In the 19 days between passage of this Act and the conclusion of his administration, President Adams quickly filled as many of the newly created circuit judgeships as possible.
Attempts to solve this situation before and throughout the presidency of John Adams were overshadowed by more pressing foreign and domestic issues that occupied Congress during the early years of the nation's development.
[11] Faced with the Election of 1800, a watershed moment in American history that represented not only the struggle to correctly organize the foundation of the United States government but also the culmination of struggle between the waning Federalist Party and the rising Democratic-Republican Party, John Adams successfully reorganized the nation's court system with the Judiciary Act of 1801.
[13] The main issues in this election were taxes, the military, peace negotiations with France, and the Alien and Sedition Acts and Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.
Alexander Hamilton and the extreme Federalists attacked Adams for his persistence for peace with France, his opposition to building an army, and his failure to enforce the Alien and Sedition Acts.
[14] Presented with a tie, the House of Representatives, which was dominated by Federalists and led by Alexander Hamilton, eventually decided the election in favor of Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson's inaugural address attempted to appease the Federalists by promising to maintain the strength of the federal government and to pay off the national debt.
[14] Jefferson spoke of dangerous "entangling alliances" with foreign countries as President George Washington had done before him, and made a plea for national unity claiming that "we are all republicans and we are all federalists.
[14] This controversial case began with Adams' appointment of Federalist William Marbury as a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia.
[14] Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the Supreme Court did not have the authority to force Madison to make the appointment official.
[14] In deciding the constitutionality of an act of Congress, Marshall established judicial review, the most significant development in the history of the Supreme Court.
Chase, a Federalist appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington, had publicly attacked the repeal in May 1803 while issuing his charge to a grand jury in Baltimore, Maryland: "The late alteration of the federal judiciary ... will take away all security for property and personal liberty, and our Republican constitution will sink into a mobocracy, the worst of all popular governments.