IV. THE JUDICIAL RESTRUCTURING OF THE 1800’s

The General Court has “reorganized” the judiciary for political reasons five times.¹¹ In 1813 it was done by the Federalists, in 1816 by the Democratic-Republicans,¹² in 1855 by the Know-Nothings or the American party, in 1874 by the Democrats, and in 1876 again by the Republicans. This sort of judicial upheaval may seem strange to twenty-first century eyes, but under the old New Hampshire order, the people had a right to “throw the bums out” – and this meant sometimes re-fashioning the entire court and not just sending individual justices into retirement. This nineteenth century sentiment is well-captured in an editorial written by United States Senator William Chandler in 1893. Chandler decried that decisions of the Supreme Court “have been bold and indecent assumptions of arbitrary and tyrannical power in defiance of law, from the continuance of which usurpation there is no escape except by the exercise of the people’s right to reconstruct a faithless and worthless bench of judges.”¹³

The early reorganizations which were the fruits of Jeffersonian and Adams feuding—the battle between the Democratic-Republicans versus the Federalists—were perhaps the most dramatic.¹⁴ The 1813 reorganization led by the Federalists saw Jeffersonians attempt to brand the new courts as unconstitutional (despite their own early-purge of Federalist officeholders when President Jefferson was riding high).¹⁵ Some newly jobless Jeffersonian judges did not recognize the authority of the new Supreme Judicial Court and, working with allied sheriffs, seized the courthouses of Rockingham and Hillsborough Counties.¹⁶ The legislature took evasive action and passed bills of address against the sheriffs, one of whom was President Franklin Pierce’s father.¹⁷

When the State’s highest courts were completely “reorganized” the legislature abolished the old courts outright and replaced them with one or more new courts of different names, but with usually the same general jurisdiction.

As a result, the State’s highest court has undergone five changes of name:

1776 until 1813	Superior Court of Judicature
1813 until 1816	Supreme Judicial Court
1816 until 1855	Superior Court of Judicature
1855 until 1874	Supreme Judicial Court
1874 until 1876	Superior Court of Judicature
since 1876	Supreme Court

For forty years there was no high court, rather the justices of the Supreme (Superior) Court presided, individually, at all of the important trials in the state and assembled in Concord during the so-called “law term” to sit en banc and determine all issues of law on appeal.