1793.
be believed. The crest of war is next raised; the Federal head cannot remain unmoved amidst these shocks to the public harmony. Ought then a
necessity to be created for drawing out the general force on an occasion so replete with horror? Is not an adjustment by a judicial form far preferable? Are not peace and concord among the States two of the great ends of the Constitution? To be consistent, the opponents of my principles must say, that a State may not be sued by a foreigner.
—What? Shall the tranquillity of our country be at the mercy of every State? Or, if it be allowed, that a State may be sued by a foreigner, why, in the scale of reason, may not the measure be the same, when the citizen of another State is the complainant? Nor is the history of confederacies wholly deficient in analogy; although a very strict one is scarcely to be expected. A parade of deep research into the Amphyctionic Council, or the Achæan league, would be fruitless, from the dearth of historical monuments. With the best lights they would probably be found, not to be positively identical with our union. So little did they approach to a National Government, that they might well be destitute of a common judicatory. So ready were the ancient Governments to merge the injuries to individuals in a State quarrel, and so certain was it, that any judicial decree must have been enforced by arms, that the mild form of a legal discussion could not but be viewed with indifference, if not contempt. And yet it would not be extravagant to conjecture, that all civil causes were sustained before the Amphyctionic Council.
[1] What we know of the Achæan confederacy, exhibits it as purely national, or rather consolidated.—They had common Magistrates taken by rotation, from the towns; and the amenability of the constituent cities to some Supreme Tribunal, is as probable as otherwise.
[2] But, in fact, it would be a waste of time, to dwell upon these obscurities. To catch
all the semblances of confederacies, scattered through the historic page, would be no less absurd, than to search for light in regions of darkness, or a stable jurisprudence in the midst of barbarity and bloodshed. Advancing then, into more modern times, the Helvetic Union presents itself; one of whose characteristics is, that there is no common judicatory.
Stanyan, 117. Nor, does it obtain in
Holland. But it cannot be concluded from hence, that the
Swiss or the
Dutch, the jealousy of whom would not suffer them to adopt a
National Government, would deem it an abasement, to summon a State, connected as the
United States are, before a National Tribunal. But our anxiety for precedents is relieved by appealing to the
Germanic Empire. The jumble of fifty principalities together no more
de-
ferves
- ↑ See Anaebarsis, 3 Vol. p. 300.
- ↑ See Gast’s Hist. of Greece, p. 321.
