State Documents on Federal Relations/3
3. Extracts from the Message of Governor Edward Telfair, Dated November 4, 1793.
The Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State, Saturday, November 9, 1793.*******
Notwithstanding certain amendments have taken place in the Federal Constitution, it still rests with the State Legislatures to act thereon as circumstances may dictate. A process from the Supreme Court of the United States, at the instance of Chisholm, Executor of Farquhar, has been served on me and the Attorney General. I declined entering any appearance, as this would have introduced a precedent replete with danger to the Republic, and would have involved this state in complicated difficulties abstracted from the infractions it would have made on her retained sovereignty. The singular predicament to which she has been reduced by savage inroads has caused an emission of paper upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds since the close of the late war, a considerable part of which is yet outstanding, and which in good faith and upon constitutional principles is the debt of the United States. I say were action admissible under such grievous circumstances, an annihilation of her political existence must follow. To guard against civil discord as well as the impending danger, permit me most ardently to request your most serious attention to the measure of recommending to the Legislatures of the several States that they effect a remedy in the premises by an amendment to the constitution; and that to give further weight to this matter the delegation of this state in Congress be required to urge that body to propose such an amendment to the said several Legislatures. * * *