US Presidency
1829

The judicial system of the United States exists in all its efficiency in only 15 members of the union; to three others the circuit courts, which constitute an important part of that system, have been imperfectly extended, and to the remaining six altogether denied. The effect has been to withhold from the inhabitants of the latter the advantages afforded ( by the Supreme Court ) to their fellow citizens in other States in the whole extent of the criminal and much of the civil authority of the federal judiciary. That this state of things ought to be remedied, if it can be done consistently with the public welfare, is not to be doubted. Neither is it to be disguised that the organization of our judicial system is at once a difficult and delicate task. To extend the circuit courts equally throughout the different parts of the union, and at the same time to avoid such a multiplication of members as would encumber the supreme appellate tribunal, is the object desired.