Although it goes beyond the scope of this memorandum, there is a distinction between the “United States District Court” designated by 26 U.S.C. § 7323 and the “district court of the United States” designated by 26 U.S.C. § 7402. The former is a territorial or insular possession court where the latter is an Article III court of the United States. Insular possessions ceded following the Spanish-American War (1898) were under the civil law system when they were Spanish provinces. Congress elected to leave the civil law system in place in the newly acquired possessions as the cession treaty did not incorporate them in the constitutional scheme – they were not destined to become States of the Union.

The civil law system is in many respects repugnant to the common law system of English-American heritage. See definition of “United States District Court” in Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298 (1922), and definition of “District Court of the United States” in Mookini v. United States, 303 U.S. 201 (1938).

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[Federal jurisdiction] " ...must be considered in the light of our dual system of government and may not be extended. . .in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government." United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct.1624(1995).