Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/78

52 It is interesting to note that at the very outset of the new Government, Chief Justice Jay evinced that comprehension of the essential functions of the judicial power of the Court and of its duty never to express its judicial opinion except in a case litigated between parties in due judicial course, which is a fundamental principle of the American frame of government. The question was presented to him in November, 1790, by Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, whether all the branches of the Government ought not to interfere and to assert their opposition to sentiments, which had recently proceeded from the Virginia Legislature and which seemed to Hamilton destructive of the principles of the government under the Constitution. At this time, excitement ran high, both in the Congress and in the Nation, over the projected Federal legislation for assumption of State debts and redemption of the public debt. The Virginia House of Representatives had passed Resolutions terming the latter bill as "dangerous to the rights and subversive of the interest of the people and demands the marked disapproval of the General Government", and denouncing the former bill as "repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, as it goes to the exercise of a power not expressly granted to the General Government." "This is the first symptom, " wrote Hamilton, "of a spirit which must either be killed or it will kill the Constitution of the United States. I send the Resolutions to you that it may be considered what ought to be done. Ought not the collective weight of the different parts of the Government to be employed in exploding the principles they contain? This question arises out of sudden and imdigested thought."