< Constitution of the United States | Art. I | Sec. 8(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Constitutional Law Treatise
Table of Contents
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| Constitutional Law Outline
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| Introduction
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| The Preamble
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| Article I Legislative Branch
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| Art. I, Section 1 Legislative Vesting Clause
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| Art. I, Section 2 House of Representatives
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| Art. I, Section 3 Senate
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| Art. I, Section 4 Congress
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| Art. I, Section 5 Proceedings
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| Art. I, Section 6 Rights and Disabilities
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| Art. I, Section 7 Legislation
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| Art. I, Section 8 Enumerated Powers
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| Art. I, Section 9 Powers Denied Congress
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| Art. I, Section 10 Powers Denied States
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| Article II Executive Branch
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| Art. II, Section 1 Function and Selection
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| Art. II, Section 2 Powers
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| Art. II, Section 3 Duties
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| Art. II, Section 4 Impeachment
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| Article III Judicial Branch
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| Art. III, Section 1 Vesting Clause
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| Art. III, Section 2 Justiciability
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| Art. III, Section 3 Treason
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| Article IV Relationships Between the States
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| Art. IV, Section 1 Full Faith and Credit Clause
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| Art. IV, Section 2 Interstate Comity
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| Art. IV, Section 3 New States and Federal Property
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| Art. IV, Section 4 Republican Form of Government
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| Article V Amending the Constitution
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| Article VI Supreme Law
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| Article VII Ratification
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| First Amendment: Fundamental Freedoms
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| Religion
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| Establishment Clause
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| Free Exercise Clause
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| Free Speech Clause
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| Freedom of Association
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| Second Amendment: Right to Bear Arms
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| Third Amendment: Quartering Soldiers
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| Fourth Amendment: Searches and Seizures
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| Fifth Amendment: Rights of Persons
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| Sixth Amendment: Rights in Criminal Prosecutions
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| Seventh Amendment: Civil Trial Rights
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| Eighth Amendment: Cruel and Unusual Punishment
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| Ninth Amendment: Unenumerated Rights
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| Tenth Amendment: Rights Reserved to the States and the People
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| Eleventh Amendment: Suits Against States
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| Twelfth Amendment: Election of President
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| Thirteenth Amendment: Abolition of Slavery
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| Thirteenth Amend., Section 1 Prohibition on Slavery and Involuntary Servitude
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| Thirteenth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
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| Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection and Other Rights
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| Fourteenth Amend., Section 1 Rights
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| Fourteenth Amend., Section 2 Apportionment of Representation
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| Fourteenth Amend., Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office
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| Fourteenth Amend., Section 4 Public Debt
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| Fourteenth Amend., Section 5 Enforcement
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| Fifteenth Amendment: Right of Citizens to Vote
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| Fifteenth Amend., Section 1 Right to Vote
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| Fifteenth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
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| Sixteenth Amendment: Income Tax
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| Seventeenth Amendment: Popular Election of Senators
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| Eighteenth Amendment: Prohibition of Liquor
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| Eighteenth Amend., Section 1 Prohibition
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| Eighteenth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement of Prohibition
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| Eighteenth Amend., Section 3 Ratification Deadline
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| Nineteenth Amendment: Women's Suffrage
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| Twentieth Amendment: Presidential Term and Succession
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| Twentieth Amend., Section 1 Terms
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| Twentieth Amend., Section 2 Meetings of Congress
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| Twentieth Amend., Section 3 Succession
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| Twentieth Amend., Section 4 Congress and Presidential Succession
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| Twentieth Amend., Section 5 Effective Date
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| Twentieth Amend., Section 6 Ratification
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| Twenty-First Amendment: Repeal of Prohibition
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| Twenty-First Amend., Section 1 Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment
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| Twenty-First Amend., Section 2 Importation, Transportation, and Sale of Liquor
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| Twenty-First Amend., Section 3 Ratification Deadline
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| Twenty-Second Amendment: Presidential Term Limits
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| Twenty-Second Amend., Section 1 Limit
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| Twenty-Second Amend., Section 2 Ratification Deadline
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| Twenty-Third Amendment: District of Columbia Electors
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| Twenty-Third Amend., Section 1 Electors
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| Twenty-Third Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
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| Twenty-Fourth Amendment: Abolition of Poll Tax
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| Twenty-Fourth Amend., Section 1 Poll Tax
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| Twenty-Fourth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
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| Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Presidential Vacancy
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| Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 1 Presidential Vacancy
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| Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 2 Vice President Vacancy
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| Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 3 Declaration by President
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| Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 4 Declaration by Vice President and Others
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| Twenty-Sixth Amendment: Reduction of Voting Age
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| Twenty-Sixth Amend., Section 1 Eighteen Years of Age
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| Twenty-Sixth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
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| Twenty-Seventh Amendment: Congressional Compensation
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Article I Legislative Branch
Section 8 Enumerated Powers
Clause 9 Courts
| Clause Text
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| To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
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Congress's ninth enumerated power is to "constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court"--that is, to establish lower federal courts subordinate to the Supreme Court of the United States.[1] This grant of power to Congress accords with Article III's Vesting Clause, which places the judicial power of the United States in the Supreme Court and "such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."[2]
As explained elsewhere in the Constitution Annotated,[3] the Constitutional Convention's delegates generally agreed that a national judiciary should be established with a supreme tribunal,[4] but disagreed as to whether there should be inferior federal tribunals.[5] James Wilson (who later served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court) and James Madison proposed a compromise in which Congress would be empowered to appoint inferior tribunals if necessary, which the Convention approved.[6]
The Constitution thus leaves the federal judiciary's structure--and, indeed, whether any federal courts besides the Supreme Court should exist at all--to congressional determination. Through the Judiciary Act of 1789 and subsequent enactments,[7] Congress organized the federal judiciary into district courts with original jurisdiction over most federal cases, intermediate circuit courts of appeal, and the Supreme Court.
Congress's Article I power to establish inferior federal courts, and to distribute federal jurisdiction among them, should be read alongside Article III's provisions, which set forth the reach of federal judicial power.[8] Article III also identifies certain cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction.[9]
- ↑ See Art. III, Sec. 1: Establishment of Inferior Federal Courts.
- ↑ See Art. III, Section 1 Vesting Clause; see 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1573 (1833) (noting that the inferior courts power "properly belongs to the third article of the Constitution").
- ↑ See Art. III, Sec. 1: Historical Background on Establishment of Article III Courts; see also 3 Story's Commentaries, supra note here, § 1574 (reviewing the debate at the Convention over inferior federal tribunals).
- ↑ See 1 Max Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 104 (1911).
- ↑ See id. at 124-25. John Rutledge, for example, argued that the existing state courts--and not inferior federal courts--ought to decide all cases in the first instance with a right of appeal to the supreme national tribunal. Id. at 124.
- ↑ Id. at 125, 127. Madison argued that the Supreme Court's appellate workload would become "oppressive" without inferior federal tribunals. Id. at 124; see also The Federalist No. 81 (Alexander Hamilton) ("The power of constituting inferior courts is evidently calculated to obviate the necessity of having recourse to the Supreme Court in every case of federal cognizance.").
- ↑ See An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States, 1 Stat. 73 (1789).
- ↑ Art. III, Sec. 2, Clause 1 Cases or Controversies; see Art. III, Sec. 2, Cl. 1: Overview of Cases or Controversies.
- ↑ Art. III, Sec. 2, Clause 2 Supreme Court Jurisdiction; see Art. III, Sec. 2, Cl. 2: Supreme Court Original Jurisdiction.
