Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/542

526 superior court. Every fact proved with respect to these, in the court below, may be revived in the superior court. But this appellate jurisdiction is to be under the regulations of Congress. What these regulations may be, God only knows.

Their jurisdiction further extends to controversies between citizens of different states. Can we not trust our state courts with the decision of these? If I have a controversy with a man in Maryland,—if a man in Maryland has my bond for a hundred pounds,—are not the state courts competent to try it? Is it suspected that they would enforce the payment if unjust, or refuse to enforce it if just? The very idea is ridiculous. What! carry me a thousand miles from home—from my family and business—to where, perhaps, it will be impossible for me to prove that I paid it? Perhaps I have a respectable witness who saw me pay the money; but I must carry him one thousand miles to prove it, or be compelled to pay it again. Is there any necessity for this power? It ought to have no unnecessary or dangerous power. Why should the federal courts have this cognizance? Is it because one lives on one side of the Potomac, and the other on the other? Suppose I have your bond for a thousand pounds: if I have any wish to harass you, or if I be of a litigious disposition, I have only to assign it to a gentleman in Maryland. This assignment will involve you in trouble and expense. What effect will this power have between British creditors and the citizens of this state? This is a ground on which I shall speak with confidence. Every one, who heard me speak on the subject, knows that I always spoke for the payment of the British debts. I wish every honest debt to be paid. Though I would wish to pay the British creditor, yet I would not put it in his power to gratify private malice to our injury. Let me be put right if I be mistaken; but there is not, in my opinion, a single British creditor but can bring his debtors to the federal court.

There are a thousand instances where debts have been paid, and yet must, by this appellate cognizance, be paid again. Are these imaginary cases? Are they only possible cases, or are they certain and inevitable? "To controversies between a state and the citizens of another state." How will their jurisdiction in this case do? Let gentlemen look at the westward. Claims respecting those lands, every liquidated account, or other claim against this state, will be tried