States, "requesting their concurrence in a proposal for an explanatory amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in the second section of the third article," and they also passed a bill, "Declaratory of the retained sovereignty of the State," an extract from which follows. Apparently this measure did not pass the Senate, as the present Secretary of States writes that an examination of the manuscript laws for 1793 fails to disclose it.
State sovereignty was aroused elsewhere; two days after the decision of the Court was pronounced a proposed amendment, containing the exact language of the present eleventh amendment, was introduced in Congress by Senator Sedgwick of Massachusetts, against which State a similar suit was pending. The Legislatures of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia each proposed an amendment; the former declaring that the power claimed by the Supreme Court was "dangerous to the peace, safety and independence of the several States and repugnant to the first principles of a Federal Government." Virginia pronounced "the decision of the Supreme Federal Court incompatible with and dangerous to the Sovereignty and Independence of the Individual States, as the same tends to a general consolidation of these confederated Republicks." Congress sent the proposed amendment to the States March 5, 1794, and its ratification was announced by a message of the President, January 8, 1798. At the February term of the Supreme Court 1794, judgment was rendered for the plaintiff, and a "Writ of Enquiry" awarded, but never executed, as the adoption of the eleventh amendment prevented the threatened conflict of authority.
References: The Texts are in The Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State, December 22, 1792; November 9, 16, 23, and December 7, 1793. This paper contains the House Journal.[1] Massachusetts resolutions, Resolves of Mass. (MS.), IX, 108; Copy of Connecticut and Virginia resolutions in Massachusetts Archives. In Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), 3 Dallas, 378, it was held that the XI Amendment applied to prior cases. Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dallas, 419, 479, 480. For history of this case and the amendment, see Cohen v. Virginia, 6 Wheaton, 406; Ames, Proposed Amendments, Amer. Hist. Assoc. Report, 1896, II, 156, 157, 322; McMaster, II, 182–186; V, 402; Story, Commentaries, II, 481, 482. Thorpe, Const. History I, 176–178.
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
- ↑ I am indebted to Mr. William Harden, Librarian Georgia Historical Society, for transcripts of these texts and examination of newspaper files.
