Mr. TRUMBULL. I hope the amendment of the Senfrom Wisconsin will not prevail. I think it is an entire mistake to suppose that litigants are to be benefited by allowing them to a? fromone conrtto another with their cases. but is the object of courts? It is to afford parties the means of establishing their rights. This intermediate court of a peals, in my judgment, will he just about as li ely to do justice as your Supreme Court here. You ive a party 2 trials. He has a trial, in the irst place, in the district court, or the court which corresponds to our present circuit court, and then he has the right of appeal to the court of appeals, which is a court composed of one justice of the Supreme Court and all the district judges of his circuit, amounting probabl on an average to 5 persons one justice of the Supreme Court and ) 4 district judges. They meet toglether and constitute the court of appeals. submit to the Senator, is it not better to stop the litigation there than to allow another appeal from this court of appeals to the SCOTUS? When Senators talk about allowing a party who wishes to do so, to take his case from one court to another, they should not forget that it may happen that one of the parties to a suit is a poor man and the other is a rich man, and if you allow these appeals 1st from the district court to the court of appeals, and then from the court of a peels to the SCOTUS, here at Washington, you provide the mcans of oppression on the part of the rich upon the poor. A poor man had better give up his claim than litigate with a rich person, 1st in his own State where the district court sits, then go to the court of appeals, perhaps, in some adjoining States, and then from that court of appeals to Washington to get his rights. A man who has the means to take all these appeals, if you give them, will have it in his power to prevent justice bein obtained by a man of smaller means. I thing you will be as likely to obtain justice in the court of appeals as you will in the SCOTUS There is but one a peal allowed now. When a cause is decided int e circuit court of the U.S. it comes directly from that court to the SCOTUS When we are trying to pass a law which will relieve the SCOTUS by providing an intermediate court of a penis what relief shall we afford if the same c pass of cases can come here as if we had no interme diate court of appeals? The object is not to promote and increase litigation. That is not the object of the establishment of courts; but the object of courts is to afford the means by which parties may vindicate and obtain their rights. I would be quite satisfied with this court of appeals in nearly all cases; in fact if it were not required by the Constitution of the U.S. that there should be a Supreme Court here, in ordinary cases between parties, where no great rights of Government were in controversy, where no constitutional questions were to be settled, I would be willing that the decision of the court of appeals shonl be the end of the case. I believe you would be quite as likely to have justice in that way. If you fix the limit at $2,000, the man who has a controversy involving $1, 950 will say, “This is a very important case, and why should I not be permitte totake that to the Supreme Court, when my neighbor, who has a case that involves 50 dollars more can go to the SCOTUS and have his case settled 2” I regard it as no privilege whatever to liti gants to allow these appeals from court to court. hey sometimes thin it a privilege. Parties get involved in lawsuits, and they become elicited in regard to their cases, ambitious, vindictive often, and they will appeal a case from court to court, and Would appeal it to 20 or 1,000courts, if you would pass a law that would allow it. If the object was to encourage litiation and furnish business for lawyers, I think you had better establish not only one intermediate court, but 20 intermediate courts; but if the object is the peace of the community, to furnish reasonable means for every man to obtain his rights, I think when you have given him one appeal to a court of the high character of these courts of appeals, you have given him enouvh; and the relief to the Supreme Court wilT amount to nothing if you are going to allow everyI case to go there which went there before. I ope the amendment will not prevail.