Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/114

The judicial system was so defective, both in point of principle and arrangement, and so awkward and unwieldy in its operation that the second session of Congress saw the necessity of an entire alteration; they modestly avoided the work themselves, as if it had been a task beyond their strength, notwithstanding the number of professional gentlemen in both houses, and ordered the Attorney General, in the Congressional style, a sort of Secretary of the Law Department, to report the necessary amendments;—an elaborate folio pamphlet appeared at the next session, and the people expected the business would have been immediately taken up, had not another of their Secretaries made a report on a project infinitely more interesting (to individuals); and this elegant piece of refinement and obscurity, the report of the Secretary at Law, was immediately consigned to oblivion; and the great object of the administration of justice, and the reputation of the National Government were equally forgotten and neglected.

The Judges themselves united in writing to the President an urgent letter, August 19, 1792, which he transmitted to Congress, in which they said:^[1]

We really, sir, find the burdens laid upon us so excessive that we cannot forbear representing them in strong and explicit terms. On extraordinary occasions, we shall always be ready, as good citizens, to make extraordinary exertions; but while our country enjoys prosperity, and nothing occurs to require or justify such severities, we cannot reconcile ourselves to the idea of existing in exile from our families, and of being subjected to a kind of life on which we cannot reflect without experiencing sensations and emotions more easy to conceive than proper for us to express. … That the task of holding twenty-seven Circuit Courts a year, in the different States, from New Hampshire to Georgia, besides

that these gentlemen get very handsome salaries and they know also from the sweat of whose brows it comes; they know more than this, they know whose right it is to call them to account for their malpractices. The Government will be found expensive enough under the most economical administration. But to lavish the time and property of the citizens unnecessarily is what they cannot nor will not submit to." National Gazette, May 11, 1793.

1. Amer. State Papers, Misc., I, No. 32.