Judiciary Act Passed: Federal Courts Born in 1789

Eight days after proposing the Bill of Rights, the first United States Congress took on an equally foundational task: building a court system from scratch. On September 24, 1789, President George Washington signed the Judiciary Act, creating the federal court structure that still operates today and establishing the office of Attorney General. The Constitution had provided only the barest outline for a judiciary. Article III called for "one Supreme Court" and "such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish," leaving almost every practical detail to lawmakers. Senator Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, a future Chief Justice, drafted the bill that filled in the blanks. The act established a Supreme Court with one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices, along with thirteen district courts and three circuit courts covering the eastern, middle, and southern regions of the country. Federal judges received lifetime appointments, insulating them from political pressure. The act also created the position of Attorney General, though the office initially had no staff and a salary so modest that the first holder, Edmund Randolph, continued his private law practice to pay his bills. Section 25 proved the most consequential and controversial provision. It granted the Supreme Court authority to review and overturn state court decisions that conflicted with federal law or the Constitution. Anti-Federalists attacked this clause as a dangerous centralization of power, and states' rights advocates would challenge it repeatedly for the next seven decades. But Section 25 gave the federal judiciary the teeth it needed to enforce constitutional supremacy, a power that Chief Justice John Marshall would use to transformative effect in cases like Marbury v. Madison and McCulloch v. Maryland. The Judiciary Act has been amended dozens of times, the number of Supreme Court justices has changed seven times, and the lower court system has been reorganized repeatedly. But the essential framework Ellsworth designed in 1789 remains the skeleton of American federal justice.