United States Congress | Congress reduces circuit riding for the Supreme Court

United States Congress

Second Congress of the United States: At the Second Session, begun and held at the City of Philadelphia, on Monday the fifth of November, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. An Act in addition to the act, entitled, "An act to establish the judicial Courts of the United States." [Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Childs and John Swaine, 1793]

Folio broadsheet (382 x 243 mm) printed recto and verso on a half-sheet of laid paper without watermark, attesting signature of the Secretary of State ("Th: Jefferson") on verso; three horizontal creases with light browning and short marginal separations and reinforcement, upper corners lost. Half maroon morocco folding-case, chemise.

A highly significant Judicial Act that reformed and stabilized the Supreme Court. 

With the Judiciary Act of 1789—signed into law by President George Washington on 24 September 1789 and officially titled "An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States"—Congress established the basic outline of the federal court system as it still exists today. Article III of the Constitution established a Supreme Court, but left to Congress the authority to create lower (or "inferior") federal courts as needed. The 1789 Judiciary Act, principally the work of Senator Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, established the structure and jurisdiction of the federal court system and created the position of attorney general.

The Judiciary Act also established the size of the Supreme Court (initially one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices) and created thirteen judicial districts within the eleven states that had by then ratified the Constitution. A circuit court was established in every judicial district (apart from Maine and Kentucky), each comprising a district judge and two Supreme Court justices "riding circuit." However, this requirement almost immediately proved onerous to the Court. 

By August 1792, the entire court (John Jay, William Cushing, James Wilson, John Blair, James Iredell, and Thomas Johnson) sent a "Representation" to President Washington protesting the hardships to which their extensive travels subjected them: "That when the present Judicial arrangements took place, it appeared to be a general and well founded opinion, that the Act then passed was to be considered rather as introducing a temporary expedient, than a permanent System, and that it would be revised as soon as a period of greater leisure should arrive. … That the task of holding twenty seven circuit Courts a year, in the different States, from New Hampshire to Georgia, besides two Sessions of the Supreme Court at Philadelphia, in the two most severe seasons of the year, is a task which considering the extent of the United States, and the small number of Judges, is too burthensome. … That some of the present Judges do not enjoy health and strength of body sufficient to enable them to undergo the toilsome Journies through different climates, and seasons, which they are called upon to undertake; nor is it probable that any set of Judges, however robust, would be able to support and punctually execute such severe duties for any length of time" (Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, 10:643–645).

The President forwarded this message from the Court to the Senate and House of Representatives on 7 November 1792, having been advised by Attorney General Edmund Randolph of the "necessity of reforming our judicial system." Even so, he did not act quickly enough to prevent the resignation of Justice Thomas Johnson, who wrote to Washington on 16 January 1793 that, having been "informed the Judges of the supreme Court are still to go the Circuits … I cannot resolve to spend six Months in the Year of the few I may have left from my Family, on Roads at Taverns chiefly and often in Situations where the most moderate Desires are disappointed: My Time of Life Temper and other Circumstances forbid it" (Papers, Presidential Series 12:1–2). Johnson had served a mere 163 days, which is still the briefest tenure on the Supreme Court.

The same month that Johnson resigned, both houses of Congress took the Court's representation under consideration and jointly passed the present "Act in addition to the Act, entitled, 'An Act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States,'" which Washington signed into law on 2 March 1793. Among the many provisions and modifications to the Supreme Court and the circuit court system enacted by this legislation, the very first stated "That the attendance of only one of the justices of the supreme court, at the several circuit courts of the United States, to be hereafter held, shall be sufficient, any law requiring the attendance of two of the said justices notwithstanding. …" 

This reform, which effectively reduced the circuit-riding duties of the Supreme Court justices by half, was effective. William Paterson was nominated and confirmed to replace Johnson on the bench and further resignations from the high court were prevented.

The present copy of the 1793 Act in addition to the Judiciary Act bears the printed signatures of President George Washington, President pro tempore of the Senate John Langdon, and House Speaker Jonathan Trumbull, as well as the holograph signature of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Individual acts and bills of Congress were routinely printed for public distribution but there was a provision to print a few large-paper copies of each act signed by the Secretary of State for official dissemination to the states. The present wide-margined copy is one of what must be a very few surviving large-paper issues of this additional Act; we have not been able to trace any other copies in the auction records.

REFERENCE

ESTC W14493; Evans 26329