triation was considered but not decided; but Judge
Paterson laid down with much firmness the doctrine
that, whatever right a man might possess to renounce
his State citizenship under the provisions of a State
statute, no State could by legislation effect renunciation
of United States citizenship; and he stated with concise
eloquence the complications of the new system of government, in unfolding which during the subsequent years
the Court was to play so large a part: "We have sovereignties moving within a sovereignty. Of course there is
complexity and difficulty in the system, which requires a
penetrating eye fully to explore, and steady and masterly
hands to keep in unison and order. A slight collision
may disturb the harmony of the parts and endanger the
machinery of the whole."[1] In United States v. Richard Peters, 3 Dallas, 121, on a motion for a writ of prohibition
to the United States District Judge in Pennsylvania, to
restrain him from entertaining a libel against a French
privateer, The Cassius, the Court again showed how
clear was its disposition to dispense even-handed
justice to France, in spite of the bitter attacks launched
against it by the French sympathizers. Since The
Cassius was an armed vessel owned by the French
Republic, and not a privateer, the Court held that, even
though she was illegally fitted out in the United States,
she could not be libeled in our Courts, and that the
property of a sovereign and independent nation must
be held sacred from judicial seizure.[2]
When the Term ended, Rutledge left Philadelphia to
- ↑ Of the extreme length of argument in this case, Judge Iredell wrote to Simeon Baldwin, Aug. 18, 1795: "We have been so incessantly employed in business in the Supreme Court that it has been scarcely possible for us to attend to anything else. One cause began on the 6th inst. and is not yet ended and one lawyer spoke three days." Life and Letters of Simeon Baldwin (1919), by Simeon E. Baldwin. It may be noted that the decision was given on August 22, four days after the date of Iredell's letter and therefore within four days after the close of argument.
- ↑ See also Ketland v. The Cassius, 2 Dallas, 365.
