The Nineteenth-Century Perspective on Federal Judicial Power

Abstract

This chapter examines the way nineteenth-century jurists defined the words “cases” and “controversies” in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. It shows that federal courts agreed to hear uncontested applications to claim rights under federal law as “cases” under Article III. But the same courts refused to hear matters governed by state law unless they arose between opposing parties as “controversies” within Article III. This distinction between cases and controversies meant that a claim of right by a petitioner, such as that in a naturalization petition, would qualify as a case, even though the plaintiff did not join an adverse party from whom the plaintiff sought redress.