Article III itself makes no reference to the office of chief justice, to whom the Constitution (in Article I) assigns only one specific duty, that of presiding over a Senate trial in a presidential impeachment. Linda Greenhouse, author of Becoming Justice Blackmun, offers an alternative approach to this question through detailed analysis of the career of Justice Blackmun. The number of justices remained unspecified. Lacking agreement on a role for lower courts, for example, the delegates simply left it to Congress to decide how to structure them. Central provisions of Article III were the product of compromise and, in its fewer than five hundred words, the article left important questions unresolved. Two outstanding examples are Linda Greenhouse’s Becoming Justice Blackmun and Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel’s Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion. Debating and defining the powers of Congress in Article I and of the president in Article II consumed much of the delegates’ attention and energy. Randolph’s resolution “that a national Judiciary be established” passed unanimously.
“The Constitutional Convention quickly agreed to the proposal of Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia for a national government of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.
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