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146 with every evidence of admiration and respect for the great powers of his mind. Campbell was neglected and slighted and came home in disgust. Marshall's maxim seems always to have been *Aim exclusively at strength/ "' Of his reception and first acquaintance in Philadelphia, on this initial appearance before the Court, Marshall himself wrote: "I then became ac- quainted with Mr. (George) Cabot, Mr. (Fisher) Ames, Mr. (Samuel) Dexter, Mr. Sedgwick of Massachusetts, Mr. (Jeremiah) Wadsworth of Connecticut, Mr. (Ruf us) King of New York. I was delighted with these gentlemen. The particular subject (the British Treaty) which introduced me to their notice, was at that time so interesting, and a Virginian who supported with any sort of reputation the measures of the government was such a rara atds, that I was received by them all with a degree of kindness which I had not anticipated.*' ^ While the Court was gravely impressed with "the uncommon magnitude of the subject, its novelty, the high expectation it has excited and the consequences with which a decision may be attended'' (in the words of Judge Iredell), it found little difficulty in reaching a conclusion ; and within two weeks after the argument, four Judges then sitting (Paterson, Cushing, Wilson and Chase) concurred in declaring that the British treaty provisions must prevail over any State laws, that the British creditors were entitled to recover, and in general that a treaty so far as it is compatible with the Constitution supersedes all State laws which dero- gate from its provisions. Thus was settled forever one of the fundamental doctrines of American law. On the day after the decision of this momentous case, the Court rendered its opinion in a case of even greater import in the history of the law, Hylton v. United States,

I See Oration of Wiiliam Emry RawU, May 10, 1884» 112 U. S. App. 768.