thought it ought to be. His theory made him magnify its powers. He carried his political views, as all judges do, upon the bench. He saw all constitutional questions through their modifying influences.

At the February Term of the Court, 1793, held at Philadelphia, the case of Chisholm vs. Georgia came up for argument. The doctrine of the sovereignty of the States of the Union was, for the first time, brought before the Court, at the suit of a citizen of another State against the State of Georgia. The question raised by the suit for adjudication was whether a State was amenable to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court at the suit of a citizen of another State. Chisholm, a citizen of South Carolina, had brought the suit by serving process on the Governor and the AttorneyGeneral of Georgia. Georgia, not recognizing the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, refused to appear. Thereupon the Attorney-General of the United States moved that, unless Georgia caused her appearance to be entered by the next term, judgment should be rendered against her by default, and a writ of inquiry issued. Georgia, still denying the jurisdiction of the Court, presented, by Mr. Dallas and Mr. Ingersoll, of the bar of Philadelphia, a written protest. In this state of the case, involving a question which determines the character of the polity embodied in the Constitution of the United States, the Court pronounced its judgment. The Chief Justice, looking at the question

through his political theory, considered a State as merely an aggregate of individuals, resting as to suability on the same ground with a corporation; and that, therefore, there was nothing in the character of a State of the Union incompatible with its being sued in a court of law, by a citizen of another State, in an action of assumpsit for the breach of a contract. In this view a majority of the Court concurred, and a judgment was given accordingly at the February Term, 1794, and a writ of inquiry awarded.

A decision so obnoxious to the sense of the people, who had but the other day ratified the Constitution, produced such excitement in the public mind that the matter was taken up by several of the State Legislatures. And to settle the question forever, an amendment was added to the Constitution which declared that the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court should not extend to suits against a State by citizens of another State, or subjects of a foreign State. In obedience to this amendment, the Court, at the February Term, 1798, unanimously determined that no further jurisdiction could be exercised in any case, past or future, wherein a State should be sued by the citizens of another State. The sovereignty of the States was thus declared by the amending power of the Constitution, and then proclaimed by the Supreme Court of the United States. At this time all the departments of the Government were co-operating, under the in

fluence of centralizing doctrines, to reduce the States to the low level of counties.

This amendment of the Constitution rebuked their usurping policy.

Nothing can show more conclusively than this decision, how prone the Federal Government is, in its working, to the usurpation of powers not granted by the Constitution. For even Alexander Hamilton, in the eighty-first number of The Federalist, when it was objected to the ratification of the Constitution that under its provisions a State might be sued by the citizens of another State, scouted the notion as inconsistent with the admitted sovereignty of the States. "It is inherent [said he] in the nature of sovereignty, not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent. This is the general sense and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption, as one of the attributes of sovereignty, is now enjoyed by the government of every State in the Union. Unless, therefore, there is a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention, it will remain with the States, and the danger intimated must be ideal. The circumstances which are necessary to produce an alienation of State sovereignty, were discussed in considering the article of taxation, and need not be repeated here. A recurrence to the principles there established will satisfy us that there is no color to pretend that the State governments would, by the adoption of that plan, be divested of the privilege of pay

ing their own debts in their own way, free from every constraint but that which flows from the obligations of good faith. The contracts between a nation and individuals are only binding on the conscience of the sovereign, and can have no pretension to a compulsive force. They confer no right of action independent of the sovereign will. To what purpose would it be to authorize suits against States for debts they owe? How could recoveries be enforced? It is evident that it could not be done without waging war against the contracting State; and to ascribe to the Federal Courts, by mere implication, and in destruction of a pre-existing right of the State government, a power which would involve such a consequence, would be altogether forced and unwarrantable."

Chief-Justice Jay presided for the last time, at the term of the Supreme Court, in February, 1794. Soon afterwards he was commissioned as Minister to England. He accepted the appointment without vacating his seat on the bench. When he returned to America, in 1795, he had been elected Governor of New York. Thereupon he resigned the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

At no period of his life was the sublime majesty of Washington's character, and his extraordinary administrative ability, more apparent than at this time, when the Government had only begun its working. He had not only to conduct affairs amidst the contentions

of the Federal and Republican parties, but also amidst the strifes and intrigues of the factions of the Federal party. He knew that in his own Cabinet the success of his administration was far from being the only aim of its members. Therefore it was that, with scarcely any intimation to his Cabinet, he appointed John Rutledge, of South Carolina, to the office of Chief Justice, immediately upon the resignation of Jay. Rutledge was one of the leading minds of that age of great men. His courage and administrative ability, as Governor of South Carolina, contributed, in an eminent degree, to the success of the American arms in expelling the British from the South. His eloquence, together with his genius for organization, as a member of the convention which framed the Federal Constitution, was of signal service. He had, perhaps, the wisest view of what should be the function of the judiciary in the Federal Government, of any member of the convention. His cardinal idea was that "the judges ought never to give their opinion on a law till it comes before them." This view was adopted in opposition to that of Mr. Madison and others who proposed that the supreme national judiciary should be associated with the executive in the revisionary power. Such was his recognized ability, that he was made the chairman of the committee which reported the first draft of the Federal Constitution. He had held high judicial stations in his own State; and had