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:
“Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so,”
Uttered by friends, those prophets of the past.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“So work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)