_The Circuit Courts of Appeals._--Next below the Supreme Court are the circuit courts of appeals, nine in all--one for each of the judicial circuits into which the country is divided.[98] These courts were created by act of Congress in 1891 to relieve the Supreme Court from an accumulation of business that rendered the prompt decisions of cases impossible, the docket of the court having become so overcrowded that it was about three years behind with its business. The act creating the circuit courts of appeals, however, did not provide an additional class of judges to hold these courts, but enacted that each of them should be held by three judges assigned for the purpose from among the judges of the circuit. The judges of each circuit include one justice of the Supreme Court assigned to the circuit, two or more circuit judges appointed for the circuit, and a considerable number of district judges, each appointed for a district in the circuit. Most circuit courts of appeals are held by three circuit judges; but occasionally by two circuit judges together with a district judge or the Supreme Court justice. The circuit courts of appeals have only appellate jurisdiction, that is, they hear and determine only cases appealed from the lower courts, and their decisions are final in most cases. This relieves the Supreme Court of all but the most important cases, and enables it to give more attention to the cases before it and to dispatch its business more promptly. [98] The first circuit embraces Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; the second, Connecticut, New York, and Vermont; the third, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; the fourth, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia; the fifth, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas; the sixth Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee; the seventh, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin; the eighth, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming; the ninth, Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii. _Former Circuit Courts._--Prior to 1911 next below the circuit courts of appeals were the circuit courts, which were held in the different districts within the circuit, either by a circuit judge or by the justice of the Supreme Court assigned to the circuit, or by a district judge, or by the three, or any two of them, sitting together. In 1911 the circuit courts were abolished and their jurisdiction conferred on the district courts. The circuit judges, however, were retained and will henceforth sit in the circuit courts of appeal.