Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/559

.] will be involved by it. Every man who owes any thing to a subject of Great Britain, or any other nation, is subject to a tribunal that he knew not when he made the contract. Apply this to our citizens. If ever a suit be instituted by a British creditor for a sum which the defendant does not in fact owe, he had better pay it than appeal t9 the federal Supreme Court. Will gentlemen venture to ruin their own citizens? Foreigners may ruin every man in this state by unjust and vexatious suits and appeals. I need only touch it, to remind every gentleman of the danger.

No objection is made to their cognizance of disputes between citizens of the same state, claiming lands under grants of different states.

As to controversies between a state and the citizens of another state, his construction of it is to me perfectly incomprehensible. He says it will seldom happen that a state has such demands on individuals. There is nothing to warrant such an assertion. But he says that the state may be plaintiff only. If gentlemen pervert the most clear expressions, and the usual meaning of the language of the people, there is an end of all argument. What says the paper? That it shall have cognizance of controversies between a state and citizens of another state, without discriminating between plaintiff and defendant. What says the honorable gentleman? The contrary—that the state can only be plaintiff. When the state is debtor, there is no reciprocity. It seems to me that gentlemen may put what construction they please on it. What! is justice to be done to one party, and not to the other? If gentlemen take this liberty now, what will they not do when our rights and liberties are in their power? He said it was necessary to provide a tribunal when the case happened, though it would happen but seldom. The power is necessary, because New York could not, before the war, collect money from Connecticut! The state judiciaries are so degraded that they cannot be trusted. This is a dangerous power which is thus instituted. For what? For things which will seldom happen; and yet, because there is a possibility that the strong, energetic government may want it, it shall be produced and thrown in the general scale of power. I confess I think it dangerous. Is it not the first time, among civilized mankind, that there was a tribunal to try disputes between the aggregate society