406
The Green Bag
as properly subject to confiscation as any other property, and that the last clause of the above quoted portion of the act was ample protection in any legal action. The defendant had, in reality, paid almost 811,000 into the state treasury under the sequestration act, for which
the governor's receipt had been duly given. British creditors were empowered by the treaty of 1783, however, “to recover
debts previously contracted to them by our citizens, notwithstanding a payment of the debt into a state treasury had been made during the war, under the author
ity of a state law of sequestration." The plaintiff's case seemed to be further strengthened by a paragraph of Article VI of the Constitution, which reads:— This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
This, in brief, was the case for the
November (1791) term of the Circuit
Court at Richmond before Judges John son and Blair of the Supreme Court and
Grifiin of the District Court. For several weeks before the case was to be reached,
Patrick Henry devoted himself to a close and detailed study of the action.
When
he found he would require a copy of Vattel's “Laws of Nations," he sent his grandson, Patrick Henry Fontaine, who was a young law student, sixty miles to get the book.
In spite of the fact that the argument was purely technical, on the day that Patrick Henry was to speak the large court room of the capitol was crowded long before eleven o'clock. Even the windows were occupied when all the seats had been filled. And no small
portion of those who could not get into the court itself, remained standing in the portico or near the building. The speaker of the legislature, which was sitting at the time, found himself without any house. The desire to hear Patrick Henry speak in so notable a
case had been stronger than any demand of routine business. As Patrick Henry rose, the crowd in the court room became quiet with the
plaintiff, although in its many ramifica tions it embraced complicated points of municipal, national and international law. The defendant contended that the treaty had been rendered null and void by violations on the part of Great Britain in carrying off negroes belonging
deep, tense silence of eager attention. Yet there was nothing ornate, nothing spectacular about the beginning of the lawyer's argument.
to Americans, in continuing to occupy the forts of Niagara and Detroit, in
debtor."
supplying hostile Indians with arms, and in holding some American prisoners. In short, England was classified as an “alien enemy," and was therefore de
prived of any recourse in the courts of United States. The case was to be argued at the
“I stand here, may it please your
honors," he said simply, “to support, according to my power, that side of the question which respects the American He showed clearly and concisely, quoting Grotius and Vattel as his authorities, that debts were a just object of forfeiture during a common war. “But call to your recollection our situation during the late arduous con test. Was it not necessary in our day
