CHAPTER ELEVEN
CORPORATE CHARTERS AND BANKRUPTCY
1817-1819
A new epoch in its history began with the first year of President Monroe's Admmistration ; and as this was known in politics as "the Era of Good Feeling'*, so it might be termed in judicial annals "The Era of Calm", preceding a storm of controversy which was about to rage around the Court for the next thirteen years. The 1817 Term was chiefly devoted to the argument of prize and other cases arising out of the War of 1812, and no decisions of permanent significance were rendered.^ The 1818 Term, however, was notable for the decision of one case and the argument of another which marked the Court's importance as a factor in American history. In the first of these cases, Gelstan V. Hoyt, 3 Wheat. 246, there was strikingly reajGBrmed the cardinal principle of the Anglo-Saxon system of law that no man — not even the President of the United States — is above the law. The question involved was whether certain Government ofiicials, who had been sued for damages for making seizure of a vessel under alleged authority of the neutrality laws, could justify their act by alleging that it was
^ At this 1817, Term, an interesting custom among the members of the Bar appears from the following item in the National IrdMigeneer, Feb. 6, 1817. At a meeting of the members of the Bar presided over by Robert Goodloe Harper and with Walter Jones as Secretary, the Attorney-General presented resolutions on the death of Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts and Alexander J. Dallas of Pennsyl- vania, and it was resolved that the members of the Bar "will wear crape on Uie left arm during the present Term, as a mark of respect for the illustrious talents of the deceased in professional and their eminent virtues in private life."
