1793.
this, which brings into question a constitutional right, supported by my own conviction, to surrender it would in me be official perfidy.
It has been expressed, as the pleasure of the Court, that the motion should be discussed, under the four following forms:
1st.Can the State of Georgia, being one of the United States of America, be made a party-defendant in any case, in the Supreme Court of the United States, at the suit of a private citizen, even although he himself is, and his testator was, a citizen of the State of South-Carolina?
2d.If the State of Georgia can be made a party defendant in certain cases, does an action of assumpsit lie against her?
3d.Is the service of the summons upon the Governor and Attorney General of the State of Georgia, a competent service?
4th.By what process ought the appearance of the State of Georgia to be enforced?
1st.The Constitution and Judicial Law are the sources from which the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is derived. The effective passages in the Constitution are in the second section of the third article. “The judicial power shall extend to controversies between a State and citizens of another State” “In cases, in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction.” The judicial act thus organizes the jurisdiction, delineated by the Constitution. “The Supreme Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies of a civil nature, where a State is a party, except between a State and its citizens; and except, also, between a State and citizens of other States and aliens, in which latter case, it shall have original, but not exclusive jurisdiction.”
Upon this basis we contend,
1st.That the Constitution vests a jurisdiction in the Supreme Court over a State, as a defendant, at the suit of a private citizen of another State.
2d.That the judicial act recognizes that jurisdiction.
1st.The Constitution vests a jurisdiction in the Supreme Court over a State, as a defendant, at the suit of a private citizen of another State. Consult the letter of the Constitution, or rather the influential words of the clause in question. The judicial power is extended to controversies between a State and citizens of another State. I pass over the word, “between,” as in no respect indicating who is to be Plaintiff or who Defendant. In the succeeding paragraph, we read a comment on these words, when it is said, that in cases, in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. Is not a defendant a party as well as a plaintiff? If au-