Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 41.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

9 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

those who hold political power.  But what would stop Con-
gress from requiring litigants to navigate vice-admiralty’s 
alien procedures in all federal cases?  Or from making “fed-
eral processes” even more byzantine, so “as to [effectively]
destroy [individual] rights?”  Letter from a Federal Farmer 
(Jan. 20, 1788), in 2 The Complete Anti-Federalist 328 (H. 
Storing ed. 1981). 

And what about civil juries?  “[T]he jury trial,” one prom-
inent Anti-Federalist observed, “brings with it an open and 
public discussion of all causes, and excludes secret and ar-
bitrary proceedings.”  Letter from a Federal Farmer (Jan. 
18, 1788), in id., at 320 (Federal Farmer 15).  The partici-
pation of ordinary Americans “drawn from the body of the
people”  serves  another  function,  too:    “If  the  conduct  of 
judges shall . . . tend to subvert the laws, and change the 
forms of government, the jury may check them.”  Ibid.  As 
originally composed, however, the Constitution promised a
trial  by  jury  for  “all  Crimes,”  but  said  nothing  about  civil 
cases.  Art  III,  §2,  cl. 3.    Some  wondered,  did  this  mean 
judges, not juries, would be “left masters as to facts” in civil 
disputes?  Federal Farmer 15, at 322.  If so, asked another, 
“what satisfaction can we expect from a lordly court of jus-
tice,  always  ready  to  protect  the  officers  of  government
against the weak and helpless citizen”?  Essay of a Demo-
cratic Federalist (Oct. 17, 1787), in 3 Complete Anti-Feder-
alist 61. 

The answer to these concerns was the Bill of Rights.  Er-
linger, 602 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6).  As the Court details, 
the Seventh Amendment promised the right to a jury trial 
in “ ‘[s]uits at common law.’ ”  Ante, at 8 (quoting Amdt. 7).
But because the Constitution was designed to “endure for 
ages to come,” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 415 
(1819), this did not mean only those “suits, which the com-
mon law recognized among its old and settled proceedings,” 
Parsons v.  Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 447 (1830).  The founding