Blog Post #2: Supreme Court

    The Supreme Court is the highest federal court in the United States, and its purpose is to uphold and evaluate the constitutionality of laws. The U.S. Constitution originally established the Supreme Court in 1789. Shortly afterward, George Washington signed the Judiciary Act of 1789, specifying the court would consist of six justices. However, over the years, there have been 115 justices who have served on the court. I found this fact surprising due to the premise of serving on the court until you die or retire. 

    Furthermore, upon reading the Supreme Court article, I learned that the number of seats has ranged from a low of five to a high of 10, which contradicts the Judiciary Act of 1789 that specified six seats would be in place. Therefore, the significant change in seat numbers over the years sparked curiosity within me. Therefore, I took it upon myself to further research why the Supreme Court seating would go lower in numbers. As a result, I learned the Judiciary Act of 1801, signed by former president John Adams, reduced the number of Supreme Court seats from six to five. The seat change was believed to have been done to limit his successor's appointments to the court. However, when Thomas Jefferson came into office, he repealed the bill before any changes went into effect. 

    Currently, there are nine supreme court justices due to congress setting the number in 1869. The current Supreme Court justices are John Roberts, Jr., Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Brett M. Kavanaugh, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Neil Gorsuch. It is important to know the names of these justices because their decisions on cases have a lasting impact on the United States. Some examples of important cases are Plessy v. Ferguson, Engel v. Vitale, Mapp v Ohio, and more. The result of these cases has shaped our nation, which speaks to the importance of the Supreme Court.