Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 1989 The Early Role of the Attorney General In Our Constitutional Scheme: In the Beginning There Was Pragmatism Susan Low Bloch Georgetown University Law Center,
[email protected] This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1204 1989 Duke L.J. 561-653 This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Courts Commons, and the Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons THE EARLY ROLE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL IN OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SCHEME: IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS PRAGMATISM SUSAN LOW BLOCH* INTRODUCTION The Office of the Attorney General, created by the First Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789,1 occupies a unique position in our tripartite government. Empowered by Congress, appointed by the President, and required to answer to the judiciary, the Attorney General serves "three masters"2 and often faces a confluence of forces that produces difficult separation of powers issues. Responsible for representing the "interests of the United States,"3 the Attorney General may be pulled in conflicting directions if Congress and the President disagree on the nature of those interests. Occasionally, a frustrated or overwhelmed Attorney General has written an anecdotal article about the complexities of the office, 4 but few • Professor, Georgetown University Law Center; J.D., Ph.D., M.A., University of Michigan; B.A., Smith College. I am very grateful to Professor Maeva Marcus, Director of the Documentary History Project of the Supreme Court, for her informative seminar that both alerted me to the Iredell papers and helped me immerse myself in the history of the 1790s.