Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The report of the Post Master General is referred to as exhibiting a
highly satisfactory administration of that Department. Abuses have been
reformed, increased expedition in the transportation of the mail
secured, and its revenue much improved. In a political point of view
this Department is chiefly important as affording the means of
diffusing knowledge. It is to the body politic what the veins and
arteries are to the natural--conveying rapidly and regularly to the
remotest parts of the system correct information of the operations of
the Government, and bringing back to it the wishes and feelings of the
people. Through its agency we have secured to ourselves the full
enjoyment of the blessings of a free press.
In this general survey of our affairs a subject of high importance
presents itself in the present organization of the judiciary. An
uniform operation of the Federal Government in the different States is
certainly desirable, and existing as they do in the Union on the basis
of perfect equality, each State has a right to expect that the benefits
conferred on the citizens of others should be extended to hers. The
judicial system of the United States exists in all its efficiency in
only fifteen members of the Union; to three others the circuit courts,
which constitute an important part of that system, have been
imperfectly extended, and to the remaining six altogether denied. The
effect has been to withhold from the inhabitants of the latter the
advantages afforded (by the Supreme Court) to their fellow citizens in
other States in the whole extent of the criminal and much of the civil
authority of the Federal judiciary. That this state of things ought to
be remedied, if it can be done consistently with the public welfare, is
not to be doubted. Neither is it to be disguised that the organization
of our judicial system is at once a difficult and delicate task. To
extend the circuit courts equally throughout the different parts of the
Union, and at the same time to avoid such a multiplication of members
as would encumber the supreme appellate tribunal, is the object
desired. Perhaps it might be accomplished by dividing the circuit
judges into two classes, and providing that the Supreme Court should be
held by these classes alternately, the Chief Justice always presiding.
If an extension of the circuit court system to those States which do
not now enjoy its benefits should be determined upon, it would of
course be necessary to revise the present arrangement of the circuits;
and even if that system should not be enlarged, such a revision is
recommended.
A provision for taking the census of the people of the United States
will, to insure the completion of that work within a convenient time,
claim the early attention of Congress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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