STATE DOCUMENTS
ON
FEDERAL RELATIONS:
THE STATES AND THE UNITED STATES.
Pennsylvania and the Federal Judiciary.
The Olmstead Case.
1809.
The following resolutions present the final phase in a conflict, of more than thirty years duration, between the United States and the State of Pennsylvania over their respective jurisdictions. This conflict grew out of the appeal of Gideon Olmstead from the judgment of the Pennsylvania Court of Admiralty, in regard to the distribution of the prize money in the case of the sloop "Active," in 1778, to the Committee of Appeals of Congress.[1] This Committee reversed the decision, but their jurisdiction was denied by the Legislature and the other State authorities, and the enforcement of the decree was successfully withstood by the State until 1808. In that year the dispute was revived by the application of the Attorney General to the Supreme Court, in behalf of Olmstead, for a writ of mandamus commanding Judge Peters of the District Court to enforce the judgment previously given (1779). The application was granted by Chief Justice Marshall, February 23, 1809, in one of his most characteristic and important opinions, in which he solemnly declared, "If the legislatures of the several States may, at will, annul the judgments of the Courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery; and the nation is deprived of the means of enforcing its laws by the instrumentality of its own tribunals." (U. S. v. Peters, 5 Cranch, 136.) Judge Peters issued the writ, but the attempt of the United States Marshal to serve it was resisted by a brigade of the State militia, under the command of General Bright, which had been called out by Governor Snyder, February 27, 1809. The Marshal thereupon summoned a posse-comitatus of two thousand men, but in order to avoid bloodshed, fixed the day for the service of the warrant to three weeks ahead. In the mean time
