Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/213

Rh Washington of Virginia appeared) that the session began and John Marshall took the oath of ofiBce. The installation of the new Chief Justice attracted no attention and was not described, or even noticed, in letters of the day or in the public press, the leading Washington newspaper printing only the following meager reference: "The Justices of the Supreme Court have made a court, the following Justices being present, viz. Marshall, Cushing, Chase and Washington/' ^

While no cases are reported as decided at this Term, it was marked, nevertheless, by a political episode which had a most j)otent eflfect upon the future history of the Court. On February 17, the long and closely con- tested balloting for President in the House of Repre- sentatives resulted in the election of Jeflferson. Four days before that event, nine days after Chief Justice Marshall took his seat on the Bench, and only three weeks before President Adams was to retire from office, the Federalist Congress enacted the Circuit Court Act of February 13, 1801, changing the entire Judi- ciary system of the United States. Had this measure been adopted at an earlier period and under less par- tisan auspices, there would have been strong argimients in its favor, for it brought about a reform long recog- nized as desirable. From the very outset of the Government, there had been much dissatisfaction with that provision of the Judiciary Act which required the Judges of the Supreme Court to sit in the United

^ National Intelligencer, Feb. 5, 1801. James A. Bayard (then a Congressman from Delaware) in writing an account of the Term did not mention the new Chief Justice and said: "I was occupied two or three days, in the hours of Congressional leisure, in preparing myself for the argument of a cause in the Supreme Court of the United States — Siias Talbot v. Hans Fred Seaman, The cause went off, I have received three hundred dollars and in consequence will be obliged to return again next August. The Court was attended by several lawyers from Philadelphia and the Maryland lawyers." James A, Bayard Papers (1916), letter of Feb. 6, 1801.