Gargantua ready at any moment "to swallow up the state courts."

* Where the national jurisdiction was extended to these in the
interest of providing an impartial tribunal, it was given to the
Circuit Court.


The first nominations for the Supreme Court were sent in by
Washington two days after he had signed the Judiciary Act. As
finally constituted, the original bench consisted of John Jay of
New York as Chief Justice, and of John Rutledge of South
Carolina, William Cushing of Massachusetts, John Blair of
Virginia, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and James Iredell of
North Carolina as Associate Justices. All were known to be
champions of the Constitution, three had been members of the
Federal Convention, four had held high judicial offices in their
home States, and all but Jay were on record as advocates of the
principle of judicial review. Jay was one of the authors of the
"Federalist", had achieved a great diplomatic reputation in the
negotiations of 1782, and possessed the political backing of the
powerful Livingston family of New York.

The Judiciary Act provided for two terms of court annually, one
commencing the first Monday of February, and the other on the
first Monday of August. On February 2, 1790, the Court opened its
doors for the first time in an upper room of the Exchange in New
York City. Up to the February term of 1798 it had heard but five
cases, and until the accession of Marshall it had decided but
fifty-five. The justices were largely occupied in what one of
them described as their "post-boy duties," that is, in riding