Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/92

66 interest during the time the creditors were inaccessible by reason of the war. In this case, the Court adjudged that the statute law of Connecticut enabling the State Courts to add interest in such cases was an infringe- ment of the treaty of peace, and that upon conmion principles interest was recoverable. The learned and ingenious arguments from the bench on this question were highly interesting and gave general satisfaction.*'^ Thus, less than two years after the adoption of the Constitution, and five years before the Court decided the point in the noted case of Ware v. HyUon, the Judges of the Court on Circuit exercised the function of declaring invalid a State law which infringed upon the provisions of a treaty.

Only a year later, the Federal Judiciary again asserted the supremacy of the Federal Government by holding a State statute invalid as in conflict with the Federal Constitution, when in June, 1792, Chief

^ ConnecHetU CourarU, May 9, 1791 ; New Jersey Journal, May 11» 1791 ; Prom- dence Qazette, May 14, 1791 ; New York Journal, May 7, 1791 ; Freeman*s Jour- nal, May 16, 1791 ; MaesachusetU Spy, May 12, 1791.

The Connecticut Courani, May 9, 1791, referred to the decision as "much la- mented by those who wish to defraud their creditors", and to the State statute as having "received its death wound by the adoption of the new Constitution, and hath languished in extreme agony ever since. On Thursday, the 28th inst, the two-edged sword of justice gave its last fatal stroke and it expired without a groan. Numerous spectators beheld its corpse without a smile and hoped that it might never rise again in this world to our shame or in the world to come to our confusion."

A similar decision was given by Judge Iredell in 1792 at a Circuit Court in Sa- vannah, Ga., in the case of Samuel Braileford v. James Spalding, holding the Brit- ish Treaty "had the effect of an express repeal of that part of the State act which created an impediment to recovery of British debts sequestrated" ; Oazette of the United States, May 16, 1792; New York Daily Advertiser, May 17, 1792; United States Chronide, May 81, 1792 ; a similar decision was made by Judge Paterson at a Circuit Court in South Carolina in 1793, in the case of Higginson v. Oreenwood ; The Diary or Loudun*s Register (N. Y.), June 7, 1793. See Amer. State Papers, For, Rel., I, letter oi Jefferson to Hammond, May 9, 1792, as to British debt cases.

Rufus King wrote to Gouvemeur Morris, Sept. 1, 1792 : "The National Judidary, without having been much employed, has been the means of settling a large proportion of our foreign debts. From the Potomack, East, nothing remains to be settled. In South Carolina, where immense simis were due, they are doing well and, in a few years, will be in a very prosperous condition. Virginia will be the kat to do what her own interests required her long since to have performed." King, I.