Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801 is the first of twelve volumes in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States. In this first volume, Julius Goebel Jr. details the creation of a national judiciary in the United States under the Act of 1789 and traces the Supreme Court's development through its first decade of existence. The book is organized into three parts. The first part describes the background of American constitutionalism. Goebel then goes on to depict the Constitutional Convention, the ensuing debate over ratification, and the framing of the Bill of Rights. In the final part of the book, he explains how early legislation affected the judiciary and the initial experience of the circuit courts and of the Supreme Court. These three parts are divided into seventeen chapters, together with a statistical analysis of the business of the Supreme Court from 1789 to 1801 and substantial notes on manuscript sources.