Article III, Section 1:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court,
and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
By vesting judicial power in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish, the Framers allowed Congress to decide whether to establish lower federal courts.1 Because Congress has the authority to decide whether the lower federal courts should exist, the legislature is also understood to enjoy broad power to structure the lower courts, make procedural rules for them, and regulate their jurisdiction.2
From the beginning, Congress has answered the question of whether there should be inferior federal courts in the affirmative. The first Congress exercised its discretion to create lower federal courts in the Judiciary Act of 1789, the first legislation related to the Federal Judiciary.3 The 1789 Act created thirteen judicial districts, each of which had one district judge.4 Single judge, trial-level district courts were to hold four sessions per year in each district. The Act further divided the country into three judicial circuits. It established circuit courts, which were three-judge panels comprised of one district judge and two Supreme Court Justices. One noteworthy feature of the new Judiciary was that Supreme Court Justices were required to ride circuit and travel to the districts within their assigned circuits to hear cases—a burdensome requirement, given the transportation technology of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly for Justices who were old or unhealthy or were assigned to outlying circuits.5
As the Nation grew, the Federal Judiciary also expanded, with each new state receiving a judicial district.6 Congress reorganized the Federal Judiciary into six judicial circuits in 1801,7 and thereafter periodically added new circuits to encompass new states.8 In 1869, Congress enacted legislation creating circuit court judgeships.9 The new circuit court judges presided over cases within their circuits, limiting the need for Supreme Court Justices to ride circuit. Then, in 1891, Congress created intermediate appellate courts, known as the United States Courts of Appeals, abolishing the circuit courts and removing any requirement the Supreme Court Justices ride circuit.10 Since then, the federal judicial system has consisted of trial-level district courts with original jurisdiction over most federal cases, intermediate appellate courts, and the Supreme Court.
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