Appellate jurisdiction is exercised by the Supreme Court by writs of error directed to the highest courts of the State in which a decision could be had, in all cases "where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an 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 their validity, or where any title, right, privilege or immunity is claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission held or authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege or immunity specially set up or claimed, by either party, under such constitution, treaty, statute, commission or authority."

In such cases the Supreme Court may affirm, reverse or modify the judgment or decree of the state court, and may at its discretion award execution, or remand the same to the court from which it was removed.17

17 Rev. Stat., § 709. It will be observed that no money limit is placed to writs of error under this section.

The constitutionality of this power of the Supreme Court to revise judgments and decrees of the state courts, a power first given it by Congress in the Judiciary Act of 17S9, and ever since continued, has been considered in an earlier chapter of this treatise.18

In cases brought to the Supreme Court by writs of error from the state courts, the judgment of these courts will not be reversed, whatever construction they may have given to an alleged federal right, if it appear that there was a local law which, rightly interpreted, would sustain the judgment entered or decree given.19

In De Saussure v. Gaillard20 the general rule is declared to be that to give the Supreme Court jurisdiction on a writ of error to a state court, "it must appear affirmatively, not only that a federal question was presented for decision to the highest court of the State having jurisdiction, but that its decision was necessary to the determination of the cause, and that it was actually decided, or that the judgment as rendered could not have been given without deciding it." And in Johnson v. Risk21 this rule is supplemented by the declaration that: "Where there is a federal question, but the case may have been disposed of on some other independent ground, and it does not appear on which of the two grounds the judgment was based, then, if the independent ground was not a good and valid one, sufficient of itself to sustain the judgment, this court will take jurisdiction of the case, because, when put to inference as to what points the state court decided, we ought not to assume that it proceeded on ground clearly untenable.22 But where a defense is distinctly made, resting on local statutes, we should not, in order to reach a federal question, resort to critical conjecture as to the action of the court in the disposition of such defense."

18 See Chapter VI (The Maintenance Of Federal Supremacy By Writs Of Error From The Federal Supreme Court To State Courts. 62. Writs Of Error To State Courts).

19 Neilson v. Lagow, 12 How. 98; 13 L. ed. 909; Magwire v. Tyler, 8 Wall. 650; 19 L. ed. 320; Keith v. Clark, 97 U. S. 454; 24 L. ed. 1071; Klinger v. Missouri, 13 Wall. 257; 20 L. ed. 635; Johnson v. Risk, 137 U. S. 300; 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. III; 34 L. ed. 683. Cf. Curtis, Jurisdiction of Federal Courts, p. 39.

20 127 U. S. 216; 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1053; 32 L. ed. 125. 21 137 U. S. 300; 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. III; 34 L. ed. 683.

22 Citing Klinger v. Missouri, 13 Wall. 257; 20 L. ed. 635.