Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/37

Rh said William Smith of South Carolina.^ James Jackson of Georgia opposed the Twenty-Fifth Section. "It swallows up every shadow of a State Judiciary… In my opinion, and I am convinced experience will prove it, there will not, neither can there be, any suit or action brought in any State Courts but may under this clause be reversed or affirmed by being brought within the cognizance of the Supreme Court." Fisher Ames and Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, Egbert Benson of New York, and James Madison of Virginia, on the other hand, advocated the proposed system; and Roger Sherman of Connecticut closed the debate by arguing powerfully that the authority of the Federal Courts under this Section was necessary "to guard the rights of the Union against the invasion of the States. If a State Court should usurp the jurisdiction of Federal causes and by its adjudications attempt to strip the Federal Government of its constitutional rights, it is necessary that the National tribunal shall possess the power of protecting those rights from such invasion."

The Judiciary Act was finally enacted on Septem- ber 24, 1789. It provided for a Supreme Court to consist of a Chief Justice and five Associate Judges; for thirteen District Courts and for three Circuit Courts each to be composed of two Supreme Court Judges sitting with a District Court Judge ; it fixed the jurisdiction of the inferior Federal Courts ; and it provided for appellate jurisdiction from the State Courts in certain cases presenting Federal questions.* With few

^Isl Cong., l$t 8es$., Aug. 29, 1789. ' The official title of the Chief Justice seems to have varied at different periods of the Court's history. Jay was commissioned under the title of "Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ", as were Rutledge, Ellsworth, Marshall, Tan^, Chase and Waite. Fuller was commissioned as "Chief Justice of the United States." The Constitution mentions the office of Chief Justice only once ; in Artide One, Section three, relative to impeachments in which it is pro-