1793.
the name of one body, than the incoherent parts of Nebuchadnazzar’s image. The Princes wage war without the consent of their paramount sovereign; they even wage war upon each other; nay upon the Emperor himself; after which it will add but little to say, that they are distinct sovereignties. And, yet both the Imperial Chamber, and the Aulic Council hear and determine the complaints of individuals against the Princes.[1]
It will not surely be required to assign a reason, why the Confederation did not convey a similar jurisdiction; since that scanty and strict paper was of so different a hue and feature from the Constitution, as scarcely to appear the child of the same family.
I hold it, therefore, to be no degradation of sovereignty, in the States, to submit to the Supreme Judiciary of the United States. At the same time, by way of anticipating an objection, I assert, that it will not follow, from these premises, that the United States themselves may be sued. For the head of a confederacy is not within the reach of the judicial authorities of its inferior members. It is exempted by its peculiar pre-eminencies. We have indeed known petitions of right, monstrans de droit, and even process in the Exchequer. But the first is in the style of intreaty; the second, being apparent upon the record, is so far a deduction from the royal title; the third, as in the banker’s case in the 11th volume of the State trials, is applicable only, where the charge is claimed against the Revenue; and all of them are widely remote from an involuntary subjection, of the sovereign to the cognizance of his own Courts.
2d.But what if the high independency of dissevered nations remained uncontrouled among the United States, so far as to place the individual States no more within the sphere of the Supreme Court, than one independent nation is within the jurisdiction of another? It has been a contest amongst civilians, whether one Prince found within the territory of another, may be sued for a contract.[2] I do not assert the affirmative; but it is allowable to observe, that such a position, once conceded, would illustrate and almost settle the present inquiry. But the same author, who repudiates the former idea, is strenuous in the opinion, that where the effects, or property, of one Prince are rested in the dominions of another, the proprietor Prince may be summoned before a tribunal of that other. Now, although, each State has its separate territory, in one sense, the whole is that of the United States, in another. The jurisdiction of this Court reaches to Georgia, as well as to Philadelphia. If therefore, the process could be commenced in rem, the autho-