The House of Representatives asked Attorney General Edmund Randolph to report on the working of the system established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. Randolph responded with this report, delivered on December 27, 1790, provided criticisms and suggestions that became a blueprint to improve the Federal judiciary. Specifically, Randolph wanted Congress to assert the exclusive jurisdiction of federal courts in certain areas; to relieve Supreme Court justices from the duty of presiding in circuit courts; and to adopt explicitly the common law of the United Kingdom as a basis for judicial decisions unless superseded by specific American legislation.
The latter two-thirds of the report presents Randolph’s proposal for “A Bill for amending the several Acts concerning the Judicial Courts of the United States,” with his explanatory notes. Before Congress acted on Randolph’s suggestions, in August 1792, all of the Supreme Court justices complained in a letter to President George Washington that circuit travel was too onerous. In response, Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1793 (see #26594) that required only one, rather than two, justices to sit in each circuit court. Congress did not relieve the justices of circuit-riding duties until 1911.
