Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States
Endnotes: Chapter 2
- ↑ U.S. Const. art. III, § 1 (“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”).
- ↑ See Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, § 1, 1 Stat. 73, 73.
- ↑ See Judiciary Act of 1801, ch. 4, § 3, 2 Stat. 89, 89.
- ↑ See Act of Mar. 8, 1802, ch. 8, § 1, 2 Stat. 132, 132.
- ↑ See Act of Feb. 24, 1807, ch. 16, § 5, 2 Stat. 420, 421.
- ↑ See Act of Mar. 3, 1837, ch. 34, § 1, 5 Stat. 176, 176.
- ↑ At the time, the federal judiciary consisted of district court judges and Supreme Court Justices. A federal district judge would sit alongside a Supreme Court Justice (riding circuit) to constitute a circuit court. For a description of this system, see Steven G. Calabresi & David C. Presser, Reintroducing Circuit Riding: A Timely Proposal, 90 Minn. L. Rev. 1386, 1390–91 (2006) (“Beginning in 1789, each circuit court was staffed with two Supreme Court Justices and one local district judge. In 1793, the system was reformed so that only one Justice … was required.”); David R. Stras, Why Supreme Court Justices Should Ride Circuit Again, 91 Minn. L. Rev. 1710, 1714–26 (2007). Congress abolished the circuit riding practice in 1911. See Judicial Code of 1911, ch. 231, § 289, 36 Stat. 1087, 1167.
- ↑ See Felix Frankfurter & James M. Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court: A Study in the Federal Judicial System 33–37, 47–49 (Transaction Publishers 2007) (1928).
- ↑ See Joshua Braver, Court-Packing: An American Tradition?, 61 B.C. L. Rev. 2747, 2759–63 (2020).
- ↑ See Id. at 2761–63.
- ↑ See Mark Graber, “No Better Than They Deserve:” Dred Scott and Constitutional Democracy, 34 N. Ky. L. Rev. 589, 604 (2007) (“Federal law … structured the federal judicial system in ways that guaranteed that a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court would be citizens from slave states.”); Id. at 609–10 (“The Court that decided Dred Scott had a southern majority because Jacksonians in the executive and legislative branches of the government passed legislation placing five of the nine federal circuit court districts entirely within the slave states, and presidents who depended on southern votes ensured that one representative from each federal circuit district sat on the Supreme Court.”); Howard Gillman, How Political Parties Can Use the Courts to Advance Their Agendas: Federal Courts in the United States, 1875–1891, 96 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 511, 514 (2002) (“[T]o ensure the protection of Southern regional interests … the slave states were divided into five circuits, meaning that they would enjoy a majority on the Supreme Court.”).
- ↑ The 1801 law established a system of lower federal circuit courts to handle appeals (in lieu of the circuits staffed by a Supreme Court Justice and a federal district judge). See Judiciary Act of 1801, §§ 7, 27, 2 Stat. 89, 90, 98.
- ↑ 1 Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 189 (Beard Books ed. 1999) (1922) (noting Jefferson viewed this provision “as aimed directly at himself and as an intentional diminution of his powers”).
- ↑ See Act of Apr. 29, 1802, ch. 31, §§ 4, 5, 2 Stat. 156, 157–58.
- ↑ The tight connection between the number of circuits and the number of Justices had begun to break down. In 1855, Congress created a circuit court for California, without creating a new position on the Supreme Court. Justin Crowe, Building the Judiciary: Law, Courts, and the Politics of Institutional Development 133–34 (2012). But when Congress added a Justice in 1863, it transformed the California circuit into the Tenth Circuit and gave the new Justice the job of serving on that court. Id. at 138; see also Braver, supra note 9, at
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