The First U.S. Supreme Court Decision
2 U.S. 401
Supreme Court of the United States
West, Plf. in Err.
v.
Barnes, et al.
August Term, 1791.
Opinion
On the first day of the term, Bradford presented to the court, a writ, purporting to be a writ of error, issued out of the office of the clerk of the circuit court for Rhode Island district, directed to that court, and commanding a return of the judgment and proceedings rendered by them in this cause: And thereupon he moved for a rule, that the defendant rejoin to the errors assigned in this cause.
Barnes, one of the defendants, (a counsellor of the court) objected to the validity of the writ, that it had issued out of the wrong office: and, after argument,
The Court were unanimously of opinion, That writs of error to remove causes to this court from inferior courts, can regularly issue only from the clerk's office of this court. Motion refused.
Your first question is probably: 2 U.S. 401? What happened to 1 U.S.? Is there an entire volume of U.S. Supreme Court Reports we don't know about? Most likely the secret decisions in which the Court established the rules by which the Illuminati would control society while paying lip service to the so-called "Constitution," which I assume is what it was doing during the suspiciously quiet period between 1789 and 1791? Calm down, Alex Jones, there's a simple explanation.
The answer to the question, "what was the Supreme Court doing before 1791?" is: nothing important. The Constitution says there "shall be" a Supreme Court, but that's all it says. Congress had to create it. The first session of Congress began on March 4, 1789, and they got around to creating a federal judicial system about six months later. As provided in that law, the first Supreme Court session commenced on the first Monday in February 1790. Exciting!
Or not. "When the Supreme Court of the United States first met, in New York in February 1790, there were no cases for the justices to hear." Maeva Marcus, The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800, v. 6 at p. 1 (Columbia Univ. Press 1998). After all, the lower federal courts (district courts and three circuits), so there was necessarily going to be at least some finger-drumming at first while cases worked through the system. (Those are the cases reported in the first volume (and-a-half) of U.S. Reports, answering that question.) And, in fact, all the Supreme Court did during its first two sessions (February and August 1790) was deal with internal business (probably the Illuminati stuff) and swear in some lawyers. Ho-hum.
Things finally did get exciting in February 1791, when the clerk docketed the Court's very first case, Van Staphorst v. Maryland!
Which then settled.
Again the poor justices were left with nothing to do but administer oaths and maybe hang around the town square in case somebody had a dispute about the Constitution or state borders or something they could resolve, just to have something to do. No disputes? Hm. Checkers? Anyone? No? Okay, well, if something comes up, let us know. One of us is usually around so just come by and we'll try to rustle up a quorum. Okay? Great.
At long last, August 1791 rolled around. And this time, the Court would actually have a case to hear and even decide: West v. Barnes, the result of which you have already read. But probably did not understand, because what was all that about? Well, although it's hard to tell from the legalese above, the case is somewhat interesting and even important, though admittedly you wouldn't be hearing about it if it hadn't been the very first one.
William West was (among other things) a farmer and a general in the Rhode Island militia. (This is all from the monumental Documentary History.) Back in 1763, West bought a whole lot of molasses on credit from a Providence merchant, Daniel Jenckes, and as security he gave Jenckes a mortgage on his farm. Whatever West's big molasses plan was, it tanked, and he was still making payments on the mortgage over 20 years later. In 1786, Rhode Island issued a bunch of its own paper money (there were no U.S. dollars until 1792), and a few years later West tried to pay off the debt with that stuff. But Jenckes didn't want play money, he wanted gold or silver. Citing a state law designed to make the paper "legal tender," West got a state judge to discharge the debt completely. Problem solved?
Nope. In 1791, some plaintiffs who had rights in the mortgage sued West in federal court. They were led by David Barnes, a Massachusetts lawyer who represented himself and the other plaintiffs in the case. (Interestingly, at least to a lawyer, if that case were brought today a federal court wouldn't have jurisdiction over it, but the "complete diversity" rule wasn't set until 1806.) For some reason the History doesn't make clear, they won, and the court held the plaintiffs were entitled to the property. West appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Or tried to, anyway. He got a transcript and a "writ of error" from the federal court in Rhode Island, and sent them to the Supreme Court. That is, he did not get the writ from the Supreme Court itself. This was partly because under the law at the time, he had to get the writ from that court within 10 days. But the Supreme Court wasn't in Rhode Island, or even in New York. It was now in Philadelphia, almost 270 miles away. And if it's 1791, good luck getting all your paperwork together and then traveling 270 miles in 10 days or less.
According to Google Maps, this would be an 88-hour walk or 30-hour bike ride even today, when we have actual roads. According to this, it took Thomas Jefferson nine days to get from Philadelphia to Albany in May 1791, a distance of just 220 miles, although he may not have been in a hurry.
n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazette_of_the_United_States
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