While this opposition to the Court's decision was to some extent based on divergencies of political theories as to State sovereignty, the real source of the attack on the Chisholm Case was the very concrete fear of the "numerous prosecutions that will immediately issue from the various claims of refugees, Tories, etc., that will introduce such a series of litigation as will throw every State in the Union into the greatest confusion."[1] In the crucial condition of the finances of most of the
States at that time, only disaster was to be expected if suits could be successfully maintained by holders of State issues of paper and other credits, or by Loyalist refugees to recover property confiscated or sequestered by the States; and that this was no theoretical danger was shown by the immediate institution of such suits against the States in South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Massachusetts.[2] In the latter State, Governor John Hancock at once called a special session of the Legislature;[3] and that body, by resolve of Septem-
- ↑ "The subject is now but of infinite importance to the rights and property of every individual dticen. For should we acquiesce in the decision or take no measures to check its progress, the boasted liberties of our country . . . will become a sound and nothing else.' "Independent Chnmide, July 25, 1793. "Nothing remains but to give the key of our treasury to the agents of the Refugees, Tories and men who were inimical to our Revolution, to distribute the hard money now deposited in that office to persons of this description," id., Sept. 16, 1793 ; see also Saiianal Oautte, Aug. 7, 17M.
- ↑ Vaesall v. Massachusetts; Huger v. South Carolina (1797), 3 Dallas, 339; see Moultrie v. Georgia (not reported in Dallas Reports), referred to in Howard v. Inger, soil (1851), 13 How. 408, in which it is said that Georgia had, in 1796, "just been released from an unpleasant litigation.'* The case arose out of an Act passed by the State in 1789, conveying lands to the Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee Yasoo Companies, before the 11th Amendment; a bill in equity was filed in 1796 for specific performance of the State's contract to convey land ; it was set for hearing at the August Term in 1797, and adjoinned to the next Term, when it was dismissed. Amer. State Papers, Public Lands, 1, 167 ; New York Spectator, March 16, 1807. See also Cailin v. South Carolina, in the official records ; Grayson v. Virginia, 3 Dallas, 320.
- ↑ The Massachusetts Mercury, July 16, 1793, said: "A correspondent thinks too much praise cannot be given to our worthy Governor for his vigilance in issuing a proclamation for the meeting of the General Court on the very day and perhaps at the moment when the Marshal of the District Court served him with a writ legally issued from the Supreme Court of the United States." "The precept now served on the Governor and Attorney General is for monies arising from the seques-
