government. As for the “single exception” alluded to by the supreme court, it was rendered upon great consideration by the unanimous opinion of the court of appeals of Virginia. The motives of the court have certainly never been questioned. The decision itself has met the decided approbation of the co-ordinate departments in that commonwealth. It is also believed to be in accordance with the general opinion of at least the Virginia people. The arguments used by the court are reported in 4 Munf. pa. 1, and it is believed cannot be answered. They certainly have not been answered in the case in Wheaton referred by the supreme court.
On this part of the subject I beg leave to add from a distinguished writer before quoted[1] that the supremacy bestowed by the judicial article is over the inferior courts to he established by congress, not over the state courts; that this is manifest from the division in the article between the supreme and inferior courts; and that the term “before mentioned” restricts the appellate jurisdiction to what was defined in the preceding article, and excludes cases abiding in the state courts. Again, he says[2] that the judicial federal power has as little to do with state judicial powers as the federal legislature has with the legislatures of the states. Again he says[3] that the spheres of the federal and the state judiciaries are as separate as those of the courts of the neighboring states or countries.
The supreme court in inferring a power which evidently leads to consolidation relies upon the preamble to the constitution which states one of its objects to be to “form a more perfect union.” In addition to the arguments commonly
