2d. Whether it would lie to a Secretary of State in any case whatever. 3d. Whether in the present case the court may award a mandamus to James Madison, Secretary of State. The point involving the question of jurisdiction was, according to the invariable course of legal proceeding, the first in order of consideration, upon the plain and simple principle that if the court have no right to act definitively in the matter there is neither use nor propriety in considering even, and much less in making a decision upon, the merits of the case. That belongs to the tribunal that possesses jurisdiction. No point was clearer than the want of jurisdiction on the part of the Supreme Court, and such it will be seen was the unanimous and unhesitating opinion of the court itself. The Constitution divides the jurisdiction conferred on that high tribunal into that which may be exercised as original, and that which shall only be appellate, and separates the two in terms which leave no room for misapprehension or mistake. The language of the Constitution is--"In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction" both as to the law and fact, with such exceptions and under such regulations as Congress shall make. The motion before the court was clearly an original proceeding in a matter in which it confessedly had no original jurisdiction; so the court was obliged to say, and so it ultimately said.