At this Term, only two cases were heard, but each
was closely connected with vital political issues. The
first, Georgia v. Brailsford, involved another phase of
the question of State sovereignty and presented a curious history. Brailsford, an alien and a British creditor, had sued a Georgia citizen in the United States
Circuit Court on a debt which the State of Georgia
had sequestrated.[1] The State, however, applied to
the Circuit Court to be admitted as a party defendant
in order to set up its title to the property, and having
been refused had filed an original bill in equity in the
Supreme Court seeking an injunction against the Circuit Court proceedings. Thus, while complaining in
the Chisholm Case because it had been made a party to
a suit by a British creditor, Georgia was complaining
in the Brailsford Case because it had not been allowed
to become a party in another suit by a British creditor. After argument by Alexander J. Dallas against
Edmund Randolph, at an earlier Term, the Court
had decided that a temporary injunction should issue.
It is interesting to note that in this first case in which
opinions of the Judges were reported, the first opinion
to be expressed had been a dissent by Judge Johnson.
The decision had elicited from Randolph a pungent
letter in which he expressed to James Madison decidedly
uncomplimentary views of the Court: "The State
of Georgia applied for an injunction to stop in the
- ↑ See Samuel Brailsford v. James Spalding in which Judge Iredell had held that the Treaty repealed the State law sequestrating British debts. Gazette of the United States, May 16, 1792; Georgia v. Brailsford, 2 Dallas, 402, 415, 3 Dallas, 1.
Supreme Court Judge had been created during the period for which Paterson had been elected Senator from New Jersey. When Washington's attention was called to this, he sent a message to the Senate, Feb. 28, 1793, saying: "I was led by a consideration of the qualifications of William Paterson of New Jersey to nominate him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. It has since occurred that he was a member of the Senate when the law creating that office was passed, and that the time for which he was elected is not yet expired. I think it my duty, therefore, to declare that I deem the nomination to have been null by the Constitution."
