The United States of America, Part 1: 1783-1830Sparks, Edwin Erle
History
The United States of America, Part 1: 1783-1830
Sparks, Edwin Erle
United States -- History
The wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in simply arranging
outlines instead of filling in details was nowhere better shown than
in the provisions for the national judiciary. Congress was bound only
to establish "one superior court" and could add such inferior courts
as necessity might demand from time to time. So essential was a national
judiciary felt to be, that during the pressing business of the first
session the United States was divided for this purpose into thirteen
judicial districts, conforming generally to the eleven States in the
Union, each to have a district court held by a Federal judge. These
districts were then grouped into an eastern, a middle, and a southern
circuit, in accord with the geographical grouping of the States. In
these two circuit courts were to be held each year by one or more
district judges and one or more justices of the Supreme Court. The
latter, the final tribunal of appeal from these inferior courts, was
to consist of a chief justice and five associate justices. Necessary
officers, such as marshals and clerks, were given to these courts,
rules were formulated for their procedure, and an act was passed at
the next session defining crimes against the United States. A resident
of any State was by these acts made the subject of a new sovereign,--the
United States of America,--liable to be punished for treason committed
not against his State, but against the nation; to be prosecuted for
piracy on the seas; for counterfeiting money, altering records,
committing perjury in the Federal courts, resisting a national official,
or offering violence to a foreign representative.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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