Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/275

 the jurisdiction of the judiciary to all controversies to which the United States are a party, as plaintiff or defendant, by their consent. So far, it is not a matter of implication, but of express provision. But the inquiry is, does it go further, and, by implication, authorize them to make a State a defendant without its consent, in a question or controversy between it and them? It contains not a word or syllable that would warrant such an implication; and any construction which could warrant it, would authorize a State, or an individual, to make the United States a party defendant, in a controversy between them, without their consent.

There is, not only nothing to warrant such construction, but much to show that it is utterly unwarrantable. Nothing, in the first place, short of the strongest implication, is sufficient to authorize a construction, that would deprive a State of a right so important to its sovereignty, as that of not being held amenable to the process of the courts; or to be made a defendant, in any case or controversy whatever, without its consent;—more especially, in one between it and a coequal government, where the effect would necessarily be, to reduce it from an equal to a subordinate station.

It would, in the next place, be contrary to the construction placed on a similar clause in the same section, by an authority higher than that of the judicial, or of any other, or of all the departments of the government taken together. I refer to the last clause, which provides that the judicial power shall extend to controversies, "between a State or