The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800: The justices on circuit, 1790-1794

Download or read book The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800: The justices on circuit, 1790-1794 written by Maeva Marcus and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 state and federal crimes, the constitutional prohibition against impairing the obligations of contracts, and the relationship between law and morality.