Judiciary Act of 1789: Circuit-Riding Justices, U.S. Marshals and Marbury

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Article III of the Constitution created one Supreme Court and left every other detail of the federal judiciary to Congress. Anti-Federalists feared distant federal judges overruling local courts and juries, a fear reflected in the Fourth through Eighth Amendments, which deal largely with judicial proceedings. The Judiciary Act was introduced in the Senate by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia on June 12, 1789, and drafted chiefly by Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, later the third chief justice. It passed the Senate 14 to 6 and George Washington signed it on September 24, 1789. The act set a Supreme Court of six justices, a chief justice and five associates with a quorum of four, meeting in two sessions a year. Washington named John Jay chief justice alongside John Rutledge, William Cushing, James Wilson, John Blair Jr. and Robert H. Harrison, who declined and was replaced by James Iredell.

The act created 13 judicial districts in the 11 ratifying states, with district courts for minor cases and circuit courts staffed by a district judge and two Supreme Court justices who had to ride circuit across the country. It created the attorney general, first held by Edmund Randolph, plus a U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal for each district, and the Alien Tort Statute for foreigners' claims under international law. Section 13, which let the Supreme Court issue writs of mandamus under its original jurisdiction, became the opening for Marbury v. Madison in 1803, when John Marshall struck it down and established judicial review.

• Massachusetts and Virginia each received a second district, the District of Maine and the District of Kentucky.
• Seniority among associate justices was set by the dates on their commissions, a rule still in the U.S. Code.
• Legal historian Edward A. Purcell Jr. calls removal jurisdiction, which let out-of-state defendants move cases into federal court, the act's most significant innovation.
• Federal trial courts did not receive general federal question jurisdiction until after the Civil War.
• The Judiciary Act became the first act of Congress partially invalidated by the Supreme Court.