Verlinden B. v. V. Central Bank of Nigeria

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge:

Throughout the long summer of 1787, the Framers of the Constitution, assembled at Philadelphia, hammered the parochial prejudices of thirteen colonies into the rough framework of a union. There, a fundamental tenet of American jurisprudence was forged: federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. Alexander Hamilton, Luther Martin, James Madison, and others honed such rough verbiage as “cases respecting the national peace and harmony” to the precision of “cases arising under ... the Laws of the United States,” 1 and Article III, thus tempered, emerged.

Near…