Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/191

.] compact; others said it was not. From the contrariety of opinions, he thought the thing was either uncommonly difficult, or absolutely unintelligible. He wished to reflect on no gentleman, and apologized for his ignorance, by observing that he never went to school, and had been born blind; but he wished for information, and supposed that every gentleman would consider his desire as laudable.

Mr. MACLAINE first, and then Mr. IREDELL, endeavored to satisfy the gentleman, by a particular explanation of the whole paragraph. It was observed that, if there should be a controversy between this state and the king of France or Spain, it must be decided in the federal court. Or if there should arise a controversy between the French king, or any other foreign power, or one of their subjects or citizens, and one of our citizens, it must be decided there also. The distinction between the words citizen and subject was explained—that the former related to individuals of popular governments, the latter to those of monarchies; as, for instance, a dispute between this state, or a citizen of it, and a person in Holland. The words foreign citizen would properly refer to such persons. If the dispute was between this state and a person in France or Spain, the words foreign subject would apply to this; and all such controversies might be decided in the federal court—that the words citizens or subjects, in that part of the clause, could only apply to foreign citizens or foreign subjects; and another part of the constitution made this plain, by confining disputes, in general, between citizens of the same state, to the single case of their claiming lands under grants of different states.

The last clause of the 2d section under consideration.

Mr. MACLAINE. Mr. Chairman, an objection was made yesterday by a gentleman against this clause, because it confined the trial to the state; and he observed that a person on the Mississippi might be tried in Edenton.

Gentlemen ought to consider that it was impossible for the Convention, when devising a general rule for all the states, to descend to particular districts. The trial by jury is secured generally, by providing that the trial shall be in the state where the crime was committed. It is left to Congress to make such regulations, by law, as will suit the circumstances of each state. It would have been impolitic to fix the mode of proceeding, because it would alter the