Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/565

.] more anxious to discharge my duty than to increase my power.

The impossibility of calling a sovereign state before the jurisdiction of another sovereign state, shows the propriety and necessity of vesting this tribunal with the decision of controversies to which a state shall be a party.

But the principal objection of that honorable gentleman was, that jurisdiction was given it in disputes between citizens of different states. I think, in general, those decisions might be left to the state tribunals; especially as citizens of one state are declared to be citizens of all. I think it will, in general, be so left by the regulations of Congress. But may no case happen in which it may be proper to give the federal courts jurisdiction in such a dispute? Suppose a bond given by a citizen of Rhode Island to one of our citizens. The regulations of that state being unfavorable to the claims of the other states, if he is obliged to go to Rhode Island to recover it, he will be obliged to accept payment of one third, or less, of his money. He cannot sue in the Supreme Court, but he may sue in the federal inferior court; and on judgment to be paid one for ten, he may get justice by appeal. Is it an eligible situation? Is it just that a man should run the risk of losing nine tenths of his claim? Ought he not to be able to carry it to that court where unworthy principles do not prevail? Paper money and tender laws may be passed in other states, in opposition to the federal principle, and restriction of this Constitution, and will need jurisdiction in the federal judiciary, to stop its pernicious effects.

Where is the danger, in the case put, of malice producing an assignment of a bond to a citizen of a neighboring state—Maryland? I have before supposed that there would be an inferior federal court in every state. Now, this citizen of Maryland, to whom this bond is assigned, cannot sue out process from the supreme federal court to carry his debtor thither. He cannot carry him to Maryland. He must sue him in the inferior federal court in Virginia. He can only go farther by appeal. The creditor cannot appeal. He gets a judgment. An appeal can be had only on application of the defendant, who thus gains a privilege instead of an injury; so that the observation of the honorable gentleman is not well founded. It was said by the honorable