Canton Weekly Register

Sectionalism of the Supreme Court.

A new distribution of the circuits of the
Supreme Court of the United States is demanded, for two sufficient reasons; first, to
equalize the labor of the Judges on the different
circuits, and secondly, to reclaim the
Court from its present sectional control.
The disparity in the circuits is now very
great. The first circuit, Justice Clifford's,
covers Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island
and New Hampshire, with a population of
two and a half millions; the second, Justice
Nelson's, Vermont, Connecticut and
New York, four and a half millions; the
third, Justice Grier's, Pennsylvania and
New Jersey, over three and a half millions;
the seventh, Judge McLean's, Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan and Ohio, over six millions; while the five circuits in the slave
States, with five Justices, cover but seven
and a half millions in all. With less than
half the free white population of the free
States, the slave States have five of the
nine Judges. Texas and Florida in the
South, and California, Oregon, Minnesota
and Wisconsin in the North, are not yet included in any circuit. Reckoning them in,
the disparity becomes still greater. A reconstruction of the circuits is so evidently
demanded by every consideration that
touches the subject, that there should be no
opposition to it. If it had been sooner attended to, the country would have been
saved the disgrace of the Dred Scott manifesto, and the influence of the Court would
never have been given to the support and
nationalization of the slave system.
[Springfield Republican.