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conveniencies to litigants, by a multiplication of the districts of the
federal court, and thus to carry home the justice of the federal
Judges to the doors of the people. But for this remedy we are
not prepared. We still glory in the part which the representa-
tives of Kentucky took, in the repeal of the wide-spread system
of the federal judiciary, which was established for the abolition of
the rights of the states, and the humiliation of the people. We
are, therefore, for a curtailment of the jurisdiction of the courts;
not for a multiplication of the courts and judges, and an extension
of their patronage and influence: Therefore,
2. Resolved by the authority aforesaid, That our Senators in Con-
gress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use
their best efforts to cause and act to pass that body repealing all
statutes now in force, which give the federal courts jurisdiction,
where land is the subject-matter of controversy, merely on account
of the citizenship of the parties, or the states from which the grant
to the land in contest issued.
There is another provision in the judiciary act of Congress, by
which the Supreme Court exercises a jurisdiction to annul and set
aside not only the statutes of the states, but also the decisions of
their courts of justice, which is peculiarly objectionable in its
character. The 25th section of the judiciary act provides, among
other things, "that a final judgment or decree in any suit, in the
highest court of law or equity of a state, in which a decision of the
suit could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a stat-
ute of, or authority exercised under any state, on the ground of
their being repugnant to the constitution, treaties or laws of the
United States, and the decision is in favor of such, their validity
may be re-examined, and reversed or affirmed, in the Supreme
Court of the United States, upon a writ of error."
That a writ of error is allowed to one party and nto to the oth-
er; that it is given for the purpose of annulting the statute of a state,
after its highest judicial tribunal has declared it constitutional and
valid, and yet denied when the state court has vacated the stat-
ute, is certainly an unequal provision. The case of the decision
of the Court of Appeals on the replevin laws, illustrates this objec-
tion. Had the parties who contended for the validity of these
laws prevailed, their adversaries, who allege that they were re-
pugnant to the constitution of the United States, might have pros-
ecuted their writ of error, and had the decision re-examined and
reversed. But the Court of Appeals having attempted to annual the
laws; the parties who contended for their validity, have no appeal
and, consequently, the decision is fixed upon the state as a prece-
dent for all future time, unless the Judges be driven from office in some
mode. It is not, however, this singular provision in the statute,
which constitutes the main objection. It is by no means conceded,
that Congress had power to provide, that after the highes court

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