The Supreme Court of the United States is the only court specifically established by the Constitution of the United States, implemented in 1789; under the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Court was to be composed of six members—though the number of justices has been nine in its history, this number is set by Congress, not the Constitution. The court convened for the first time on February 2, 1790.
Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth Courts (1789–1801)
The first Chief Justice of the United States was John Jay; the Court's first docketed case was Van Staphorst v. Maryland (1791), and its first recorded decision was West v. Barnes (1791). Perhaps the most controversial of the Supreme Court's early decisions was Chisholm v. Georgia, in which it held that the federal judiciary could hear lawsuits against states. Soon thereafter, responding to the concerns of several states, Congress proposed the Eleventh Amendment, which granted states immunity from certain types of lawsuits in federal courts. The Amendment was ratified in 1795.
Jay was succeeded as Chief Justice by John Rutledge, and then by Oliver Ellsworth. No major cases came before the Supreme Court during this time.
Marshall Court (1801–1835)
One of the most significant events during the history of the Court was the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall (1801 to 1835). In the landmark case Marbury v. Madison (1803), Marshall held that the Supreme Court could overturn a law passed by Congress if it violated the Constitution, legally cementing the power of judicial review. The Marshall Court also made several important decisions relating to federalism. Marshall took a broad view of the powers of the federal government—in particular, the interstate commerce clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. For instance, in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Court ruled that the interstate commerce clause and other clauses permitted Congress to create a national bank, even though the power to create a bank is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Similarly, in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the Court found that the interstate commerce clause permitted Congress to regulate interstate navigation.
The Marshall Court also made several decisions restraining the actions of state governments. The notion that the Supreme Court could consider appeals from state courts was established in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) and Cohens v. Virginia (1821). In several decisions, the Marshall Court confirmed the supremacy of federal laws over state laws. For example, in McCulloch, the Court held that a state could not tax an agency of the federal government. At the same time, however, the Marshall Court held in the landmark case Barron v. Baltimore (1833) that the Bill of Rights restricted the federal government alone, and did not apply to the states. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court would in later years hold that the Fourteenth Amendment had the effect of applying most provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states.
Marshall's forceful personality allowed him to steer his fellow justices; only once did he find himself on the losing side in a constitutional case. In that case (Ogden v. Saunders in 1827), Marshall set forth his general principles of constitutional interpretation:Currie, David. The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The First Hundred Years, 1789–1888, pages 152-155 (Univ. of Chicago 1992).
Marshall was in the dissenting minority only eight times throughout his tenure at the Court, partly because of his influence over the associate justices. As Oliver Wolcott observed when both he and Marshall served in the Adams administration, Marshall had the knack of "putting his own ideas into the minds of others, unconsciously to them".George Gibbs, Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams, (1846), vol. II, p. 350. However, he regularly curbed his own viewpoints, preferring to arrive at decisions by consensus.Fox, John, Expanding Democracy, Biographies of the Robes, John Marshall. Public Broadcasting Service. He adjusted his role to accommodate other members of the court as they developed.
Marshall had charm, humor, a quick intelligence, and the ability to bring men together. His sincerity and presence commanded attention. His opinions were workmanlike but not especially eloquent or subtle. His influence on learned men of the law came from the charismatic force of his personality, and his ability to seize upon the key elements of a case and make highly persuasive arguments. Together with his vision of the future greatness of the nation, these qualities are apparent in his historic decisions and gave him the sobriquet, The Great Chief Justice.Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall (1996) pp. 351-2, 422, 506Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, The life of John Marshall: Volume 4 (1919) p. 94Charles F. Hobson, The Great Chief Justice: John Marshall and the Rule of Law (1996) pp. 15-16, 119-23
Marshall ran a congenial court; there was seldom any bickering. The Court met in Washington only two months a year, from the first Monday in February through the second or third week in March. Six months of the year the justices did circuit duty in the various states. Marshall was therefore based in Richmond, his hometown, for most of the year. When the Court was in session in Washington, the justices boarded together in the same rooming house, avoided outside socializing, and discussed each case intently among themselves. Decisions were usually made in a matter of days. Marshall wrote nearly half the decisions during his 33 years in office. Lawyers appearing before the court, including the most brilliant in the United States, typically gave oral arguments and did not present written briefs. The justices did not have clerks, so they listened closely to the oral arguments and decided among themselves what the decision should be. The court issued only one decision; the occasional dissenter did not issue a separate opinion.G. Edward White, The Marshall Court and Cultural Change: 1815–1835 (abridged ed. 1991) pp. 157-200.
While Marshall was considered good at listening to the oral briefs and convincing the other justices of his interpretation of the law, he was not widely read in the law and seldom cited precedents. After the Court reached a decision, he would usually write it up himself. Often he asked Justice Story, a renowned legal scholar, to do the chore of locating precedents, saying, "There, Story; that is the law of this case; now go and find the authorities."A reliable statement of the quotation was recounted by Theophilus Parsons, a law professor who knew Marshall personally. Parsons, "Distinguished Lawyers," Albany Law Journal Aug. 20, 1870, pp. 126-7 online . Historian Edward Corwin garbled the quotation to: "Now Story, that is the law; you find the precedents for it", and that incorrect version has been repeated. Edward Corwin, John Marshall and the Constitution: A Chronicle of the Supreme Court (1919) p. 119.
Marshall's tenure as chief justice has been associated with the shift towards black robes as court dress for Supreme Court judges. However, there is some evidence that indicates that the shift towards black robes occurred earlier.
Taney Court (1836–1864)
In 1836, Marshall was succeeded as Chief Justice by Roger B. Taney, who had a somewhat more limited view of the powers of the federal government. At a time when sectional tensions between the North and South were high, many of the Supreme Court's decisions—particularly those relating to slavery—met with controversy and contention. Most controversial was the Taney Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri, sued for his freedom on the grounds that his master had taken him into Illinois and the territory of Wisconsin, both of which prohibited slavery, for extended periods of time. Taney, however, ruled that members of the African race were not and could never become citizens of the United States. Consequently, he ruled that Scott therefore had no standing to file the lawsuit. Moreover, he held that the Missouri Compromise, under which Congress prohibited slavery in certain territories that formed part of the Louisiana Purchase, was unconstitutional. The controversial decision met with outrage from abolitionists, and contributed to the tensions that led to the Civil War during the next decade. In 1863, the Tenth Circuit Act expanded the Court to ten justices, with Stephen Johnson Field taking the tenth position.
Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts (1864–1910)
In the midst of the Civil War in 1864, Abraham Lincoln appointed Salmon P. Chase to replace Roger Taney as Chief Justice. Chase had strong anti-slavery credentials and had previously served Lincoln as Secretary of the Treasury. His post-Civil War tenure featured several key decisions affirming the indestructibility of the Union. A prototypical example of this is the 1869 case Texas v. White, in which the court held that Texas had legally remained a state during the Civil War and that in fact all claims of secession were legally null because the Constitution did not permit states to secede and had no procedure for states to do so. Chase was considered highly ambitious, even for a politician. In 1872, Chase ran for the Presidency while serving on the Supreme Court, but his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Chase continued to serve as Chief Justice until his death in 1873, after which he was replaced by the Ulysses S. Grant-nominated Morrison Waite. Waite in turn served as Chief Justice until his death in 1888, and was replaced by the Grover Cleveland-nominated Melville Fuller.
Following President Lincoln's 1865 assassination, the Republican-dominated Congress determined to deny Democratic president Andrew Johnson the opportunity to fill any Supreme Court seats. Pursuant to this goal, it passed the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866, which would have provided for the gradual elimination of seats as justices retired until reaching a membership of seven justices from the previous ten. John Catron had died in 1865 prior to the passage of the Judicial Circuits Act, and Johnson's then-pending nomination of Henry Stanbery to Catron's position was nullified by the act, which left the court with a membership of nine. James Moore Wayne died in 1867, and the abolishment of his seat left the court with a membership of eight. With Johnson leaving office in 1869, Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1869, increasing the membership of the court back to nine. As of 2026, the court's size has since remained constant at nine members notwithstanding deaths and resignations.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress passed and the states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which, among other things, prevented states from abridging the "privileges and immunities of citizens," from denying due process of law, and from denying equal protection of the laws to any person. Many cases that came before the Court in the post–Civil War era involved interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the Civil Rights Cases (1883), the Court under Chief Justice Morrison Waite held that Congress could not prohibit racial discrimination by private individuals (as opposed to governments) on the grounds of the Fourteenth Amendment. Later, in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court under Chief Justice Melville Fuller determined that the equal protection clause did not prohibit racial segregation in public facilities, as long as the facilities were equal (giving rise to the infamous term "separate but equal"). The sole dissenter in that case was John Marshall Harlan.
White and Taft courts (1910–1930)