1793.
think every word in the Constitution may have its full effect without involving this consequence, and that nothing but express words, or an insurmountable implication (neither of which, I consider, can be found in this case) would authorise the deduction of so high a power. This opinion I hold, however, with all the reserve proper for one, which, according to my sentiments in this case, may be deemed in some measure extra-judicial. With regard to the policy of maintaining such suits, that is not for this Court to consider, unless the point in all other respects was very doubtful. Policy might then be argued from with a view to preponderate the judgment. Upon the question before us, I have no doubt. I have therefore nothing to do with the policy. But I confess, if I was at liberty to speak on that subject, my opinion on the policy of the case would also differ from that of the Attorney General. It is, however, a delicate topic. I pray to God that if the Attorney General’s doctrine, as to the law, be established by the judgment of this Court, all the good he predicts from it may take place, and none of the evils with which, I have the concern to say, it appears to me to be pregnant.
Blair, Justice.In considering this important case, I have thought it best to pass over all the strictures which have been made on the various European confederations; because as, on the one band, their likeness to our own is not sufficiently close to justify any analogical application; so, on the other, they are utterly destitute of any binding authority here. The Constitution of the United States is the only fountain from which I shall draw; the only authority to which I shall appeal. Whatever be the true language of that, it is obligatory upon every member of the Union; for no State could have become a member, but by an adoption of it by the people of that State. What then do we find there requiring the submission of individual States to the judicial authority of the United States? This is expressly extended, among other things, to controversies between a State and citizens of another State. Is then the case before us one of that description? Undoubtedly it is, unless it may be a sufficient denial to say that it is a controversy between a citizen of one State and another State. Can this change of order be an essential change in the thing intended? And as this alone a sufficient ground from which to conclude, that the jurisdiction of this Court reaches the case where a State is Plaintiff, but not where it is Defendant? In this latter case, should any man be asked, whether it was not a controversy between a State and citizen of another State, must not the answer be in the affirmative? A dispute between A. and B. is surely a dispute between B. and A. Both cafes I have no doubt, were intended; and probably the State was first named,in
