Standing and procedure are essential for the protection of the Constitution

This brief note is in response to comments by representatives for the Trump campaign that maintaining the structure of the law is somehow a dodge. In Federalist 78, Hamilton makes a comprehensive account of the system of courts that we could come to enjoy, even if some of those innovations were decades away. Federalist 80 describes the case for original jurisdiction, which is also fundamentally limited to things like territorial disputes or cases involving foreigners. Federalist 83 makes it explicit that the common law system is what is envisioned by the framers. If you really want to have a good time, papers 78–83 are extensive (Hamilton wrote them) and discuss these concepts at length. I’ll get straight to the point of the implications:

Common law mechanisms are intrinsic to the Constitution.

When writing the Federalist papers the Common Law is overly named and relied upon as textual background. The constitutional structure in article three builds around a system of common law courts with trial by jury. Laches, standing and the like are Constitutional governance.

If you think this is just that liberal Hamilton, this is one of those places where the Anti-Federalists were even more explicit, supporting the same side. In fact, according to Federal Farmer 15 (I guess I am citing these now that Texas did) the only folks objecting to the common law system with trial by jury are, “governed by despotic principles.”