Constraint, Authority, and the Rule of Law in a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals

Abstract

One hundred and twenty-five years ago, during the little-remembered presidency of Benjamin Harrison, Congress put in place one of the building blocks of our modem legal system. The Evarts Act, signed into law in 1891, created a new Article III federal court for the first time since the ill-fated and short-lived Midnight Judges Act of 1801.