The Supreme Court in the Early Republic: The Chief Justiceships of John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth

Preface and Acknowledgments

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When Herb Johnson asked me if I would be interested in writing a book-length monograph on the early Supreme Court as part of a series on the Court's history, I was delighted. I had been .studying the early Court for a number of years and had a special interest in Oliver Ellsworth, who played the foremost role in the creation of the federal judiciary and later served as the Court's third ChiefJustice. In writing this introductory volume, I have not tried to provide a comprehensive study that treats every case adjudicated by the Court in its early years. For example , I pay virtually no attention to technical issues of practice and procedure except where those issues relate directly to the scope of the Court's authority. Procedural technicalities are of little intrinsic interest and are boring even to lawyers. Instead of writing a comprehensive history , I have selected representative issues, incidents, and cases that illustrate the Court's creation and initial operation. In particular, I have stressed the direct and almost pervasive relationship between the early Court and national security. This monograph could not have been written without the aid ofcountless organizations and individuals. My knowledge of Oliver Ellsworth is based primarily upon primary sources gathered with the assistance of grants from the American Philosophical Society and the M.D. Anderson Foundation. In addition, I appreciate the continuing support of the Texas Tech University Law School Foundation. Like the characters in this book, I labor with pen and ink rather than a keyboard. I would therefore like to give special thanks to Lynda Levels and Gloria Smith, who typed my manuscript. Although I have visited many archives, collections, and documentary projects, I am particularly appreciative of the assistance that I received from Maeva Marcus at the Documentary History of the Supreme Court xv xvi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS of the United States Project and Charlene Bickford and Kenneth Bowling at the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States ofAmerica Project. In addition, HerbertJohnson carefully read manuscripts and provided many valuable insights and comments. Finally, I want to acknowledge the unstinting assistance and support of Wythe Holt, who graciously and critically reviewed every line of this book. Wythe and I view the 1790s from different philosophical perspectives , and I have profited enormously from his insights. This book is based in significant part on public and private sources from the 1790s and contains many quotations. As a matter of editorial style, thorns and abbreviations have been expanded to modern spellings. For example, ye and wh have been changed to the and which. In addition, I have made a conscious effort to reduce the number and length of footnotes . Each paragraph of text generally has no more than one, and frequently the footnote includes multiple references pertinent to various concepts and quotations in the paragraph. I also have made extensive use of short titles, abbreviations, and repository symbols. ...