“the supreme court of the United States shall consist of a chief justice and five associate justices...and shall hold annually at the seat of the federal government two sessions....”

The U.S. Constitution provided that the “judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and such inferior Courts,” leaving to Congress to establish the details. The Judiciary Act erected a three-tiered federal court system—the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeals, and the District Courts—essentially the system in place today. The foremost issue was the relative power and authority to be respectively accorded the federal and state courts. The Judiciary Act’s most controversial provision empowered the Supreme Court to hear, at its discretion, appeals of verdicts reached in the state courts whenever those decisions were deemed to raise questions of constitutionality of state or federal laws. 

Including two March 3, 1791 Acts of Congress: Resolution to Establish U.S. Mint, and Act that President be requested to report to Congress on “the quantity and situation of lands not claimed by the Indians, nor granted to, nor claimed by any of the citizens of the Unties States within the territory ceded to the United States by the State of North-Carolina, and within the territory of the United States north-west of the river Ohio.” Also the March 30, 1791 Proclamation of Permanent Seat of Government, signed in type by Washington and Jefferson.

Excerpts

“all spirits which shall be distilled in the United States, in stills which shall not have been previously entered at some office of inspection, shall be liable, together with the stills or other vessels used in the distillation thereof, to seizure and forfeiture.” (sec. 2)

“any person or persons, who shall counterfeit the certificates for, or the marks or numbers to be set upon any cask, vessel or package containing wines, teas, or foreign or domestic distilled spirits, or upon stills... shall, for every such offence, forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred dollars.” (sec. 7)

“That it shall and may be lawful for the judicial courts of the several states, and of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, and of the territory of the United States south of the river Ohio, to take cognizance of all and every suit and suits, action and actions, cause and causes, arising under or out of the laws for collecting a revenue upon spirits distilled in the United States, and upon stills, which may arise or accrue at a greater distance, than fifty miles from the nearest place established by law for holding a district court.” (sec. 9)

“That the judicial courts of the several states, to whom, by this act, a jurisdiction is given, shall and may exercise all and every power… for the purpose of obtaining a mitigation or remission of any fine, penalty or forfeiture, which may be exercised by the judges of the district courts, in cases depending before them... ” (sec. 18)

“WE, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.”

Dr. Lewis Leprilete was one of the few French persons admitted to United States citizenship under the provisions of the first Naturalization Act of 1790. He became the first to advertise cataract extraction in the United States, and the first American author to publicize Benjamin Franklin’s bifocals. Leprilete returned to France, and was forced to serve in the French army in Guadaloupe. He was able to come back to the United States in 1801.

Official printing of the fourteen Acts passed by the Connecticut Assembly in January 1789, includes “An Act for regulating the Election of Senators and Representatives, for this State, in the Congress of the United States.”

“The loaning of Munitions of War, in such large quantities from our Magazines and Arsenals is viewed by me as highly impolitic and hazardous; and it is hardly necessary for me to add, that I have had no agency in the Transaction.”

“The Idea that an Army shall be entitled to receive whatever may be called for, is monstrous, and is what the Resources of no Nation can support.”

Colonel Wadsworth provides a lengthy critique of a Senate bill to combine the Ordnance and Artillery departments. He insists on the need to maintain uniformity in arms manufacture and the necessity to control the flow of supplies. Many of his arguments about the tendency to waste in military expenditures resonate with modern critiques.

As Commander of the Corps of Engineers, Jonathan Williams planned and supervised the construction of New York Harbor’s defenses. In this letter to the commander of Fort Columbus on Governors Island, Williams gives a detailed report on the state of the fortifications and their capacity for additional artillery.

Governor Clinton wanted a report from the federal government “signifying the number of troops that will be allowed to Garrison there [in New York harbor], and whether the General Government will not from a Consideration of the Importance of the safety of the port to the revenue add something to what may be expanded [sic] by the state.”

Willett appeals to Vice President Aaron Burr for help from the Jefferson administration to improve New York City’s harbor defenses based upon the city’s commercial importance. He also discusses initial plans for the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

This issue of The Balance and Columbian Repository features Jefferson’s proclamation regarding the British attacks on American vessels, several articles debating the President’s stance on the matter, an article about Aaron Burr’s trial, toasts given in honor of Independence Day, and an address to the Medical Society of Columbia County.

“the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”

The Monroe Doctrine - as it is now known- was largely the creation of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, and issued not on its own but as part of James Monroe’s Annual Message to Congress (now referred to as the State of the Union Address). By declaring that the western hemisphere was no longer subject to European colonization, it marked a defining moment in Monroe’s presidency and informed American foreign policy for more than a century.

Monroe’s message covered other important topics, among them the international slave trade, the possible construction of a canal to connect the Chesapeake Bay with the Ohio River, and the Greek War of Independence. In addition, this newspaper prints the editor’s brief reaction to the president’s “luminous message” (p2/c4); notice of Henry Clay’s election as Speaker of the House of Representatives (p2/c4); proceedings of the South Carolina state legislature, including proposed laws prohibiting “free negroes” from entering the state, reports on canal building (p3/c1-2), and other local, national and international news. Notices and advertisements include runaway slave ads (p4/c1).

As Secretary of State, Adams needed to receive news from all parts of the United States. His office was responsible not only for foreign affairs but also for relations between the states and the federal government.

This document appoints Richard Varick as Mayor of New York City for the year, with the approval of Governor John Jay. Prior to 1834, New York City’s mayors were appointed by the governor with the advice of the Council of Appointment, rather than elected. It also has an attestation that Richard Varick took the oath of office before him as Clerk of the City of New York. “The People of the State of New York … Do nominate, constitute and appoint the said Richard Varick to be Mayor of our City of New York…”

“We, the People of the United States…”

This rare complete printing of the Constitution appeared on the first day it was publicly available, Wednesday, September 19, 1787. That same morning, the Constitution was published by four other papers, the Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser, Pennsylvania Journal, Pennsylvania Gazette and Freeman’s Journal. The Independent Gazetteer is unique, in that it is the only one of the five first-day printings whose type was evidently not used to print another, stand-alone edition.

A wistful letter to a boyhood friend in which Adams mentions some guileful political colleagues and laments the “popular Passions of the times” and the general neglect of his political writings. “The Difficulty of leading or guiding Millions, by any means but Power and Establishments can be known only to those who have tried Experiments of it.”

Governor Huntington, in a “state of the state”-style address, proposes modifying the taxation system and state militia, building new roads, and granting the Superior Court power to send a wider range of convicts to New Gate Prison. The speech also emphasizes the importance of education, for the continued strength and vitality of republican institutions, a recurring theme in his administration. “Let me observe...a firm belief that it is Impossible for a free people to preserve their liberties & privileges... unless useful knowledge is generally diffused among them, & the principles of Virtue & religion included …; and were these favours properly bestowed upon every rising generation, …all Arbitrary & Despotic Government would vanish away...”

During the second of his ten terms as mayor of New York City, Clinton signs his copy of the ordinances for governing the city at the top of the title page.