PROCEEDINGS IN THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE UNITED STATES

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST SESSION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1790

At the SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT of the UNITED STATES, begun and held at New York (being the seat of the National Government) on the first Monday of February, and on the first day of said month Anno Domini 1790.

Present:

The Honorable JOHN JAY, ESQUIRE, Chief Justice

The Honorable WILLIAM CUSHING, and

The Honorable JAMES WILSON, ESQRS., Associate Justices. This being the day assigned by law, for commencing the first sessions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a sufficient number of Justices not being convened, the Court is adjourned, by the Justices now present, untill to morrow, at one of the clock in the afternoon.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THF SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1940

Pursuant to adjournment the Court met at the Supreme Court Building.

Present:

The Honorable CHARLES E. HUGHES, Chief Justice.

JAMES C. MCREYNOLDS,

HARLAN F. STONE,

OWEN J. ROBERTS,

HUGO L. BLACK,

STANLEY REED,

FELIX FRANKFURTER, and

WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS, Associate Justices.

THOMAS ENNALLS WAGGAMAN, ESQUIRE, Marshal.

CHARLES ELMORE CROPLEY, Clerk.

Proclamation being made the Court is opened.

719

FIRST SESSION OF THE SUPREME COURT

NOTE. Addresses by the Attorney General, the President of the American Bar Association, and the Chief Justice were entertained. The Court then proceeded to admit seven attorneys to practice as members of the bar and to hear certain motions and arguments of counsel in cases.

Proclamation being made the Court is adjourned until tomorrow at 12 o'clock.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE AND ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES:

The bar of the Supreme Court, including those who here represent the executive branch of the government, desires to observe with you the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of this court's service. We do so in a spirit of rededication to the great principles of freedom and order which come to life in your judgments.

The court, as we know it, could hardly have been foreseen from its beginnings. When it first convened, no one seemed in immediate need of its appellate process, and it adjourned to await the perpetration of errors by lower courts. Errors were, of course, soon forthcoming. The justices who sat upon the bench, although not them

selves aged, were older than the court itself. The duration of an argument was then measured in days instead of hours. All questions were open ones, and neither the statesmanship of the justices nor the imagination of the advocate was confined by the ruling case. Some philosophers have so feared the weight of tradition as to assert that happy are a people who have no history. We, however, may at least believe that there was some happiness in belonging to a bar that had little occasion to distinguish precedents or in sitting. upon a court that could not be invited to overrule itself. Few tribunals have had greater opportunity for original and constructive work, and none ever seized opportunity with more daring and wisdom.

From the very beginning the duties of the court required it, by interpretation of the Constitution, to settle doubts which the framers themselves had been unable to resolve. Luther Martin in his great plea in McCulloch v. Maryland was not only an advocate but a witness of what had been and a prophet of things to come. He said: "The whole of this subject of taxation is full of difficulties, which the Convention found it impossible to solve in a manner entirely satisfactory." Thus, controversies so delicate that the framers would have risked their unity if an answer had been forced were bequeathed to this court. During its early days it had the aid of counsel who expounded the Constitution from intimate and personal experience in its making. They knew that to get acceptance of its fundamental design for government many controversial details were left to be filled in from time to time by the wisdom of those who were to follow. This knowledge made them bold.

The passing of John Marshall marked the passing of that phase of the court's experience. Thereafter the Constitution became less a living and contemporary thing more and more a tradition. The work of the court became less an exposition of its text and setting and purposes and became more largely a study of what later men had said about it. The Constitution was less resorted to for deciding cases, and cases were more resorted to for deciding about the Constitution. This was the inevitable consequence of accumulating a body of judicial experience and opinion which the legal profession would regard as precedents.

It would, I am persuaded, be a mistake to regard the work of the court of our own time as either less important or less constructive than that of its earlier days. It is perhaps more difficult to revise an old doctrine to fit changed conditions than to write a new doctrine on a clean slate. But, as the underlying structure of society shifts,