The first Supreme Court of the United States was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, which President George Washington signed on September 24 of that year. It consisted of six justices — one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices — led by Chief Justice John Jay of New York. The Court convened for the first time on February 1, 1790, in New York City, then the temporary national capital. Its early years were defined less by landmark rulings than by the practical work of building a federal judiciary from scratch.
How the Court Was Created
Article III of the Constitution authorized “one supreme Court” but left nearly every detail to Congress: how many justices would serve, what cases they would hear, and how the system would be organized.1Library of Congress. Article III Section 1 – Constitution Annotated The First Congress filled in those blanks with the Judiciary Act of 1789.2National Archives. Federal Judiciary Act (1789)
The act set the Supreme Court’s size at six, with any four justices forming a quorum. It also built the lower federal courts around it, dividing the country into thirteen judicial districts organized into three circuits: the Eastern, Middle, and Southern.3Supreme Court of the United States. The Court as an Institution The Constitution itself gave the Supreme Court original jurisdiction over cases involving ambassadors, foreign ministers, and disputes where a state was a party.4Library of Congress. Article III Section 2 – Constitution Annotated The Judiciary Act defined the appellate jurisdiction and the procedural machinery that made the Court operational.
The act included one further requirement that would shape the justices’ lives: circuit riding. Each justice had to travel to assigned regions twice a year and preside over federal trials alongside district judges.
The Six Original Justices
Washington nominated John Jay as the first Chief Justice. Jay had served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation and had contributed to the Federalist Papers.5Justia. Chief Justice John Jay For the five Associate Justice seats, Washington chose men who combined legal experience with geographic balance: John Rutledge of South Carolina, William Cushing of Massachusetts, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, John Blair Jr. of Virginia, and Robert Harrison of Maryland.
The Senate confirmed all six nominations on September 26, 1789, one day after Washington submitted the names. There was no Judiciary Committee at the time; the full Senate handled nominations as a committee of the whole. The process moved fast in part because political parties did not yet exist, and the home-state senators of the nominees made up much of a Senate representing only eleven states.6U.S. Senate. First Supreme Court Nominations Confirmed
Harrison declined the appointment because of poor health. Washington then nominated James Iredell of North Carolina, who was confirmed in February 1790 and took the judicial oath that May. Iredell had been one of the leading advocates for ratification in his state. He is traditionally counted among the original six because Harrison never served.
The backgrounds of these men reflected what Washington valued. Cushing had served as chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for over a decade.7Federal Judicial Center. Cushing, William Wilson had sat on the committee that produced the first draft of the Constitution. Blair had helped draft both the Virginia Constitution and the federal Constitution at the 1787 Convention. Rutledge had been governor of South Carolina. Each appointee brought either high-level judicial experience or direct involvement in creating the constitutional system he was now charged with interpreting.
Where the Court First Met
The Supreme Court held its first session on February 1, 1790, on the second floor of the Merchants Exchange Building in lower Manhattan.8United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The History of the Supreme Court of the United States The building had originally been constructed in 1675 as the Royal Exchange and was rebuilt in 1752.9Federal Judicial Center. Supreme Court Meeting Places The session was largely ceremonial. There were no cases to decide, so the justices spent their time setting basic procedural rules.
When the national capital moved to Philadelphia in late 1790, the Court followed. Beginning in 1791, the justices sat at Old City Hall, adjacent to Independence Hall, where they would remain for nearly a decade. The space was shared with municipal offices.
When the federal government relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1800, the Court moved again. No one had built the justices a home of their own, so they were lent space inside the still-unfinished Capitol Building.10Supreme Court of the United States. Building History The Court did not have a dedicated building until 1935.
The Burden of Circuit Riding
The Supreme Court’s own caseload was thin in the early years. The justices met for only a few weeks each year to hear appeals. The real work was circuit riding, which the Judiciary Act required twice a year in assigned federal circuits.2National Archives. Federal Judiciary Act (1789) In an era of dirt roads and horse-drawn carriages, the duty meant weeks or months of grueling travel.
The hardships were real. In 1792, Justice Iredell was riding in a horse-drawn gig when his horse bolted, crashing him into a tree and throwing him to the ground, where a wheel ran over his leg. Justice Cushing once had to share a room with twelve strangers at a roadside inn. The justices routinely paid for their own miserable lodgings and endured illness and fatigue.11Federal Judicial Center. A Brief History of Circuit Riding As early as 1792, the justices complained directly to President Washington that their age, health, and the distances they had to cover made circuit duties “too burdensome.”
Congress kept the requirement in place anyway. Circuit riding carried federal authority into communities that would otherwise have seen it as distant and abstract. Local lawyers argued before Supreme Court justices in their own courthouses, and citizens saw federal law applied in person.
The First Significant Cases
The Court’s first actual case, West v. Barnes in 1791, was a procedural dispute over whether a writ of error had been filed from the correct clerk’s office. The justices unanimously ruled it had not. The decision established no sweeping principle, but it signaled that procedural rules would be enforced strictly.
A more consequential case followed in 1793. In Chisholm v. Georgia, a South Carolina citizen sued the state of Georgia to recover debts owed to a deceased loyalist. Georgia refused to appear, arguing that as a sovereign state it could not be hauled into federal court by a private citizen. The Court ruled 4-to-1 that Article III gave federal courts jurisdiction over suits between individuals and states. Justice Iredell dissented, arguing that states retained sovereign immunity under common law.
The backlash came quickly. States saw the ruling as a threat to their sovereignty, and Congress moved to overturn it. The Eleventh Amendment, ratified on February 7, 1795, stripped federal courts of jurisdiction over suits brought against a state by citizens of another state or a foreign country.12Library of Congress. Amdt11.2 Historical Background on Eleventh Amendment Iredell’s dissent effectively became the law.
In 1796, Ware v. Hylton laid down another foundational rule. Virginia had passed a law during the Revolution allowing debtors to discharge debts owed to British creditors by paying into a state fund. After the war, the Treaty of Peace required that creditors face “no lawful impediment” to recovering those debts. The Court ruled that the treaty overrode Virginia’s statute, establishing that federal treaties supersede conflicting state law under the Supremacy Clause.13Justia. Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. 199 (1796)
Jay’s Departure and Early Turnover
John Jay served as Chief Justice for six years, but the role never became the center of his career. He spent much of his tenure away from the bench on diplomatic work, including negotiating the Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1794. In 1795, he was elected Governor of New York and resigned from the Court.14Justia. John Jay Court (1789-1795) When President John Adams offered him the Chief Justice position a second time in 1800, Jay declined, citing the Court’s lack of “energy, weight, and dignity.”
His assessment reflected reality. The early Court had little of the institutional stature it would later command. Justices left for more attractive positions, the caseload was light, and circuit riding made the job physically punishing. John Rutledge succeeded Jay briefly in 1795 but served only a few months before the Senate rejected his permanent appointment. The Court cycled through leadership in its first decade in a way that would be unthinkable today.
Even so, the first justices did the work that the office required. They set the procedural rules, heard the first cases, endured the travel, and marked out the boundaries of federal judicial power while the entire system was still an experiment.