T. M. v. University of Md. Medical System Corporation · ¶85

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 76–79. 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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