Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/147

Rh tions; never present him the jora of promotion; for no influence is more powerful in the human mind than hope — it will, in time, cause some Judges to lay them- selves out for presidential favor, and when questions of State occur, this will greatly aflfect the public confi- dence in them" *

Jay himself was not anxious to accept, since the work of the Court was now becoming more engross- ing, but he finally decided to comply with the Presi- dent's wishes and to assume the new task, and accord- ingly he sailed from New York soon after the close of the Term, in March, 1794.

At the February Term in 1795, but four cases came before the Court. In one, United States v. Judge Lavrrencey 3 Dallas, 42, the relations of this country with France were again involved, when the French Vice-consul, acting in reliance on a treaty, demanded from United States District Judge Lawrence, a war- rant for arrest of the captain of a French frigate who had abandoned his ship.^ Upon failure to obtain the warrant, the Vice-consul persuaded the President to order the Attorney-General to sue out a mandamus. In view of the friction between the two countries at this time arising out of the obnoxious behavior of the French diplomatic oflScials in the United States, Presi- dent Washington's scrupulous observance o( treaty provisions was well illustrated in the opening argu- ment of Attorney-General Bradford. Acknowledging

1 Madison, VI, letter of April 28, 1794 ; Harry Innes Papers M88, letter of John Brown, April 18, 1794. See also King, 1,521-522, diary, April 17, 18, 20, 1794; speech of Calhoun of South Carolina in the debate on the Judiciary Bill in 1802, 7th Cong., 1st Sess. ; Sketch of the Political Prqfile of Three Presidents, by Joseph Hamilton Daviess (1807), see Quarterly Publication of the Historical and PhUo- sophical Society of Ohio (1917), XII. See also an attack on the Jay appointment as "an express violation of our Constitution." Independent Chronicle, May 25, 1795, article by "Franklin", No. IX.

' As to this case, see especially letter of Attorney-General Bradford to the Secretary of State, March 21, 1795, Ops, AUys.-Oen., I, 55.