Melville Fuller

“ Causes in the court of private land claims are in effect equity causes, and brought to this court by appeal, and, as observed by Chief Justice Ellsworth, in Wiscart v. Dauchy, 3 Dall. 321: 'An appeal is a process of civil-law origin and removes a cause entirely, subjecting the fact, as well as the law, to a review and retrial; but a writ of error is a process of common law, and it removes nothing for examination but the law.'
The remedy by appeal in its original sense was confined to causes in equity, ecclesiastical, and admiralty jurisdiction. ”

“ And as wherever the United States exercise the power of government, whether under specific grant or through the dominion and sovereignty of plenary authority, as over the territories (Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 48, 14 Sup. Ct. 548) , that power includes the ultimate executive, legislative, and judicial power, it follows that the judicial action of all inferior courts established by congress may, in accordance with the constitution, be subjected to the appellate jurisdiction of the supreme judicial tribunal of the government. ”

“ The leading case upon the subject is American Insurance Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 546, in which it was held in respect of territorial courts (Chief Justice Marshall delivering the opinion) that while those courts are not courts in which the judicial power conferred by article 3 can be deposited, yet that they are legislative courts, created in virtue of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the government over the territories, or of the clause which enables congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States. ”