T. M. v. University of Md. Medical System Corporation · ¶83

Congress has never purported to give inferior federal courts general revising power over state-court judgments for errors of federal law. The First Congress declared that, in federal-question cases, “a final judgment or decree” of “the highest court of law or equity of a State” “may be reexamined and reversed or affirmed in” this Court. Judiciary Act of 1789, §25, 1 Stat. 85–86. Congress called that revising power “appellate jurisdiction” and identified the mode as a writ of error. §§13, 25, id., at 80–81, 85–86. It gave no other federal court revising power over “courts of the several states.” §13, id., at 81. And, it gave no other federal court civil federal-question jurisdiction, either. Cf. §§9, 11, id., at 75–79. Thus, only state courts could exercise original jurisdiction in federal-question cases, and only this federal Court could revise their judgments.

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