which amounts to a constitutional ratification of the contracts respecting the state debts in the situation in which they existed under the confederation, and resorting to that standard there can be no doubt that in the present question the rights of states as contracting with the United States must be considered as sacred.
The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia confide so fully in the justice and wisdom of Congress upon the present occasion, as to hope that they will revise and amend the aforesaid act generally, and repeal in particular, so much of it as relates to the assumption of the state debts.
December the 23d, 1790. Agreed to by the Senate.
Georgia and the Federal Judiciary.
1792, 1793.
A suit instituted by Chisholm against the State of Georgia came up for a hearing before the Supreme Court in the August term of 1792, but the case was postponed to the February term of the next year, in order that the State of Georgia might have time to deliberate on the measures she ought to adopt. A resolution was introduced into the Georgia House of Representatives, December 14, 1792, declaring that this suit "if acquiesced in by this State would not only involve the same in numberless law-suits for papers issued from the Treasury thereof to supply the armies of the United States, and perplex the citizens of Georgia with perpetual taxes, in addition to those the injustice of the funding system of the United States hath already imposed upon them, but would effectually destroy the retained sovereignty of the States, and would actually tend in its operation to annihilate the very shadow of State government, and to render them but tributary corporations to the government of the United States," therefore the State of Georgia would not be bound by the decision of the Supreme Court in such cases, but would regard it "as unconstitutional and extra-judicial." It further recommended "an explanatory amendment" to the constitution. Apparently the resolution was not adopted, but it represents the policy which the State followed. At the February term of the Supreme Court a written remonstrance on behalf of the State was presented, but otherwise the State declined to appear. The opinion of the Court was rendered February 18, 1793. It was ordered that unless Georgia should appear, or show cause by the first day of the next term, judgment by default should be entered against the State. At the opening of the next session of the Legislature of Georgia, in November, 1793, the Governor called attention to the case in his message as given below. The House of Representatives adopted a report authorizing the preparation of an address to the Legislatures of the several
