Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/125

Rh While this opposition to the Court's decision was to some extent based on divergencies of political theories as to State sovereignty, the real source of the attack on the Chisholm Case was the very concrete fear of the "numerous prosecutions that will immediately issue from the various claims of refugees, Tories, etc., that will introduce such a series of litigation as will throw every State in the Union into the greatest confusion." In the crucial condition of the finances of most of the States at that time, only disaster was to be expected if suits could be successfully maintained by holders of State issues of paper and other credits, or by Loyalist refugees to recover property confiscated or sequestered by the States; and that this was no theoretical danger was shown by the immediate institution of such suits against the States in South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Massachusetts. In the latter State, Governor John Hancock at once called a special session of the Legislature; and that body, by resolve of Septem-