Though Especially Founded By The
Constitution, It Has No Peculiar Power Under The Constitution, And
Stands In No Peculiar Relation Either To That Or To Acts Of
Congress.
It has no other power to decide on the constitutional
legality of an act of Congress or an act of a State legislature, or
of a public officer, than every court, State and National, high and
low, possesses and is bound to exercise.
It is simply the national
court of last appeal.
In the different States such tribunals have been established as each
State by its constitution and legislation has seen fit to adopt.
The States are entirely free on this point. The usual course is to
have one Supreme Court, sometimes called by that name, sometimes the
Court of Appeals, and sometimes the Court of Errors. Then they have
such especial courts as their convenience may dictate. The State
jurisprudence includes all causes not expressly or by necessary
implication secured to the national courts. The tribunals of the
States have exclusive control over domestic relations, religion,
education, the tenure and descent of land, the inheritance of
property, police regulations, municipal economy, and all matters of
internal trade. In this category, of course, come the relations of
husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, owner and
slave, guardian and ward, tradesman and apprentice. So also do all
police and criminal regulations not external in their character -
highways, railroads, canals, schools, colleges, the relief of
paupers, and those thousand other affairs of the world by which men
are daily surrounded in their own homes and their own districts.
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