Georgia. The State of Georgia applied to be admitted to assert her claim, but was refused, and judgment passed for the plaintiffs. The State now filed a bill in equity and moved that an injunction might issue to stay further proceedings in the Circuit Court, and also to the Marshal of the Georgia district to stay money levied on any execution that might have come to his hands.

This motion was made and argued by Alexander J. Dallas, of Pennsylvania,* one of the most eminent, as he was decidedly one of the most accomplished and able lawyers of that day, and was opposed by the Attorney-General, Mr. Randolph. The Court, after argument, delivered their opinions seriatim.

Justice Johnson was of the opinion that if the State had a right to the debt in question, it might be enforced at common law, and that an injunction should not issue. Justice Cushing was of a similar opinion. On the other hand, Justices Blair, Iredell, and Wilson, thought that a temporary injunction should issue till the Court should be enabled by a full inquiry to decide upon the whole merits of the case; though the latter was inclined to think that the more proper course would have been for Georgia to have sued out a writ of error, rather than have asked for an injunction. In these views the Chief-Justice concurred, and accordingly an injunction issued.

* ALEXANDER J. DALLAS was a native of the Island of Jamaica, and born on the 1st day of June, 1759. He was educated in Europe, and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1783. Two years after his arrival he was admitted to the bar. In a few years he acquired a distinguished reputation as a lawyer; and on the organization of the Federal judiciary we find him engaged in nearly all the important causes in the Supreme Court, and the criminal trials of these days. Mr. Dallas was several years Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He published the four volumes of the Reports which bear his name, containing the earlier decisions of the Pennsylvania and the Federal Courts. He also published an edition of the laws of Pennsylvania, which he illustrated with notes and refer

ences.

In 1801 Mr. Dallas was appointed by Mr. Jefferson District Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and in 1808 he was invited to a place in the Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury. He continued in the Cabinet until 1816, a part of which time he performed the duties of Secretary of War. Returning again to the bar, on his resignation of this office, he resumed an extensive and brilliant practice, which was, however, interrupted the next year by an untimely death. He died on the 16th January, 1817, in the 58th year of his age.

At the following term, February, 1793, the case was again brought before the Court on a motion by the Attorney-General to dissolve the injunction and dismiss the bill. Justices Iredell and Blair were still of opinion that the injunction ought to be sustained, but the rest of the Court coincided in the opinion delivered by the ChiefJustice that if Georgia had a right to the debt, it was a right to be pursued at common law, and it was ordered that the injunction should stand until the next term, when it would be dissolved, unless Georgia instituted her action at common law. An amicable action was accordingly entered, in which an issue was made up whether the debt and the right of action belonged to the State of Georgia, or to the original creditors. This issue was brought to trial before a jury at the February term, 1794. The question was argued with great ability, and learning, by Dallas and Ingersoll for the State, and by William Bradford, who had been appointed Attorney-General in place of Randolph, for the defendants. The cause went to the jury under the charge of the Chief-Justice, who declared it as the unanimous opinion of the Judges, that the act of Georgia did not vest the debt in the State at the time of passing it; that it was subjected not to confiscation, but only to sequestration, and the owner's right to recover it revived at the peace. The jury, under this charge, of course, returned a verdict against the State, and the injunction was accordingly dissolved.*

At the February term of the Court, 1793, held at Philadelphia, the celebrated case of Chisholm Executors vs. Georgia, was brought on for argument. This great case excited an unusual degree of attention, both on account of the novelty of the questions raised, and the important political consequences that were supposed to be involved in the decision. The doctrine of State sovereignty, and State rights, was for the first time brought before the Court, for discussion. The question was, whether a state was amenable to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, at the suit of a citizen of another state, a question which might, in the language of Judge Wilson, ultimately resolve itself into another no less radical than this, "Do the United States constitute a nation?" Chisholm, a citizen of South Carolina,

* See this case reported, 2 Dallas, 403, 415. 3 Dallas, 1.

† 2 Dallas, 419.

had brought an action against the State of Georgia by service of process upon the Governor and Attorney-General of that State. Georgia refused to appear, and now 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 issue. No case of a similar kind had yet been regularly brought before the Court for adjudication. In a case against Maryland, the Attorney-General of the State had voluntarily appeared. In a case against the State of New York a motion had been made to compel an appearance on the part of the State, but while the Court held the motion under advisement the suit had been discontinued.* The question was now brought up on the motion of Mr. Randolph, the Attorney-General, who delivered a lucid and most masterly argument, the analysis of which, gives us the highest opinion of the forensic talents, and profound legal attainments of that gentleman. The State of Georgia refused to recognize the jurisdiction even so far as to appear upon the argument, but presented by Mr. Dallas and Mr. Ingersoll, an eminent lawyer of the Philadelphia bar,t a written remonstrance and protestation on behalf of the State. Under these circumstances this important question was considered by the Judges, who, after advisement and careful deliberation, pronounced their opinions seriatim.

* Oswald vs. State of New York, 2 Dall. 401. But see same case, 2 Dall. 415, where default against the State was ordered to be taken at the next term, unless appearance was entered.

† JARED INGERSOLL was at that time Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, a post which he held from 1791 to 1800, and again from 1811 to 1816. He was born in New Haven in 1750, was educated to the bar, and in 1773 was sent to London to complete his education at the Temple. Mr. Ingersoll left England after the Declaration of Independence, and went to France, where he remained for some time, after which he returned to Philadelphia to the practice of the law. His success was immediate, and he was soon at the head of his profession, " in the midst," says a judicious writer, "of the well-known formidable competition of a day when the bar of Philadelphia by concession led the Union, and gave birth to a proverb which has been handed down to present times." Mr. Ingersoll declined the place offered him of Judge, on the organization of the Circuit Court, for New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, in 1801. He presided, however, for a short time preceding his death, in the District Court at Philadelphia. In 1812 Mr. Ingersoll was a candidate for Vice-President. He died in 1822, at the age of seventy,

The opinion of the Chief-Justice in this case, is by far the most elaborate, perhaps the most able, delivered by him while on the bench. It occupies over ten pages of the printed report of the case. He makes no reference to cases, for the reason given by him that he knows of none which are not distinguishable from this case. Unlike the learned, and somewhat scholastic opinion of his associate, Justice Wilson, in the same case, he does not attempt an analysis and comparison of other forms of government and social institutions, nor does he undertake to discuss the opinions of writers on government, and the rights of man, or show the harmony of their views with the principles which governed his own judgment. He discusses the question purely as a practical, constitutional question; he examines it in three separate propositions. 1st, In what sense Georgia is a sovereign State? 2d, Whether suability is compatible with such sovereignty? 3d, Whether the Constitution authorizes such an action against her? To the first proposition he applies those strong federal views and ideas of nationality, which he was always known to entertain, going to the very opposite extreme of the doctrine of state rights and state sovereignty. A corporation was an aggregate of individuals, and so was a state. The citizens of Philadelphia, numbering forty thousand, in their corporate capacity, were suable by a single citizen, and there was no reason why the fifty thousand citizens, of Delaware should not be. He distinguishes, it is true, between the case of a suit against the United States, and a suit against a state, because the national courts being supported by the arm of the Executive power of the United States, that power could not be exercised against itself. The sovereignty of Georgia was therefore not absolute, but subordinate to the nationality of the United States. There was nothing incompatible with such sovereignty, in a public arraignment in a court of law at the suit of a citizen of another state, in an action of assumpit for the breach of a contract; and moreover, the Constitution, to which Georgia had acceded, authorized such a suit.*

*In reference to this decision Chancellor Kent observes in his commentaries: "It is a little remarkable that the Court, in one of its earliest decisions, should have assumed a jurisdiction which the authors of the Federalist had a few years before declared to be without a color of foundation.

These views were not concurred in by Judge Iredell, who delivered a dissenting opinion. That able jurist considered the question also in a Constitutional point of view, and as a question of strict construction. With great force of reasoning, and admirable precision and clearness of illustration, he analyzed the argument of the Attorney-General, and arrived at exactly the opposite conclusion. His opinion was, that no part of the existing law applied to this case ; and even if the Constitution would admit of the exercise of such a power, a new law was necessary to carry the power into effect, and that assumpsit at the suit of a citizen would not lie against a state. One can scarcely arise from a careful perusal of this able opinion without being sensibly impressed with the force of the reasoning of the learned Judge, and the accuracy of his deductions ;-lucid, logical, compact, comprehensive, it certainly compares very favorably with that of the Chief-Justice, in every respect, and as a mere legal argument must be admitted to be far superior.* The majority of the Court, however, concurred with the Chief-Justice and granted the motion.

This decision created much excitement in the public mind at the time. The subject was at once brought before several of the State Legislatures, and an amendment of the Constitution proposed.

* JUDGE IREDELL may be regarded as one of the ablest of the many distinguished jurists who have graced the bench of the Supreme Court. He had been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of the State of North Carolina, and was appointed to the Bench of the Supreme Court, in place of Mr. Harrison of Maryland, one of the originally commissioned judges, who declined. As a constitutional lawyer, Judge Iredell had no superior upon the bench. His judicial opinions are marked by great vigor of thought, clearness of argument, and force of expression. He did not always concur with the majorityof his brethren in their constitutional constructions, and on such occasions rarely failed to sustain his positions by the strictest legal, as well as logical deductions. In the interesting case of Ware vs. Hylton, 3 Dallas 199-(referred to in sketch of Ch. J. Marshall)—his dissenting opinion exhibits uncommon research, learning and ability. As a legal argument it may be regarded as one of the best specimens that have been preserved of the old Supreme Court. In the case of Wilson vs. Daniels, 3 Dallas 401, (referred to in the subsequent sketch of Chief-Justice Ellsworth,) he also dissented, and his views relative to jurisdiction on a writ of error were subsequently adopted by the Court overruling the prevailing opinion in that case. Judge Iredell died in 1799, and was succeeded by Hon. Alfred Moore of North Carolina.