The Judiciary System

The Judiciary System. Under Washingtons guidance a federal court system was established by the Judiciary Act of Sept. 24, 1789. The Constitution provided for its basic features.

Because the president is the chief enforcer of federal laws, it is his duty to prosecute cases before the federal courts. In this work his agent is the attorney general. To guard against domination of judges, even by the president, the Constitution endowed them with tenure during good behavior. The Judiciary Act of 1789 was so well designed that its most essential features have survived. It provided for 13 judicial districts, each with a district court of federal judges.

The districts were grouped into three circuits in which circuit courts were to hear appeals from district courts. The act also created a supreme court consisting of a chief justice and five associate justices to serve as the final arbiter in judicial matters, excepting cases of impeachment. Washingtons selection of John Jay as the first chief justice was probably the best choice possible for the work of establishing the federal judiciary on a sound and enduring basis.

Foreign Affairs In foreign affairs, Washington aimed to keep the country at peace, lest involvement in a great European war should shatter the new government before it could acquire strength. He also sought to gain concessions from Britain and Spain that would promote the growth of pioneer settlements in the Ohio Valley. In addition, he desired to keep up the import trade of the Union, which yielded revenue from tariff duties that enabled the government to sustain the public credit and to meet its current expenses.

The British and French The foreign policy of Washington took shape under the pressure of a war between Britain and revolutionary France. At the wars inception Washington had to decide whether two treaties of the French-American alliance of 1778 were still in force. Hamilton held that they were not, because they had been made with the now-defunct government of Louis XVI. Washington, however, accepted Jeffersons opinion that they were still valid because they had been made by an enduring nation a principle that has since prevailed in American diplomacy.

Fearing that involvement in the European war would blight the infant government, Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality on April 22, 1793. This proclamation urged American citizens to be impartial and warned them against aiding or sending war materials to either belligerent. Because Britain was the dominant sea power, France championed the doctrine of neutral rights that was asserted in the French-American alliance.

The doctrine held that neutrals the United States in this case might lawfully trade with belligerents in articles not contraband of war. Britain acted on a contrary theory respecting wartime trade and seized American ships, thereby violating rights generally claimed by neutrals. Such seizures goaded the Republican followers of Jefferson to urge measures that might have led to a British-American war. Washington then sent John Jay on a treaty-making mission to London.

Jays Treaty of Nov. 19, 1794, outraged France because it did not uphold the French-American alliance and because it conferred benefits on Britain. Although Washington disliked some of its features, he signed it the Senate had ratified it by a two-thirds vote. One reason was that keeping open the import trade from Britain continued to provide the Treasury with urgently needed revenues from tariff duties. Unable to match Britain on the sea, the French indulged in a campaign to replace Washington with their presumed partisans, in order to vitiate the treaty.

They also waged war on the shipping of the United States, and relations between the two countries went from bad to worse.