The Midnight Judges Act (also known as the Judiciary Act of 1801; 2 Stat. 89, or the Midnight Appointments) represented an effort to solve an issue in the U.S. Supreme Court during the early 19th century. There was concern, beginning in 1789, about the system that required the justices of the Supreme Court to “ride circuit” and reiterate decisions made in the appellate level courts. The Supreme Court justices had often voiced concern and suggested that the judges of the Supreme and circuit courts be divided.
Read more about Midnight Judges Act: Effect On Judicial Divisions and Authority, The Midnight Judges, The Election of 1800, Marbury V. Madison, Impeachment of Samuel Chase, Federal Question Jurisdiction
Famous quotes containing the words midnight, judges and/or act:
“I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship, or the sale of goods through pretending that they sell, or power through making believe you are powerful, or through a packed jury or caucus, bribery and “repeating” votes, or wealth by fraud.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Although your knowledge is weak and small, you need not be silent: Since you cannot be judges be at least witnesses.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)