1. Article III does not impose an amount-in-controversy requirement on the grant of diversity jurisdiction. However, the limitation has existed since 1789, when the amount was set at a sum that “exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars.” First Judiciary Act of 1789, § 11, 1 Stat. 73. Why do you think diversity jurisdiction continues to be limited in this way? For a historical perspective, see Purcell, Litigation and Inequality:

Federal Diversity Jurisdiction in Industrial America, 1870 1958, 97 (1992).