Judiciary Act of 1801
JUDICIARY ACT OF 1801
JUDICIARY ACT OF 1801. In the waning years of the John Adams administration, the operation of the federal judiciary became a divisive political issue when the federal courts were used to prosecute Jeffersonian editors for seditious libel, when Federalist judges applied the doctrine of the common law of crimes, and after several prosecutions were conducted for treason arising out the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania and the Fries Rebellion in eastern Pennsylvania. Criticism of the courts helped ensure Thomas Jefferson's party victories in the presidential and congressional elections of 1800, but the Adams Federalists, before they were swept from power, sought to reform the judiciary in order to retain it as a bastion against the Jeffersonian Republicans.
Thus, as lame ducks, the Federalists secured passage of the Judiciary Act of 1801. Some of the provisions of this act were sensible reforms, but the statute has generally been scorned. The act reduced the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices from six to five and ended the justices' duty—imposed by the Judiciary Act of 1789—of sitting with a federal district court judge to handle criminal and some civil matters, known as "riding circuit." Instead, a system of six new circuit courts was to be set up and staffed by sixteen new circuit judges, to be appointed by the outgoing President Adams. The sixteen appointments were all given to Federalists, and these became known as the "midnight judges," because their positions were filled as time was running out for Adams.
The 1801 law also enlarged the scope of operation of the circuit courts to give them jurisdiction over all federal questions and, in particular, exclusive jurisdiction over litigation concerning the recent Bankruptcy Act of 1800. The 1801 legislation also expanded the opportunities for the federal courts to hear disputes between citizens of different states, made it easier to transfer cases from state to federal courts, and provided jurisdiction over disputes involving the granting of titles to land by the states.
Until the 1800 election, issues regarding the judiciary had not been particularly important in American life, but Jefferson and the Republicans saw the 1801 law as a tremendous danger to liberty. Believing that the U.S. Constitution granted Congress power to abolish the lower federal courts, they proceeded to eliminate the new circuit courts in the Judiciary Act of 1802 and revert to the provisions of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase sought to rally his fellows to declare the 1802 act unconstitutional in that it removed the sixteen new judges without benefit of impeachment, but the Republicans countered that they were legitimately disbanding courts, and not illegitimately extracting judges. In Stuart v. Laird (1803), the Supreme Court declined to rule the 1802 law unconstitutional. The expanded jurisdiction granted to the lower federal courts in 1801 was not reinstated until after the Civil War, and for the most part, the important judicial decisions during the formative period of American law were made by the state courts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ellis, Richard E. The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Presser, Stephen B. Original Misunderstanding: The English, The Americans, and the Dialectic of Federalist Jurisprudence. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1991.
Turner, Kathryn. "Federalist Policy and the Judiciary Act of 1801." William and Mary Quarterly 22 (1965): 3–32.
Stephen B.Presser