Shortly after being appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 1837, John McKinley wrote to James K. Polk about the unusual position in which he now found himself.
“I have accepted the appointment, although it is certainly the most onerous and laborious of any in the United States.”
McKinley knew what he was in for. In addition to sitting on the Supreme Court in Washington, he had been assigned to the newly created Ninth Circuit, consisting of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and the eastern district of Louisiana. His circuit assignment called for eight circuit court terms, sitting on the Supreme Court, and traveling more than 5,000 miles every year. Historian Steven P. Brown describes McKinley as nevertheless being “thrilled” by the opportunity to join the Court. Given the difficulties of traveling, especially in those days on primitive roads, it might seem more like a punishment, but McKinley had good reason to regard the appointment as a prize rather than a punishment.
McKinley was not a newcomer to politics. He had represented Alabama in both houses of Congress, served repeatedly in the Alabama legislature, and had recently been elected to another term in the United States Senate. He was also a longtime Jacksonian with political and personal connections to Andrew Jackson and his allies. When Congress expanded the Supreme Court from seven to nine members in March 1837, Jackson’s advisers had encouraged the outgoing president to appoint McKinley to one of the new seats. Jackson instead selected his old friend William Smith. When Smith declined, the appointment fell to the newly inaugurated Martin Van Buren, who selected McKinley.
McKinley immediately understood the difficulties and described the position as the most onerous and laborious in the country. The distances alone made completing the entire itinerary extraordinarily difficult. But there was an important distinction between having all those duties assigned to him and the legal requirement to be present in every court. The same 1837 law provided that the circuit courts were to be held by the Supreme Court justice assigned to the circuit and the local federal district judge, but Congress added that only one of the judges was needed to constitute a quorum. If travel or timing made it impossible for McKinley to reach a particular court, the district judge could keep the circuit court operating without him.
The circuit was genuinely onerous and laborious, but the appointment remained an extraordinary honor. McKinley was expected to ride his circuit, but the structure of the courts provided a practical way for judicial business to be conducted even when one man could not accomplish the impossible.
“The number of terms to be held in each of the courts composing the ninth circuit, the distances between the places at which they sit and from thence to the seat of Government, are represented to be such as to render it impossible for the judge of that circuit to perform in a manner corresponding with the public exigencies his term and circuit duties.”
Van Buren did not portray John McKinley as the problem. The problem was the system, and Andrew Jackson had warned Congress about that system eight years earlier.
Andrew Jackson Saw the Problem Coming
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, Supreme Court justices did not spend their entire careers sitting together as an appellate tribunal in Washington. They also traveled throughout assigned judicial circuits, participating in federal circuit courts. That arrangement was difficult even when the United States was geographically much smaller. But as the nation expanded westward, it became increasingly difficult to maintain.
Jackson recognized a dilemma. Extending circuit courts into the growing western states required more circuit judges, but if every new circuit also required another Supreme Court justice, the Supreme Court itself could eventually become unwieldy. In 1829, Jackson proposed an unusual solution. Instead of requiring every circuit judge to sit on the Supreme Court at the same time, Jackson suggested dividing them into two groups. The groups could alternate service on the Supreme Court while the Chief Justice always presided. That would allow the circuit system to expand without requiring the Supreme Court itself to expand indefinitely.
Ultimately, Congress did not adopt this rotating system, and the problem continued to worsen. It wasn’t until 1837 that Congress acted. That year it added the Eighth and Ninth Circuits, expanding the Supreme Court from seven to nine members, but Supreme Court justices remained responsible for riding the circuits.
The following year, the Senate requested information concerning the trial dockets of the federal circuit courts and the number of miles Supreme Court justices had to travel while riding their circuits. Secretary of State John Forsyth collected the information and transmitted his report to the Senate. It was subsequently printed as Senate Document No. 50 of the 25th Congress. The report contained a summary of circuit caseloads as well as statements from the Supreme Court justices describing the routes and distances associated with their circuits.
In the report, McKinley’s Ninth Circuit stood out because of the combination of its geographic size, court schedule, travel requirements, and caseload. It was just as Jackson had identified years earlier. The United States could continue extending the circuit system geographically, but attaching those expanding circuits to members of the Supreme Court proved exceedingly difficult.
Martin Van Buren's Request
By 1839, McKinley’s experience had provided a striking example of the problem Jackson had identified years earlier. Thus, on December 2, 1839, Martin Van Buren placed the issue before Congress in his third annual message:
“From a report made in December of last year by the Secretary of State to the Senate, showing the trial docket of each of the circuit courts and the number of miles each judge has to travel in the performance of his duties, a great inequality appears in the amount of labor assigned to each judge. The number of terms to be held in each of the courts composing the ninth circuit, the distances between the places at which they sit and from thence to the seat of Government, are represented to be such as to render it impossible for the judge of that circuit to perform in a manner corresponding with the public exigencies his term and circuit duties. A revision, therefore, of the present arrangement of the circuit seems to be called for and is recommended to your notice.”
References
Brown, Steven P. “An Assault on Justice: John McKinley and the Affair at Jackson.” Journal of Supreme Court History, vol. 36, no. 2, 2011, pp. 125–46. Supreme Court Historical Society, https://supremecourthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Volume-36-Number-2-2011.pdf. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
Brown, Steven P. John McKinley and the Antebellum Supreme Court: Circuit Riding in the Old Southwest. University of Alabama Press, 2012.
Federal Judicial Center. “Caseloads: Federal Caseload Reports, 1802–1864.” Federal Judicial Center, https://www.fjc.gov/history/work-courts/caseloads-federal-caseload-reports-1802-1864. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
Federal Judicial Center. “John McKinley.” Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, 1789–Present, Federal Judicial Center, https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/mckinley-john. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
Federal Judicial Center. “Landmark Legislation: Eighth and Ninth Circuits.” Federal Judicial Center, https://www.fjc.gov/history/legislation/landmark-legislation-eighth-and-ninth-circuits. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
Jackson, Andrew. “First Annual Message to Congress.” 8 Dec. 1829. Miller Center, University of Virginia, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-8-1829-first-annual-message-congress. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
McKinley, John. Letter to James K. Polk. 1837. Quoted in Steven P. Brown, “An Assault on Justice: John McKinley and the Affair at Jackson,” Journal of Supreme Court History, vol. 36, no. 2, 2011, pp. 125–46.
United States, Congress. Report from the Secretary of State, in Compliance with a Resolution of the Senate, Showing the Number of Suits on the Trial Docket of Each of the Circuit Courts of the United States, and the Number of Miles Travel of Each Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. 25th Cong., 3rd sess., S. Doc. 50, 1839. GovInfo, U.S. Government Publishing Office, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-00339_00_00-035-0050-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-00339_00_00-035-0050-0000.pdf. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
United States, Congress. An Act Supplementary to the Act Entitled “An Act to Amend the Judicial System of the United States.” 3 Mar. 1837. United States Statutes at Large, vol. 5, pp. 176–78. GovInfo, U.S. Government Publishing Office, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-5/pdf/STATUTE-5-Pg176.pdf. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
United States Congress. “McKinley, John (1780–1852).” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=M000519. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
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