Beschreibung:

United States CongressSecond 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 da