To the People of the State of New York:
LET US now return to the partition of the judiciary authority between different courts, and their relations
to each other.
"The judicial power of the United States is" (by the plan of the convention) "to be vested in one Supreme
Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish."1
That there ought to be one court of supreme and final jurisdiction, is a proposition which is not likely to
be contested. The reasons for it have been assigned in another place, and are too obvious to need
repetition. The only question that seems to have been raised concerning it, is, whether it ought to be a
distinct body or a branch of the legislature....
To the People of the State of New York:
THE objection to the plan of the convention, which has met with most success in this State, and perhaps
in several of the other States, is that relative to the want of a constitutional provision for the trial by jury
in civil cases. The disingenuous form in which this objection is usually stated has been repeatedly
adverted to and exposed, but continues to be pursued in all the conversations and writings of the
opponents of the plan. The mere silence of the Constitution in regard to civil causes, is represented as an
abolition of the trial by jury, and the declamations to which it has afforded a pretext are artfully calculated
to induce a persuasion that this pretended abolition is complete and universal, extending not only to every
species of civil, but even to criminal causes....
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To the People of the State of New York:
THE erection of a new government, whatever care or wisdom may distinguish the work, cannot fail to
originate questions of intricacy and nicety; and these may, in a particular manner, be expected to flow
from the establishment of a constitution founded upon the total or partial incorporation of a number of
distinct sovereignties. 'Tis time only that can mature and perfect so compound a system, can liquidate the
meaning of all the parts, and can adjust them to each other in a harmonious and consistent WHOLE.
Such questions, accordingly, have arisen upon the plan proposed by the convention, and particularly
concerning the judiciary department. The principal of these respect the situation of the State courts in
regard to those causes which are to be submitted to federal jurisdiction....
To the People of the State of New York:
IN THE course of the foregoing review of the Constitution, I have taken notice of, and endeavored to
answer most of the objections which have appeared against it. There, however, remain a few which either
did not fall naturally under any particular head or were forgotten in their proper places. These shall now
be discussed; but as the subject has been drawn into great length, I shall so far consult brevity as to
comprise all my observations on these miscellaneous points in a single paper.
The most considerable of the remaining objections is that the plan of the convention contains no bill of
rights. Among other answers given to this, it has been upon different occasions remarked that the
constitutions of several of the States are in a similar predicament. I add that New York is of the number....
 
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