The Sixth Edition of this classic casebook on The Federal Courts and the Federal System retains its traditional intellectual rigor, but has been thoroughly revised to improve its teachability and to incorporate important new material on many topics, including limits on the powers of Congress to restrict federal detainees' rights of access to the federal courts, and the impact of international law and international tribunals on domestic law. Hart & Wechsler's casebook on The Federal Courts and the Federal System, when first published in 1953, contributed substantially to the creation of a new field of legal scholarship - one that may be broadly defined as the role of the federal courts in the constitutional plan and the relationships among that system of courts, the other branches of the federal government, and the institutions of state and local government. From its inception to the present day, the book has continued to be the leading casebook in its field - one that includes not only a broad range of primary and secondary material but also extensive textual notes that provide historical background for discussion and that challenge the student to think through the difficult problems that pervade the subject. In the new edition, the coverage continues to be more comprehensive than that of any other casebook in the field, but at the same time the authors have in many ways made the book more teachable than ever before and more accessible to students. As part of this effort, unnecessary detail has been deleted, materials of primary interest for purposes of further research have been moved to footnotes, and the use of questions has been more rigorously confined.