Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/79

Rh Jay replied in cool and restrained language that he considered it inadvisable to take any action. ** Having no apprehension of such measures, what was to be done appeared to me to be a question of some diflBculty as well as importance ; to treat them as very important might render them more so than I think they are. . . . The assumption will do its own work; it will justify itself and not want advocates. Every indecent inter- ference of State Assemblies will diminish their influence ; the National Government has only to do what is right, and, if possible, be silent. If compelled to speak, it should be in few words, strongly evinced of temper, dignity and self-respect."

The next Term of the Court was held in Philadelphia in February, 1791, at the new City Hall which stood east of Independence Hall.^ Again the docket pre- sented no cases for argument; but the session was enlivened by a singular episode in connection with the large number of lawyers who presented themselves for admission to practice. The local Bar had apparently assumed that, since Judge Wilson himself was a Phil- adelphia lawyer and knew them all personally, no insistence would be made by the Court upon the production of certificates of character. To the sur- prise, mortification and anger of many of the learned

1 In the Gazette of the United States, Feb. 4, 1792, it is said that the Court "will meet at the new Court-House in this city." Of these halls, an interesting contemporary description was given by an English traveler. " The State House is appropriated to the use of the legislative bodies of that State. Attached to this edifice are the Congress and the City Halls. In the former, the Congress of the United States meet to transact business. The room allotted to the representatives of the lower house is about sixty feet in length and fitted up in the plainest manner. At one end of it is a gallery, open to every person that chuses to enter it ; the stair- case leading to which runs directly from the public street. The Senate Chamber is in the story above this, and it is furnished and fitted up in a much superior style to that of the Lower House. In the city hall, the Courts of Justice are held, the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as that of the State of Pennsylvania and those of the city." Travels through the States of North America during the Years 1796, 1796, and 1797 (1807), by Isaac Weld, Jr.