Next year, July 4, 2026, our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary. It’s a time to reflect and a time to ‘reboot’. Things have gotten out of hand such as the U.S. Supreme Court managing to wriggle out of our founding fathers directive that they not be given their own building, but rather be put to ‘riding the circuit’ holding court in the major cities of the country (which would have been Philadelphia, New York, Boston, etc.
They gave the chief executive the White House. They gave the Congress the Capitol Building. They gave the Supreme Court a stage coach with which to ride the circuit.
Let’s imagine we could go back in time 250 years and stand in the back of Convention Hall where George Washington was presiding, and listen in as Benjamin Franklin rose to his feet and asked permission to speak.
“Mr. President, the small progress we have made after four or five weeks’ close attendance and continual reasonings with each other, our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many Noes as Ayes–is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding.
We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examin’d the different forms of those republicks which, having been originally formed with the Seeds of their own Dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have view’d modern states all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our Circumstances.
In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find Political Truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our Understandings?…. “ (Speech of Benjamin Franklin on the Convention floor, May 25, 1787, in the State House in Pennsylvania)
No action was taken on Franklin’s unique proposal, but within 3 weeks the deadlock was broken, the Constitution was adopted and submitted to the 13 states for ratification.
In the process of earnestly seeking, and even praying for wisdom, surely the suggestion came up of providing a building for the 3rd branch of government (the judicial). If the suggestion of a building did come up, it was struck down. Why? Why was the U.S. Supreme Court given a stage coach to ride the circuit and not furnished with their own building? Going back to ancient history for models of government and examining the different forms of those republics, they ran across the abuse of courts once they were allowed to consolidate their power. Courts need a building in which to consolidate their power, and the bigger and more impressive the building, the more powerful the court becomes. What’s the expression? “Egos expand to fill the building space allotted to them.” The kings of Europe competed with one another by the impressive size of their palaces. The palace of the kings of France was turned into a museum after the French Revolution. We know it today as the Louvre. Anyone who has ever visited the Louvre feels at once its impressive size and the impression it made on visiting dignitaries.
No, the Supreme Court was never ever to have its own building, especially one of the impressive proportions of the marble kingly palace known as the U.S. Supreme Court building today.
President Taft, our nation’s only chief executive to also serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (he said he did the presidency for his wife, but his love was with the court on which he served after his presidency), lobbied the Congress to give him his own building. Construction was begun in 1933 at the height of the depression (a ‘make work’ project for many men). Before that the Supreme Court met in the old Senate chamber of the Capitol, and before that they met as a court in a dark file room lit only by kerosene lights directly beneath the floor of the Senate. After begging the Congress to allow them to quit circuit riding (Chief Judge Marshall said by the time they got to Philadelphia or New York, they were so covered with dust and their boots caked with mud from getting out of the coach to help push it out of mud ruts that they could barely come up with a quorum to hold court.
The Congress relented and allowed them this vacant space in an old file room. Curiously, they were, both figuratively and literally, beneath the people (their representatives in the Senate above). The message was that they were to remain the servants of the people (as when they rode the circuit) – beneath the people, not lording it over them. This original Supreme Court chamber has been completely restored and high school students tour it today. When I accompanied such a tour myself, the tour guide stood in the middle of the room, pointed to the ceiling, and said, “If you were to break a hole in the center of this ceiling, you would come up on the floor of the old Senate chamber.”
The President is excited about and already planning for the 250th anniversary next year. A 3 step process would restore the original vision of our founding fathers for the Supreme Court:
1. By executive order, the president would require the Supreme Court to forego their customary 3 month summer vacation (a luxury they simply gave themselves in the past). It is an anachronism of the past going back to the days before air conditioning. Just as the Speaker of the House and the Speaker of the Senate have the power over their respective bodies to keep them in session until a necessary bill is passed, the president has the authority to keep the Supreme Court in session, and this summer, of all summers, they need to be ordered to remain at their duty posts by executive order.
Tempers are flaring in the nation over this business of lesser federal courts trying to usurp the mandate 70 million Americans gave the chief executive to reverse this process of illegal criminal migration into our country.
The Supreme Court would not dare to defy or ignore the president’s executive order. Courts only get and retain their authority by keeping the respect of the people. By attempting to defy an executive order keeping them in town and canceling their three month vacation, they would be saying to the people, “We are more important than you. We work harder than you. We deserve 3 months off which we gave ourselves years ago, and we intend to keep it.” Yes, they work hard, but tell that to a steel worker, or a farmer, that they work harder than him. Tell that to the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the taxpayers who put their direct deposits into the judge’s accounts and can barely squeeze out one or at the most two weeks vacation for themselves and their own families.
2. Next, the president by executive order puts the court back to riding the circuit commencing January 1, 2026. The Supreme Court building would be closed to business and the judges will be put to ‘riding the circuit’ using jet planes instead of a stage coach.
Curiously, and coincidentally (and perhaps Providentially), there are 12 federal judicial circuits in the nation – one for each month of the year. One at a time, beginning with the first federal judicial circuit, they would sit the month of January in the court of appeals building for that circuit, moving to the 2nd circuit in February.
The 12 federal judicial circuits and the towns in which the federal court of appeals for each circuit is located are as follows:
January – First Circuit Court of Appeals – John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts.
February – Second Circuit Court of Appeals – Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in lower Manhattan, New York City
March – Third Circuit Court of Appeals – James A. Byrne United States Courthouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
April – Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals – Lewis F. Powell, Jr. United States Courthouse in Richmond, Virginia – April
May – Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals – John Minor Wisdom U.S. Court of Appeals Building in New Orleans, Louisiana
June – Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals – Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse in Cincinnati, Ohio
July – Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals – Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse located in Chicago, Illinois
August – Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals – Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse, located in St. Louis, Missouri
September – Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – James R. Browning U.S. Courthouse, located in San Francisco, California
October – Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals – Byron White U.S. Courthouse in Denver, Colorado
November – Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals – Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Court of Appeals Building located in Atlanta, Georgia
December – District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C.; 333 Constitution Avenue, NW
Each month, the Supreme Court continues to ‘ride the circuit’ (not unlike the judges of the wild west days who would go from town to town to hold court – sometimes in a saloon to try some horse thief).
The Supreme Court judges will be coming together and hearing and deciding cases just as they always have (they choose less than 100 a year out of approximately 10,000 petitions for certiorari (appeal) they receive.
If a case they have chosen for review happens to have originated in the circuit in which they are sitting, they can set that case in for oral argument. They would have opportunity to have lunch with and rub elbows with the federal court of appeals judges who themselves had heard and decided the same case, and it worked its way up on appeal to the Supreme Court. They are more familiar with local matters and could educate the Supreme Court judges thereon such as “Is it a water rights case? Is a damn depriving the agricultural community of necessary water to raise its crops? Where is it all located? How did it come about? What are the rights of the farmers? What are the rights of those who built the damn for hydroelectric power, or for recreational lakes?”
They would be put to work ‘riding the circuit’ by executive order for the next four years. No more 3 month vacation – that has been canceled. They can alternate taking a one week vacation only during the year for which they would be absent from the bench for the oral arguments which the other eight judges would hear.
If Vice President Vance follows President Trump, the Supreme Court would have its marching orders for the next 12 years. They are feeling the power of the presidency (the power of 70 million people who put him in office). The vote is 70 million to 9. Who wins?
The Constitution says that the Supreme Court judges are appointed for life and subject to the advice and consent of the Senate and they cannot have their salaries reduced during their tenure. The Constitution says nothing about a 3 month vacation.
3. Finally, on July 4th, 2026, the president by executive order, restores the vision of our founding fathers by razing the current Supreme Court building to prevent a future president from running with a campaign promise of restoring the judges to the old Supreme Court Building and releasing them from the obligation of riding the circuit.
Finally, there comes to mind for me, when Ronald Reagan, prior to his second inaugural let it be known through Paul Harvey News that when he took his oath of office for his second term, his hand would be placed upon his mother’s Bible opened to 2 Chronicles 7:14 because he thought it was the message to our nation at this time:
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
(2 Chronicles 7:14)
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