The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority
Hamilton: From McClean’s Edition , New York, Wednesday, May 28, 1788.
To the People of the State of New York:
Let us now return to the partition of the judiciary authority between different courts, and their relations to each other.
“The judicial power of the United States is” (by the plan of the convention) “to be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish.”
That there ought to be one court of supreme and final jurisdiction, is a proposition which is not likely to be contested. The reasons for it have been assigned in another place, and are too obvious to need repetition. The only question that seems to have been raised concerning it, is, whether it ought to be a distinct body or a branch of the legislature. The same contradiction is observable in regard to this matter which has been remarked in several other cases. The very men who object to the Senate as a court of impeachments, on the ground of an improper intermixture of powers, advocate, by implication at least, the propriety of vesting the ultimate decision of all causes, in the whole or in a part of the legislative body.
The arguments, or rather suggestions, upon which this charge is founded, are to this effect:
“The authority of the proposed Supreme Court of the United States, which is to be a separate and independent