arate them. Though the common-law courts of this
State ascertain disputed facts by a jury, yet they unquestionably have
jurisdiction of both fact and law; and accordingly when the former is
agreed in the pleadings, they have no recourse to a jury, but proceed
at once to judgment. I contend, therefore, on this ground, that the
expressions, "appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact," do not
necessarily imply a re-examination in the Supreme Court of facts decided
by juries in the inferior courts.

The following train of ideas may well be imagined to have influenced
the convention, in relation to this particular provision. The appellate
jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (it may have been argued) will extend
to causes determinable in different modes, some in the course of the
COMMON LAW, others in the course of the CIVIL LAW. In the former,
the revision of the law only will be, generally speaking, the proper
province of the Supreme Court; in the latter, the re-examination of the
fact is agreeable to usage, and in some cases, of which prize causes are
an example, might be essential to the preservation of the public peace.
It is therefore necessary that the appellate jurisdiction should, in
certain cases, extend in the broadest sense to matters of fact. It will
not answer to make an express exception of cases which shall have been
originally tried by a jury, because in the courts of some of the States
all causes are tried in this mode(4); and such an exception would
preclude the revision of matters of fact, as well where it might be
proper, as where it might be improper. To avoid all inconveniencies,
it will be safest to declare generally, that the Supreme Court shall
possess appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, and that this
jurisdiction shall be subject to such exceptions and regulations as the
national legislature may prescribe. This will enable the government
to modify it in such a manner as will best answer the ends of public
justice and security.

This view of the matter, at any rate, puts it out of all doubt that
the supposed abolition of the trial by jury, by the operation of this
provision, is fallacious and untrue. The legislature of the United
States would certainly have full power to provide, that in appeals to
the Supreme Court there should be no re-examination of facts where they
had been tried in the original causes by juries. This would certainly
be an authorized exception; but if, for the re