Constitution and statutes, and of determin ing whether or no State Constitutions and statutes transgress Federal provisions, would be sufficient to prevent struggle be tween the National government and the State governments, required great insight and great faith in the soundness and power of a principle.1' Although the principle might be sound, the early practice was incontestably difficult. The Court found itself launched upon an ab solutely unknown sea, with only the most vague knowledge of what their course was to be, without a compass, without a prece dent to guide them. The Court might be intended to fill the most important place in Christendom, it remained for the judges to put the ideal in practice. When they as sembled for the first time Chief Justice Jay declared the court ready for business, but not a single litigant appeared. After they had waited a sufficient time to prove that the Republic had no need of them at that hour of her history, the judges adjourned. "Not one of the spectators," an historian of that first session has said, "though gifted with the eagle eyes of prophecy, could have foreseen that out of that modest assemblage of gentlemen, unheard of and unthought of among the tribunals of the earth, a Court without a docket, without a record, without a writ, of unknown and untried powers, and of undetermined jurisdiction, there would be developed, in the space of a single century, a Court of which the ancient world could present no model, and the modern boast no parallel; a Court whose decrees, woven like threads of gold into the priceless and imper ishable fabric of our Constitutional juris prudence, would bind in the bonds of love, liberty and law the members of our great Republic. Nor could they have foreseen that the tables of Congress would groan be neath the weight of petitions from all parts of the country inviting that body to devise some means for the relief of that overbur
dened tribunal whose litigants are now doomed to stand in line for a space of more than three years before they have a chance tc be heard." No machine, even the most nearly perfrct, can run without motive power; the new organ of government seemed likely to die for lack of nourishment. When the Court assembled in 1790 for the second session in its history, it was again forced to adjourn because no cases had arisen for its aug-ust determination. It is little to be wondered that the judges felt grave doubts as to the reality of the need for the Court's existence. Their judicial duties were so light that they did not hesitate to accept other offices at the same time. Chief Justice Jay held the office of Secretary of State during nearly six months of his term upon the bench; and, later, still retaining the Chief Justiceship, he accepted the diplomatic mission to England, which caused his absence from this country for more than a year. When he resigned he had already been elected Governor of New York. Oliver Ellsworth was minister to France and Chief Justice simultaneously, and Marshall acted as Secretary of State and Chief Justice at once during the end of John Adams' term as President. The mem bers of the Court themselves felt very doubtful as to the permanency of its exist ence; it was a period when, as John M. Shirley wrote: "the politicians—or states men—of that day bivouaced in the Chief Justiceship on their march from one politi cal position to another.1' John Jay wrote to President Adams: "I left the Bench per fectly convinced that under a system so de fective it would not obtain the energy, weight and dignity which was essential to its affording due support to the National gov ernment; nor acquire the public confi dence and respect which, as the last resort of the justice of the nation, it should pos sess." The future of such a little-needed organ looked doubtful.
