maeva marcus all proper occasions, and in every proper manner their high respect for the national legislature, they will execute this act in the capacity of Commissioners.”26 In New York, the judges offered their views on the Invalid Pensions Act before any invalid appeared before the court, and the judges making up the circuit court for the North Carolina district, Justice James Iredell and Judge John Sitgreaves, two months later did the same thing. No war veteran having lodged a claim with the court, the North Carolina judges took it upon themselves to write to President Washington to inform him of their belief that the act was unconstitutional, although they entertained “some doubts as to the propriety of giving an opinion in a case which has not yet come regularly and judicially before us.”They reserved judgment on the question of whether they would undertake the pension duties as commissioners.27 Thus, the judges of these two circuit courts gave advisory opinions on an issue that was sure to come before them at the Supreme Court. In a very short time, the justices did have to grapple with the question as a court of last resort. At the August 1792 term of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General of the United States, Edmund Randolph, as counsel for William Hayburn, asked the Court to issue a mandamus to the circuit court for the Pennsylvania district directing it to proceed on Hayburn’s petition to be put on the pension list. The gist of Randolph’s argument in favor of the constitutionality of the Invalid Pensions Act seemed to be that the Court had the power of judicial review, but that this was the wrong occasion on which to exercise it. The humanitarian purpose of the act trumped its validity. After some discussion among the justices, the Court announced that it would not rule on the Attorney General’s motion until the February 1793 term of court.28 26 Extract from the Minutes of the United States Circuit Court for the District of New York, April 5, 1792, in Marcus, Maeva 1998 pp. 370-71. 27 James Iredell and John Sitgreaves to George Washington, June 8, 1792, in Marcus, Maeva 1998 pp. 284-88. The letter is printed as an unnumbered footnote inU. S. Reports (2 Dallas), vol. 2, pp. 412-14. 28 Minutes of the Supreme Court of the United States, August 11, 1792, in Marcus, Maeva – Perry, James 1985 p. 206. Edmund Randolph to James Madison, August 12, 1792, in Marcus, Maeva 1998 pp. 67-68. For adiscussion of the difficulties encountered by Randolph in mo203
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=