Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/171

Rh Justice Jay and Judges Iredell and Griffin.^ Amongst the counsel appearing for the British creditors had been the then leader of the Virginia Bar, John Wickham, and for the State and the debtors, the aged Patrick Henry. In the Supreme Court, Edward Tilghman, Alexander Willcocks, and William Lewis of Philadelphia appeared for the creditors against John Marshall and Alexander Campbell; and it is interesting to note that Marshall, in arguing against the binding force of the treaty over the State legislation, referred to "those who wish to impair the sovereignty of Virginia", thus employing the very phrase which the ardent State-Rights adherents used so frequently in after years in attacking his own decisions as Chief Justice. Of Marshall's argument (his only one in the Court) William Wirt, who was present, wrote : "Marshall spoke as he always does, to the judgment merely, and for the simple purpose of convincing. Marshall was justly pronounced one of the greatest men of the country. He was followed by crowds, looked upon and courted

^ In the (hfural Advertiser, June 15, 1798, a letter from Richmond, dated June 7, laid: "The Federal Judges have this day delivered their opinions upon the great qnettion of British debts which was unanimous for the payment. Griffin and Iieddl were for substituting the payments of paper money into the Treasury ; Jay was of a contrary opinion, and the latter gave one of the most able opinions I ever heard delivered — and to disinterested persons the most satisfactory and condusive." In the National Oazette, July 3, 1793, a letter from Richmond said that the town "is full of patriots, and no enemy to the French Revolution among them dares to open his mouth to vent his i>estiiferous principles. Judges Jay and IredeO have finished the discussion on the payment of the old British debts in favour of the British." In An Address to the People of the United States with an Epitome and Vindioation qf the PMio Life and Character of Thomas J person (Worcester, Mass., 1802), an account is given of trials in the Federal Court of a case brought by British creditors against Thomas Jefferson as executor of the estate of a Mr. Wayles, and in which General John Marshall and Bushrod Washington appeared for the executors. In this account, it is stated that Jefferson's right to the payment of the d^t into the Virginia State Treasury under the Virginia statute "was so dl founded that it received the sanction of a Circuit Court ; and although that decision was afterwards reversed by the Supreme Court, everybody who attended on the Court will recollect that impressive argument of Mr. Marshall ... in support of the decision of the Circuit Court and it will remain a doubt whether it ou^t not to have been affirmed.*'