The Formation of Judicial Federalism in the United States

Abstract

The central feature of American judicial federalism is the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over state courts. Conventionally, we tend to view controversy over judicial federalism through the lens of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras, in which this appellate oversight functioned to consolidate the power of national institutions against the periphery and defenders of states’ rights promoted the independence of state courts from federal oversight. But the deliberative process that attended the formation of the federal judiciary exhibited a more complex dynamic that presented the framers of the Constitution and of the first judiciary act with a range of possible institutional arrangements. Given the available alternatives, the Supreme Court’s appellate oversight was not so much an aggression on states’ rights as a concession to those wary of consolidation. Rather than being contested, it in fact formed a ground of consensus as a modest means of ensuring federal supremacy.