fluence of centralizing doctrines, to reduce the States to the low level of counties. This amendment of the Constitution rebuked their usurping policy.

Nothing can show more conclusively than this decision, how prone the Federal Government is, in its working, to the usurpation of powers not granted by the Constitution. For even Alexander Hamilton, in the eighty-first number of The Federalist, when it was objected to the ratification of the Constitution that under its provisions a State might be sued by the citizens of another State, scouted the notion as inconsistent with the admitted sovereignty of the States. "It is inherent [said he] in the nature of sovereignty, not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent. This is the general sense and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption, as one of the attributes of sovereignty, is now enjoyed by the government of every State in the Union. Unless, therefore, there is a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention, it will remain with the States, and the danger intimated must be ideal. The circumstances which are necessary to produce an alienation of State sovereignty, were discussed in considering the article of taxation, and need not be repeated here. A recurrence to the principles there established will satisfy us that there is no color to pretend that the State governments would, by the adoption of that plan, be divested of the privilege of pay

ing their own debts in their own way, free from every constraint but that which flows from the obligations of good faith. The contracts between a nation and individuals are only binding on the conscience of the sovereign, and can have no pretension to a compulsive force. They confer no right of action independent of the sovereign will. To what purpose would it be to authorize suits against States for debts they owe? How could recoveries be enforced? It is evident that it could not be done without waging war against the contracting State; and to ascribe to the Federal Courts, by mere implication, and in destruction of a pre-existing right of the State government, a power which would involve such a consequence, would be altogether forced and unwarrantable."

Chief-Justice Jay presided for the last time, at the term of the Supreme Court, in February, 1794. Soon afterwards he was commissioned as Minister to England. He accepted the appointment without vacating his seat on the bench. When he returned to America, in 1795, he had been elected Governor of New York. Thereupon he resigned the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

At no period of his life was the sublime majesty of Washington's character, and his extraordinary administrative ability, more apparent than at this time, when the Government had only begun its working. He had not only to conduct affairs amidst the contentions

of the Federal and Republican parties, but also amidst the strifes and intrigues of the factions of the Federal party. He knew that in his own Cabinet the success of his administration was far from being the only aim of its members. Therefore it was that, with scarcely any intimation to his Cabinet, he appointed John Rutledge, of South Carolina, to the office of Chief Justice, immediately upon the resignation of Jay. Rutledge was one of the leading minds of that age of great men. His courage and administrative ability, as Governor of South Carolina, contributed, in an eminent degree, to the success of the American arms in expelling the British from the South. His eloquence, together with his genius for organization, as a member of the convention which framed the Federal Constitution, was of signal service. He had, perhaps, the wisest view of what should be the function of the judiciary in the Federal Government, of any member of the convention. His cardinal idea was that "the judges ought never to give their opinion on a law till it comes before them." This view was adopted in opposition to that of Mr. Madison and others who proposed that the supreme national judiciary should be associated with the executive in the revisionary power. Such was his recognized ability, that he was made the chairman of the committee which reported the first draft of the Federal Constitution. He had held high judicial stations in his own State; and had

been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was, too, of the Federal party. But because he had, in common with other Federalists of the South, opposed the ratification of the treaty which Chief-Justice Jay had negotiated with Great Britain, he was denounced by Washington's own Secretary of the Treasury, Wolcott, as a "driveller and a fool." Having been appointed during the recess of Congress, his nomination was rejected by his own party in the Senate. Marshall, in his Life of Washington, speaks of him as "a gentleman of great talents and decision." He presided one term in the Supreme Court.

The class of Federalists who had defeated the nomination of Rutledge were held together not only by the cohesive force of party aims, but by personal ambition for power, and would have taken the reins of government out of the hands of Washington, as they afterwards did out of the hands of Adams, had it not been for his great faculty for rule. Yet Washington, notwithstanding he was well aware that they had other aims than the success of his administration, and that they reproached him in secret, selected one of their class, because he was not blind to his fitness, and appointed him to succeed Chief-Justice Rutledge. This was Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut. He was Senator from his State, and had voted against the nomination of Rutledge.

Chief Justice Ellsworth was among the most moderate of the class of Federalists to which he belonged, and brought to the bench the eminent qualifications of extensive judicial experience in the Courts of his State. His nomination was not dictated to Washington, but was the result of his administrative wisdom in selecting officers in every department of Government. His imperial eye penetrated character in all classes of men.

Ellsworth had been a member of the convention which framed the Constitution; and was a strenuous advocate for preserving the identity and sovereignty of the States. "What we wanted [said he] was domestic happiness. The national Government could not descend to the local objects on which this depended. It could only embrace objects of a general nature. He turned his eyes, therefore, for the preservation of their rights, to the State governments. From them alone he could derive the greatest happiness he expected in this life. His happiness depended on their existence as much as a new-born infant on its mother for nourishment." It was by his exertions as much as by those of any member, that the identity and sovereignty of the States were preserved in the Federal Government. He opposed with especial hostility every attempt to confer on the Federal Legislature the power to interfere with the elective franchise in the States, or to impose unnecessary restrictions on