real.

As the Constitution of the United States recognized two distinct powers
in presence of each other, represented in a judicial point of view by
two distinct classes of courts of justice, the utmost care which could
be taken in defining their separate jurisdictions would have been
insufficient to prevent frequent collisions between those tribunals. The
question then arose to whom the right of deciding the competency of each
court was to be referred.

In nations which constitute a single body politic, when a question is
debated between two courts relating to their mutual jurisdiction, a
third tribunal is generally within reach to decide the difference;
and this is effected without difficulty, because in these nations the
questions of judicial competency have no connection with the privileges
of the national supremacy. But it was impossible to create an arbiter
between a superior court of the Union and the superior court of a
separate State which would not belong to one of these two classes. It
was, therefore, necessary to allow one of these courts to judge its
own cause, and to take or to retain cognizance of the point which was
contested. To grant this privilege to the different courts of the States
would have been to destroy the sovereignty of the Union de facto
after having established it de jure; for the interpretation of the
Constitution would soon have restored that portion of independence to
the States of which the terms of that act deprived them. The object
of the creation of a Federal tribunal was to prevent the courts of the
States from deciding questions affecting the national interests in their
own department, and so to form a uniform body of jurisprudene for the
interpretation of the laws of the Union. This end would not have been
accomplished if the courts of the several States had been competent
to decide upon cases in their separate capacities from which they were
obliged to abstain as Federal tribunals. The Supreme Court of the
United States was therefore invested with the right of determining all
questions of jurisdiction. *e

[Footnote e: In order to diminish the number of these suits, it was
decided that in a great many Federal causes the courts of the States
should be empowered to decide conjointly with those of the Union, the
losing party having