JUDICIARY ACT OF 1789
The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the lower federal courts.Under Article III, Section 1, of the
U.S. Constitution, “The judicial Power of the
United States, shall be vested in one supreme
Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Con-
gress may from time to time ordain and estab-
lish.” In the Judiciary Act, the first Congress
created federal trial courts and federal appeals
courts to comply with this provision.
The first Congress engaged in considerable
debate over the Judiciary Act. This was not sur-
prising: the Constitutional Convention, which
had ended a year and a half earlier, had revealed
a deep division between Federalists and Anti-
Federalists. Federalists promoted federal powers
to protect against local bias and ensure federal
supremacy. Anti-Federalists opposed a strong
federal government and preferred to leave as
much power as possible to the states. Although
the debate over the Judiciary Act was not
conducted entirely by Federalists and Anti-
Federalists, these groups represented the oppos-
ing viewpoints.
Many concessions were made to Anti-
Federalists in the Constitution. However, the
ratification of the Constitution was a victory for
Federalists because it created the potential for
considerable federal powers. The bill for the
Judiciary Act—the first bill to be considered in
the first Congress—provided another opportu-
nity for Anti-Federalists to present their argu-
ments against strong federal powers.
On April 7, 1789, the Senate ordered itself to
create a committee to draft a bill organizing a
federal judiciary. By the end of May, a commit-
tee led by OLIVER ELLSWORTH, of Connecticut,
WILLIAM PATERSON, of New Jersey, and Caleb
Strong, of Massachusetts, had devised a detailed,
complex proposal. The committee envisioned a
small, unintrusive federal judiciary with exact-
ing jurisdictional requirements. This meant that
a case would have to have certain characteristics
before it could be heard by a federal court.
Remembering criticisms made by the Anti-
Federalists at the Constitutional Convention,
the committee was careful to avoid giving the
federal courts too much authority.
Despite the restrictions on jurisdiction,
Anti-Federalists opposed the bill on the grounds
that a federal judiciary in any form would
deprive states of the right to exercise their own
judicial powers. They argued that state courts
were more than capable of deciding federal
issues. Furthermore, the provision in Article III,
Section 1, of the Constitution did not require
Congress to create lower federal courts: it merely
suggested that Congress do so.
The Anti-Federalists, led by Richard Henry
Lee and William Grayson, both of Virginia, sub-
mitted amendments to limit the scope of the act.
Samuel Livermore, a congressman from New
Hampshire and an Anti-Federalist, moved the
House to limit the jurisdiction of inferior federal
courts to questions of ADMIRALTY. Lee did the
same in the Senate. Another proposal consisted
of creating no lower federal courts and expand-
ing the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. All
the amendments were voted down. Senator
William Maclay, of Pennsylvania, wrote in his
diary, “I opposed this bill from the beginning.
. . . The constitution is meant to swallow all the
state constitutions, by degrees; and this to swal-
low, by degrees, all the State judiciaries” (Clinton
1986, 1531).
The Federalists, led by JAMES MADISON,of
Virginia, insisted that a reasonable reading of
Article III, Section 1, required Congress to estab-
lish lower federal courts.According to the Feder-
alists, federal courts were necessary to ensure the
supremacy of federal law. The supremacy of fed-
eral law over state law had, after all, been estab-
lished in Article VI of the Constitution, which
stated, in part, that “[t]his Constitution, and the
Laws of the United States . . . shall be the
supreme Law of the Land.”
The Federalists argued further that federal
courts provided a venue that would be less sus-
ceptible to bias than that of state courts. The
Federalists declared that several types of cases
were appropriate only in federal court, including
cases involving disputes between states; ALIENS,
or noncitizens; and crimes against the United
States.
Under the proposed act, federal juries would
comprise persons from all over the region,
decreasing the potential for the jury bias that can
exist in closely knit state courts. Also, federal
judges would have no allegiance to any particular
state because they would have judicial responsi-
bility for several states at once, and thus would be
less prone to bias than were state judges.
Eventually, the Federalists won enough sup-
port to pass the act. The House approved the bill
submitted by the Senate without a recorded
vote, and President GEORGE WASHINGTON
signed the act into law on September 24, 1789.
The act established two sets of federal courts
to operate below the U.S. Supreme Court. On
one level, the act created thirteen federal dis-
tricts. Each of these districts contained a federal
trial court that had jurisdiction over minor
criminal cases, admiralty and maritime cases,
and civil actions on federal matters.
On another level, the act created three federal
circuit courts. The circuit courts were given trial
court jurisdiction over serious criminal cases and
three categories of civil cases: cases where the
United States was a plaintiff; cases where at least
one of the parties was alien to the United States;
and cases between parties of different states, or
“diversity” cases, if the amount at issue exceeded
$500. Circuit court jurisdiction over diversity
cases was made concurrent with state court juris-
diction. This meant that a federal trial was not
mandatory, and a plaintiff could sue in either a
state or federal court. Also, if a defendant from
another state was being sued in state court for
more than $500, she or he could have the case
moved to the federal circuit court.
Each of the circuit courts comprised a federal
district court judge and two Supreme Court jus-
tices. This composition was a concession to Anti-
Federalists. The general idea was that requiring
Supreme Court Justices to sit on circuit courts, or
“ride circuit,” would force them to keep in touch
with local concerns. Theoretically, this would
prevent the development of the elite judicial aris-
