Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/90

64 refused to obey, and the marshal did not execute his precept," wrote Fisher Ames, describing the episode. "The State Judges, knowing the angry state of the Assembly, wrote a letter of complaint representing the affair. Whether the United States Judges have kept within legal bounds is doubted. I should be sorry for an error of so serious a kind, and under such unlucky circumstances." ^ As early as 1792, many men in all parts of the coimtry believed that State jealousies were certain to destroy the new Government. A Virginia correspondent wrote to Alexander Hamilton : "The operation of the Government has by no means ^ been pleasing to the people of this country. On the contrary, the friends to it are daily decreasing. Some of the highest in rank and ability among us and who supported it in our convention are now extremely dissatisfied and loud in abusing its measures; while some others of equal fame only express their chagrin and disappointment in private." Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts wrote: "I fear the National Government has seen its best days. The distance at which it stands removed from the affections of the great bulk of the people ; the opposition of so many great, proud and jealous sovereignties ; the undistinguished, perhaps indistinguishable, boundary between National

^ Works of Fisher Ames (1854), I, letter of Jan. 6, 1791. Reference to this episode was made by Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina in a speech in the House of Representatives in 1802: "We have heard much about the Judges and the necessity of their independence. Soon after the establishment of the Federal Court, they issued a writ ... to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, directing a case then pending in the State Court to be brought into the Federal Court. The State Judges refused to obey the summons and laid the whole proceedings before the Legislature, who approved their conduct.'* 7ik Cong., 1st Sess., 711. John Sitgreaves wrote to Judge Ireddl, Aug. 2, 1791 : " With respect to the certiorari, Mr. Hamilton informed Judge Blair and myself that Mr. [Robert] Morris has desired him not to urge it further; that as he was a Member of the Legislature of the United States, from motives of delicacy, he would rather the cause should be proceeded on in the State Courts. If this should be done, I suppose the question, so far as it relates to the authority of the Courts will be suffered to sleep." Iredell, II, 333.