1: The Establishment Of The National Judiciary
Title Page || 2: Marshall's Early Years >>
The monarch of ancient times mingled the functions of priest and
judge. It is therefore not altogether surprising that even today
a judicial system should be stamped with a certain resemblance to
an ecclesiastical hierarchy. If the Church of the Middle Ages was
"an army encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts
everywhere, subject to the most efficient discipline, animated
with a common purpose, every soldier panoplied with inviolability
and armed with the tremendous weapons which slew the soul," the
same words, slightly varied, may be applied to the Federal
Judiciary created by the American Constitution. The Judiciary of
the United States, though numerically not a large body, reaches
through its process every part of the nation; its ascendancy is
primarily a moral one; it is kept in conformity with final
authority by the machinery of appeal; it is "animated with a
common purpose"; its members are "panoplied" with what is
practically a life tenure of their posts; and it is "armed with
the tremendous weapons" which slay legislation. And if the voice
of the Church was the voice of God, so the voice of the Court is
the voice of the American people as this is recorded in the
Constitution.
The Hildebrand of American constitutionalism is John Marshall.
The contest carried on by the greatest of the Chief Justices for
the principles today associated with his name is very like that
waged by the greatest of the Popes for the supremacy of the
Papacy. Both fought with intellectual weapons. Both addressed
their appeal to the minds and hearts of men. Both died before the
triumph of their respective causes and amid circumstances of
great discouragement. Both worked through and for great
institutions which preceded them and which have survived them.
And, as the achievements of Hildebrand cannot be justly
appreciated without some knowledge of the ecclesiastical system
which he did so much to develop, neither can the career of John
Marshall be understood without some knowledge of the organization
of the tribunal through which he wrought and whose power he did
so much to exalt. The first chapter in the history of John
Marshall and his influence upon the laws of the land must
therefore inevitably deal with the historical conditions
underlying the judicial system of which it is the capstone.
The vital defect of the system of government provided by the soon
obsolete Articles of Confederation lay in the fact that it
operated not upon the individual citizens of the United States
but upon the States in their corporate capacities. As a
consequence the prescribed duties of any law passed by Congress
in pursuance of powers derived from the Articles of Confederation
could not be enforced. Theoretically, perhaps, Congress had the
right to coerce the States to perform their duties; at any rate,
a Congressional Committee headed by Madison so decided at the
very moment (1781) when the Articles were going into effect. But
practically such a course of coercion, requiring in the end the
exercise of military power, was out of the question. Whence were
to come the forces for military operations against recalcitrant
States? From sister States which had themselves neglected their
constitutional duties on various occasions? The history of the
German Empire has demonstrated that the principle of state
coercion is entirely feasible when a single powerful State
dominates the rest of the confederation. But the Confederation of
1781 possessed no such giant member; it approximated a union of
equals, and in theory it was entirely such.1
In the Federal Convention of 1787 the idea of state coercion
required little discussion; for the members were soon convinced
that it involved an impracticable, illogical, and unjust
principle. The prevailing view was voiced by Oliver Ellsworth
before the Connecticut ratifying convention: "We see how
necessary for Union is a coercive principle. No man pretends to
the contrary.... The only question is, shall it be a coercion
of law or a coercion of arms? There is no other possible
alternative. Where will those who oppose a coercion of law come
out? ...A necessary consequence of their principles is a war
of the States one against the other. I am for coercion by law,
that coercion which acts only upon delinquent individuals." If
anything, these words somewhat exaggerate the immunity of the
States from direct control by the National Government, for, as
James Madison pointed out in the "Federalist," "in several cases
...they [the States] must be viewed and proceeded against in
their collective capacities." Yet Ellsworth stated correctly the
controlling principle of the new government: it was to operate
upon individuals through laws interpreted and enforced by its own
courts.
A Federal Judiciary was provided for in every Plan offered on the
floor of the Federal Convention. There was also a fairly general
agreement among the members on the question of "judicial
independence." Indeed, most of the state constitutions already
made the tenure of the principal judges dependent upon their good
behavior, though in some cases judges were removable, as in
England, upon the joint address of the two Houses of the
Legislature. That the Federal judges should be similarly
removable by the President upon the application of the Senate and
House of Representatives was proposed late in the Convention by
Dickinson of Delaware, but the suggestion received the vote of
only one State. In the end it was all but unanimously agreed that
the Federal judges should be removable only upon conviction
following impeachment.
But, while the Convention was in accord on this matter, another
question, that of the organization of the new judiciary, evoked
the sharpest disagreement among its members. All believed that
there must be a national Supreme Court to impress upon the
national statutes a construction that should be uniformly binding
throughout the country; but they disagreed upon the question
whether there should be inferior national courts. Rutledge of
South Carolina wanted the state courts to be used as national
courts of the first instance and argued that a right of appeal to
the supreme national tribunal would be quite sufficient "to
secure the national rights and uniformity of judgment." But
Madison pointed out that such an arrangement would cause appeals
to be multiplied most oppressively and that, furthermore, it
would provide no remedy for improper verdicts resulting from
local prejudices. A compromise was reached by leaving the
question to the discretion of Congress. The champions of local
liberties, however, both at Philadelphia and in the state
conventions continued to the end to urge that Congress should
utilize the state courts as national tribunals of the first
instance. The significance of this plea should be emphasized
because the time was to come when the same interest would argue
that for the Supreme Court to take appeals from the state courts
on any account was a humiliation to the latter and an utter
disparagement of State Rights.
Even more important than the relation of the Supreme Court to the
judicial systems of the States was the question of its relation
to the Constitution as a governing instrument. Though the idea
that courts were entitled to pronounce on the constitutionality
of legislative acts had received countenance in a few dicta in
some of the States and perhaps in one or two decisions, this idea
was still at best in 1787 but the germ of a possible institution.
It is not surprising, therefore, that no such doctrine found
place in the resolutions of the Virginia plan which came before
the Convention. By the sixth resolution of this plan the national
legislature was to have the power of negativing all state laws
which, in its opinion, contravened "the Articles of Union, or any
treaty subsisting under the authority of the Union," and by the
eighth resolution "a convenient number of the national judiciary"
were to be associated with the Executive, "with authority to
examine every act of the national legislature before it shall
operate, and every act of a particular legislature before a
negative thereon shall be final" and to impose a qualified veto
in either case.
But, as discussion in the Convention proceeded, three principles
obtained clearer and clearer recognition, if not from all its
members, certainly from the great majority of them: first, that
the Constitution is law, in the sense of being enforcible by
courts; secondly, that it is supreme law, with which ordinary
legislation must be in harmony to be valid; and thirdly—a
principle deducible from the doctrine of the separation of
powers—that, while the function of making new law belongs to the
legislative branch of the Government, that of expounding the
standing law, of which the Constitution would be part and parcel,
belongs to the Judiciary. The final disposition of the question
of insuring the conformity of ordinary legislation to the
Constitution turned to no small extent on the recognition of
these three great principles.
The proposal to endow Congress with the power to negative state
legislation having been rejected by the Convention, Luther Martin
of Maryland moved that "the legislative acts of the United States
made in virtue and in pursuance of the Articles of Union, and all
treaties made or ratified under the authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme law of the respective States, and
the judiciaries of the several States shall be bound thereby in
their decisions, anything in the respective laws of the
individual States to the contrary notwithstanding." The motion
was agreed to without a dissenting voice and, with some slight
changes, became Article VIII of the report of the Committee of
Detail of the 7th of August, which in turn became "the linch-pin
of the Constitution."2Then, on the 27th of August, it was agreed
that "the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court" should "extend to
all cases arising under the laws passed by the Legislature of the
United States," whether, that is, such laws should be in
pursuance of the Constitution or not. The foundation was thus
laid for the Supreme Court to claim the right to review any state
decision challenging on constitutional grounds the validity of
any act of Congress. Presently this foundation was broadened by
the substitution of the phrase "judicial power of the United
States" for the phrase "jurisdiction of the Supreme Court," and
also by the insertion of the words "this Constitution" and "the"
before the word "laws" in what ultimately became Article III of
the Constitution. The implications of the phraseology of this
part of the Constitution are therefore significant:
Section I. 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. The judges,
both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices
during good behavior, and shall at stated times receive for their
services a compensation which shall not be diminished during
their continuance in office.
Section II. 1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in
law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the
United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under
their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public
ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall
be a party; to controversies between two or more States, between
a State and citizens of another State, between citizens of
different States, between citizens of the same State claiming
lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or
the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.
Such, then, is the verbal basis of the power of the courts, and
particularly of the Supreme Court, to review the legislation of
any State, with reference to the Constitution, to acts of
Congress, or to treaties of the United States. Nor can there be
much doubt that the members of the Convention were also
substantially agreed that the Supreme Court was endowed with the
further right to pass upon the constitutionality of acts of
Congress. The available evidence strictly contemporaneous with
the framing and ratification of the Constitution shows us
seventeen of the fifty-five members of the Convention asserting
the existence of this prerogative in unmistakable terms and only
three using language that can be construed to the contrary. More
striking than that, however, is the fact that these seventeen
names include fully three-fourths of the leaders of the
Convention, four of the five members of the Committee of Detail
which drafted the Constitution, and four of the five members of
the Committee of Style which gave the Constitution its final
form. And these were precisely the members who expressed
themselves on all the interesting and vital subjects before the
Convention, because they were its statesmen and articulate
members.3
No part of the Constitution has realized the hopes of its framers
more brilliantly than has Article III, where the judicial power
of the United States is defined and organized, and no part has
shown itself to be more adaptable to the developing needs of a
growing nation. Nor is the reason obscure: no part came from the
hands of the framers in more fragmentary shape or left more to
the discretion of Congress and the Court.
Congress is thus placed under constitutional obligation to
establish one Supreme Court, but the size of that Court is for
Congress itself to determine, as well as whether there shall be
any inferior Federal Courts at all. What, it may be asked, is the
significance of the word "shall" in Section II? Is it merely
permissive or is it mandatory? And, in either event, when does a
case arise under the Constitution or the laws of the United
States? Here, too, are questions which are left for Congress in
the first instance and for the Supreme Court in the last.
Further, the Supreme Court is given "original jurisdiction" in
certain specified cases and "appellate jurisdiction" in all
others—subject, however, to "such exceptions and under such
regulations as the Congress shall make." Finally, the whole
question of the relation of the national courts to the state
judiciaries, though it is elaborately discussed by Alexander
Hamilton in the "Federalist," is left by the Constitution itself
to the practically undirected wisdom of Congress, in the exercise
of its power to pass "all laws which shall be necessary and
proper for carrying into execution"4 its own powers and those of
the other departments of the Government.
Almost the first official act of the Senate of the United States,
after it had perfected its own organization, was the appointment
of a committee "to bring in a bill for organizing the judiciary
of the United States." This committee consisted of eight members,
five of whom, including Oliver Ellsworth, its chairman, had been
members of the Federal Convention. To Ellsworth is to be credited
largely the authorship of the great Judiciary Act of September
24, 1789, the essential features of which still remain after 130
years in full force and effect.
This famous measure created a chief justiceship and five
associate justiceships for the Supreme Court; fifteen District
Courts, one for each State of the Union and for each of the two
Territories, Kentucky and Ohio; and, to stand between these,
three Circuit Courts consisting of two Supreme Court justices and
the local district judge. The "cases" and "controversies"
comprehended by the Act fall into three groups: first, those
brought to enforce the national laws and treaties, original
jurisdiction of which was assigned to the District Courts;
secondly, controversies between citizens of different States5 ;
lastly, cases brought originally under a state law and in a State
Court but finally coming to involve some claim of right based on
the National Constitution, laws, or treaties. For these the
twenty-fifth section of the Act provided that, where the decision
of the highest State Court competent under the state law to pass
upon the case was adverse to the claim thus set up, an appeal on
the issue should lie to the Supreme Court. This twenty-fifth
section received the hearty approval of the champions of State
Rights, though later on it came to be to them an object of
fiercest resentment. In the Senate, as in the Convention, the
artillery of these gentlemen was trained upon the proposed
inferior Federal Judiciary, which they pictured as a sort of
Gargantua ready at any moment "to swallow up the state courts."
The first nominations for the Supreme Court were sent in by
Washington two days after he had signed the Judiciary Act. As
finally constituted, the original bench consisted of John Jay of
New York as Chief Justice, and of John Rutledge of South
Carolina, William Cushing of Massachusetts, John Blair of
Virginia, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and James Iredell of
North Carolina as Associate Justices. All were known to be
champions of the Constitution, three had been members of the
Federal Convention, four had held high judicial offices in their
home States, and all but Jay were on record as advocates of the
principle of judicial review. Jay was one of the authors of the
"Federalist", had achieved a great diplomatic reputation in the
negotiations of 1782, and possessed the political backing of the
powerful Livingston family of New York.
The Judiciary Act provided for two terms of court annually, one
commencing the first Monday of February, and the other on the
first Monday of August. On February 2, 1790, the Court opened its
doors for the first time in an upper room of the Exchange in New
York City. Up to the February term of 1798 it had heard but five
cases, and until the accession of Marshall it had decided but
fifty-five. The justices were largely occupied in what one of
them described as their "post-boy duties," that is, in riding
their circuits. At first the justices rode in pairs and were
assigned to particular circuits. As a result of this practice,
the Southern justices were forced each year to make two trips of
nearly two thousand miles each and, in order to hold court for
two weeks, often passed two months on the road. In 1792, however,
Congress changed the law to permit the different circuits to be
taken in turn and by single justices, and in the meantime the
Court had, in 1791, followed the rest of the Government to
Philadelphia, a rather more central seat. Then, in 1802, the
abolition of the August term eased the burdens of the justices
still more. But of course they still had to put up with bad
roads, bad inns, and bad judicial quarters or sometimes none at
all.
Yet that the life of a Supreme Court justice was not altogether
one of discomfort is shown by the following alluring account of
the travels of Justice Cushing on circuit: "He traveled over the
whole of the Union, holding courts in Virginia, the Carolinas,
and Georgia. His traveling equipage was a four-wheeled phaeton,
drawn by a pair of horses, which he drove. It was remarkable for
its many ingenious arrangements (all of his contrivance) for
carrying books, choice groceries, and other comforts. Mrs.
Cushing always accompanied him, and generally read aloud while
riding. His faithful servant Prince, a jet-black negro, whose
parents had been slaves in the family and who loved his master
with unbounded affection, followed."6Compared with that of a
modern judge always confronted with a docket of eight or nine
hundred cases in arrears, Justice Cushing's lot was perhaps not
so unenviable.
The pioneer work of the Supreme Court in constitutional
interpretation has, for all but special students, fallen into
something like obscurity owing to the luster of Marshall's
achievements and to his habit of deciding cases without much
reference to precedent. But these early labors are by no means
insignificant, especially since they pointed the way to some of
Marshall's most striking decisions. In Chisholm vs. Georgia,7
which was decided in 1793, the Court ruled, in the face of an
assurance in the "Federalist" to the contrary, that an individual
might sue a State; and though this decision was speedily
disallowed by resentful debtor States by the adoption of the
Eleventh Amendment, its underlying premise that, "as to the
purposes of the Union, the States are not sovereign" remained
untouched; and three years later the Court affirmed the supremacy
of national treaties over conflicting state laws and so
established a precedent which has never been disturbed.8
Meantime the Supreme Court was advancing, though with notable
caution, toward an assertion of the right to pass upon the
constitutionality of acts of Congress. Thus in 1792, Congress
ordered the judges while on circuit to pass upon pension claims,
their determinations to be reviewable by the Secretary of the
Treasury. In protests which they filed with the President, the
judges stated the dilemma which confronted them: either the new
duty was a judicial one or it was not; if the latter, they could
not perform it, at least not in their capacity as judges; if the
former, then their decisions were not properly reviewable by an
executive officer. Washington promptly sent the protests to
Congress, whereupon some extremists raised the cry of
impeachment; but the majority hastened to amend the Act so as to
meet the views of the judges.9 Four years later, in the
Carriage Tax case,10 the only question argued before the Court
was that of the validity of a congressional excise. Yet as late
as 1800 we find Justice Samuel Chase of Maryland, who had
succeeded Blair in 1795, expressing skepticism as to the right of
the Court to disallow acts of Congress on the ground of their
unconstitutionality, though at the same time admitting that the
prevailing opinion among bench and bar supported the claim.
The great lack of the Federal Judiciary during these early years,
and it eventually proved well-nigh fatal, was one of leadership.
Jay was a satisfactory magistrate, but he was not a great force
on the Supreme Bench, partly on account of his peculiarities of
temperament and his ill-health, and partly because, even before
he resigned in 1795 to run for Governor in New York, his judicial
career had been cut short by an important diplomatic assignment
to England. His successor, Oliver Ellsworth, also suffered from
ill health, and he too was finally sacrificed on the diplomatic
altar by being sent to France in 1799. During the same interval
there were also several resignations among the associate
justices. So, what with its shifting personnel, the lack of
business, and the brief semiannual terms, the Court secured only
a feeble hold on the imagination of the country. It may be
thought, no doubt, that judges anxious to steer clear of politics
did not require leadership in the political sense. But the truth
of the matter is that willy-nilly the Federal Judiciary at this
period was bound to enter politics, and the only question was
with what degree of tact and prudence this should be done. It was
to be to the glory of Marshall that he recognized this fact
perfectly and with mingled boldness and caution grasped the
leadership which the circumstances demanded.
The situation at the beginning was precarious enough. While the
Constitution was yet far from having commended itself to the back
country democracy, that is, to the bulk of the American people,
the normal duties of the lower Federal Courts brought the judges
into daily contact with prevalent prejudices and misconceptions
in their most aggravated forms. Between 1790 and 1800 there were
two serious uprisings against the new Government: the Whisky
Rebellion of 1794 and Fries's Rebellion five years later. During
the same period the popular ferment caused by the French
Revolution was at its height. Entrusted with the execution of the
laws, the young Judiciary "was necessarily thrust forward to bear
the brunt in the first instance of all the opposition levied
against the federal head," its revenue measures, its commercial
restrictions, its efforts to enforce neutrality and to quell
uprisings. In short, it was the point of attrition between the
new system and a suspicious, excited populace.
Then, to make bad matters worse, Congress in 1798 passed the
Sedition Act. Had political discretion instead of party venom
governed the judges, it is not unlikely that they would have
seized the opportunity presented by this measure to declare it
void and by doing so would have made good their censorship of
acts of Congress with the approval of even the Jeffersonian
opposition. Instead, they enforced the Sedition Act, often with
gratuitous rigor, while some of them even entertained
prosecutions under a supposed Common Law of the United States.
The immediate sequel to their action was the claim put forth in
the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions that the final authority in
interpreting the National Constitution lay with the local
legislatures. Before the principle of judicial review was
supported by a single authoritative decision, it had thus become
a partisan issue!11
A few months later Jefferson was elected President, and the
Federalists, seeing themselves about to lose control of the
Executive and Congress, proceeded to take steps to convert the
Judiciary into an avowedly partisan stronghold. By the Act of
February 18, 1801, the number of associate justiceships was
reduced to four, in the hope that the new Administration might in
this way be excluded from the opportunity of making any
appointments to the Supreme Bench, the number of district
judgeships was enlarged by five, and six Circuit Courts were
created which furnished places for sixteen more new judges. When
John Adams, the retiring President, proceeded with the aid of
the Federalist majority in the Senate and of his Secretary of
State, John Marshall, to fill up the new posts with the so-called
"midnight judges,"12 the rage and consternation of the Republican
leaders broke all bounds. The Federal Judiciary, declared John
Randolph, had become "an hospital of decayed politicians." Others
pictured the country as reduced, under the weight of
"supernumerary judges" and hosts of attendant lawyers, to the
condition of Egypt under the Mamelukes. Jefferson's concern went
deeper. "They have retired into the judiciary as a stronghold,"
he wrote Dickinson. "There the remains of Federalism are to be
preserved and fed from the Treasury, and from that battery all
the works of Republicanism are to be beaten down and destroyed."
The Federal Judiciary, as a coordinate and independent branch of
the Government, was confronted with a fight for life!
Meanwhile, late in November, 1800, Ellsworth had resigned, and
Adams had begun casting about for his successor. First he turned
to Jay, who declined on the ground that the Court, "under a
system so defective," would never "obtain the energy, weight, and
dignity which were essential to its affording due support to the
National Government, nor acquire the public confidence and
respect which, as the last resort of the justice of the nation,
it should possess." Adams now bethought himself of his Secretary
of State and, without previously consulting him, on January 20,
1801, sent his name to the Senate. A week later the Senate
ratified the nomination, and on the 4th of February Marshall
accepted the appointment. The task despaired of by Jay and
abandoned by Ellsworth was at last in capable hands.
__________
1By the Articles of Confederation Congress itself was made "the
last resort of all disputes and differences...between two or
more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause
whatever." It was also authorized to appoint "courts for the
trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas" and
"for receiving and determining finally appeals in all cases of
capture." But even before the Articles had gone into operation,
Congress had, as early as 1779, established a tribunal for such
appeals, the old Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture. Thus at
the very outset, and at a time when the doctrine of state
sovereignty was dominant, the practice of appeals from state
courts to a supreme national tribunal was employed, albeit within
a restricted sphere. Yet it is less easy to admit that the Court
of Appeals was, as has been contended by one distinguished
authority. "not simply the predecessor but one of the origins of
the Supreme Court of the United States." The Supreme Court is the
creation of the Constitution itself; it is the final interpreter
of the law in every field of national power; and its decrees are
carried into effect by the force and authority of the Government
of which it is one of the three coordinate branches. That earlier
tribunal, the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture, was, on the
other hand, a purely legislative creation; its jurisdiction was
confined to a single field, and that of importance only in time
of war; and the enforcement of its decisions rested with the
state governments.
2Article VI, paragraph 2.
3The entries under the names of these members in the Index to
Max Farrand's "Records of the Federal Convention" occupy fully
thirty columns, as compared with fewer than half as many columns
under the names of all remaining members.
4 Article I, section VIII, 18.
5Where the national jurisdiction was extended to these in the
interest of providing an impartial tribunal, it was given to the
Circuit Court.
6Flanders, "The Lives and Times of the Chief-Justices of the
Supreme Court," vol. II , p. 38.
72 Dallas, 419.
8Ware vs. Hylton, 3 ib., 199.
9See 2 Dallas, 409.
10Hylton vs. United States, 3 Dallas, 171.
11See Herman vs. Ames, "State Documents on Federal Relations,"
Nos. 7-15.
12So called because the appointment of some of them was supposed
to have taken place as late as midnight, or later, of March 3-4,
1801. The supposition, however, was without foundation.
Title Page || 2: Marshall's Early Years >>