Volume III Part 10 (1/2)

[156] _Ib._ 833-34.

[157] _Ib._ 864-65.

[158] _Maclay's Journal_, 98.

[159] Grayson to Henry, Sept. 29, 1789, Tyler, I, 170-71.

[160] Davie to Iredell, Aug. 2, 1791, _Life and Correspondence of James Iredell_: McRee, II, 335.

[161] Vol. II, 552-53, of this work.

[162] Jay to Adams, Jan. 2, 1801, _Jay_: Johnston, IV, 285.

[163] _Annals_, 1st Cong. 2d and 3d Sess. 2239.

[164] See vol. I, chap. VI, of this work. The conditions of travel are well ill.u.s.trated by the experiences of six members of Congress, when journeying to Philadelphia in 1790. ”Burke was s.h.i.+pwrecked off the Capes; Jackson and Mathews with great difficulty landed at Cape May and traveled one hundred and sixty miles in a wagon to the city; Burke got here in the same way. Gerry and Partridge were overset in the stage; the first had his head broke, ... the other had his ribs sadly bruised....

Tucker had a dreadful pa.s.sage of sixteen days with perpetual storms.”

(Letter of William Smith, as quoted by Johnson: _Union and Democracy_, 105-06.)

On his way to Was.h.i.+ngton from Amelia County in 1805, Senator Giles was thrown from a carriage, his leg fractured and his knee badly injured.

(Anderson, 101.)

[165] This arrangement proved to be so difficult and vexatious that in 1792 Congress corrected it to the extent of requiring only one Justice of the Supreme Court to hold circuit court with the District Judge; but this slight relief did not reach the serious shortcomings of the law.

(_Annals_, 2d Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 1447.)

See Adams: _U.S._ I, 274 _et seq._, for good summary of the defects of the original Judiciary Act, and of the improvements made by the Federalist Law of 1801.

[166] See statement of Ogden, _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 172; of Chipman, _ib._ 123; of Tracy, _ib._ 52; of Griswold, _ib._ 768; of Huger, _ib._ 672.

[167] Of course, to some extent this evil still continued in the appeals to the Circuit Bench; but the ultimate appeal was before judges who had taken no part in the cause.

The soundness of the Federalist Judiciary Act of 1801 was demonstrated almost a century later, in 1891-95, when Congress reenacted every essential feature of it. (See ”Act to establish circuit courts of appeals and to define and regulate in certain cases the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and for other purposes,” March 3, 1891, chap. 517, amended Feb. 18, 1895, chap. 96.)

[168] For example, Senator c.o.c.ke of Tennessee a.s.serted the expense to be $137,000. (_Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st. Sess. 30.) See especially Prof.

Farrand's conclusive article in _Am. Hist. Rev._ V, 682-86.

[169] It was to Breckenridge that Jefferson had entrusted the introduction of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 into the Legislature of that State. It was Breckenridge who had led the fight for them. At the time of the judiciary debate he was Jefferson's spokesman in the Senate; and later, at the President's earnest request, resigned as Senator to become Attorney-General.

[170] Breckenridge's const.i.tuents insisted that the law be repealed, because they feared that the newly established National courts would conflict with the system of State courts which the Legislature of Kentucky had just established. (See Carpenter, _Am. Pol. Sci. Rev._ IX, 523.)

Although the repeal had been determined upon by Jefferson almost immediately after his inauguration (see Jefferson to Stuart, April 8, 1801; _Works_: Ford, IX, 247), Breckenridge relied upon that most fruitful of Republican intellects, John Taylor ”of Caroline,” the originator of the Kentucky Resolutions (see vol. II, 397, of this work) for his arguments. See Taylor to Breckenridge, Dec. 22, 1801, _infra_, Appendix B.

[171] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 31-46, 51-52, 58, 513, 530.

[172] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 26.

[173] _Ib._ 25.

[174] _Ib._ 28.