State High Courts and the Development of Administrative Agencies During the Jacksonian Decade

Abstract

This article explores the role of American state high courts in shaping public administrative agencies during the mid-antebellum period. With the assistance of a database summarizing some 7,200 case decisions, I identify and examine public commission cases decided by the high courts of six target states during the Jacksonian Decade: 1828–1837. More specifically, my article identifies issues regarding the actions and authorities of public commissions brought to the high courts of these states and examines the resolution of the issues reached by the courts. These issues, as they were presented to and decided by state high courts, are described in the courts' official written decisions. The decisions offer a view of the dialectic between issues of administrative actions and the institutional response of the courts. The insights offered by this article not only tell us about the society of the Jacksonian Decade and the administrative issues of the day, but also provide a view of the development of administrative law and policy in the early American Republic.