The Judiciary Act of 1789 established a federal court system, an experiment that became one of the outstanding features of American democracy. Yet little has been written about the origins of the Act. This volume of essays analyzes the Act from political and legal perspectives while enhancing our understanding of the history of the judiciary and its role in the constitutional interpretation.

Volume one presents documents that establish the structure of the Supreme Court and recount the official record of the Court's activity during its first decade. It serves as an introduction and reference tool for the subsequent volumes in the series.

Volume one presents documents that establish the structure of the Supreme Court and recount the official record of the Court's activity during its first decade. It serves as an introduction and reference tool for the subsequent volumes in the series.

Volume 2 details the workings of the Court's experimental practice of sending Justices around the country to serve as judges at sessions of the various federal circuit courts. The documents in this volume reveal that the justices quickly voiced bitter complaints about the demands of their circuit duties. They also questioned the propriety--and perhaps constitutionality--of assigning the same individuals to act as superior and inferior court judges. The documents in this volume also touch upon topics that figured prominently in the law and politics of the era: neutrality, the boundary between...

Volume 5 addresses those Supreme Court cases brought against a state by a citizen of another state or foreign nation during the 1790's. This volume deals with not only the landmark case of Chisholm v. Georgia, in which the Court determined that it had jurisidiction over such suits, but also with six lesser-known cases in which states were sued. For each case the editors provide a historical introduction and publish the relevant documents, including court papers, personal correspondence, lawyers' notes, justices' manuscript opinions, proceedings of state legislatures, newspaper articles, and...

Volume 6 covers the beginnings of federal admiralty and equity jurisprudence, habeas corpus, judicial review, forreign affairs, and the relationship between the national judiciary and state courts. Also included is an appendix of documents pertaining to the question of whether the Supreme Court could issue advisory opinions at the request of the executive branch. A narrative history introduces each case, and the documents are arranged chronologically thereafter. The texts of many of them had to be reconstructed from originals that were severely damaged or written in shorthand. Taken from...

The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800 is a multivolume series drawing together a body of documents, from the National Archives and dozens of other repositories, that chronicles the life of the Court in its first decade. For any scholar interested in the development of the federal judicial system, this series stands as a crucial resource.

The present volume deals with suits the Supreme Court decided in 1796 and 1797, including such landmark constitutional cases as Ware v. Hylton, Hylton v. United States, and Olney v....

'The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800', is a multivolume series drawing together a body of documents from the National Archives & dozens of other repositories, that chronicles the life of the Court in its first decade.

"Although there have been some other articles and books on the "Youngstown" case, this book remains definitive. The author handles a variety of materials exceedingly well, and shows great sensitivity not only to the legal issues involved, but to the political ones as well. It is a model case study."--Melvin I. Urofsky, Virginia Commonwealth University

Blackstone in America explores the creative process of transplantation the way in which American legislators and judges refashioned the English common law inheritance to fit the republican political culture of the new nation. With current scholarship returning to focus on the transformation of Anglo-American law to American law, Professor Kathryn Preyer s lifelong study of the constitutional and legal culture of the early American republic has acquired new relevance and a wider audience. The collection includes Professor Preyer s work on criminal law, the early national judiciary, and the...