Article III and the Scottish Enlightenment

Historically-minded scholars and jurists invariably turn to English law and precedents in attempting to recapture the legal world of the framers. Blackstone\u27s famous Commentaries on the Laws of England offers a convenient reference for moderns looking backwards. Yet the generation that framed the Constitution often relied on other sources, including Scottish law and legal institutions. Indeed, the Scottish judicial system provided an important, but overlooked, model for the framing of Article III. Unlike the English system of overlapping jurisdiction, the Scottish judiciary featured a hierarchical, appellate-style judiciary, with one supreme court sitting at the top and an array of inferior courts of original jurisdiction down below. What\u27s more, the Scottish judiciary operated within a constitutional framework -- the so-called Acts of Union that combined England and Scotland into Great Britain in 1707 -- that protected the role of the supreme court from legislative re-modeling. This Article explores the influence of the Scottish judiciary on the language and structure of Article III. Scotland provided a model for a single supream court and multiple inferior courts, and it defined inferior courts as subordinate to, and subject to the supervisory oversight of, the sole supreme court. Moreover, the Acts of Union entrenched this hierarchical judicial system by limiting Parliament to regulations for the better administration of justice. Practice under this precursor to Article III\u27s Exceptions and Regulations Clause establishes that a supreme court\u27s supervisory authority over inferior courts would survive restrictions on its as-of-right appellate jurisdiction. The Scottish model thus provides important historical support for the scholarly claim that unity, supremacy, and inferiority in Article III operate as textual and structural limits on Congress\u27s jurisdiction-stripping authority