MORNING GLORY: DSA Democrats' radical plan to reshape America starts with the Supreme Court

In 1863, as the Civil War raged and its result was not yet certain, Congress for the first time raised the number of justices on the Supreme Court to 10. The Tenth Circuit Act was approved on March 3, 1863. This was done in large part to allow Abraham Lincoln to nominate a strong Unionist justice to the Court, Stephen J. Field, on March 6, 1863. Field was confirmed on March 10, after Congress created a new Supreme Court seat. Three years later, after the Union’s triumph in the war, the assassina