professional abilities may be." From the above expressions of opinion, it is apparent that the new Judges,
Chase and Ellsworth, must have come into a Court
none too enthusiastic to accept them.
At the February Term of 1796, six cases were heard, two of which were of the highest importance. In Ware, Adm'r. v. Hylton, 3 Dallas, 199, there was presented the great question of vital interest to the relation of the States to the Federal Government, whether State laws confiscating and sequestrating debts due to a British enemy or allowing their payment in depreciated currency were valid against the provisions of the treaty with Great Britain. Its decision involved the pecuniary fortunes of the States as well as of hundreds of American citizens; in Virginia alone it was estimated there were more than $2,000,000 of such British debts. Political excitement over the case was intense; and in view of the divisions of the country on pro-British and pro-French factions a decision in favor of the British creditors was likely to strengthen the Anti-Federalist party and the opponents of the Administration. As Edmund Randolph wrote to Washington: "The late debates concerning British debts have served to kindle a wide-spreading flame. The debtors are associated with the Anti-Federalists, and they range themselves under the standard of Mr. Henry, whose ascendancy has risen to an immeasurable height."[1] The question had been originally argued in Virginia before Judges Johnson and Blair, and District Judge Griffin, in September, 1791, and again in May, 1793, before Chief
- ↑ See Patrick Henry (1891), by William Wirt Henry, II, 472, 476, 636. The Connecticut Journal said, Sept. 29, 1794: "The high-flying Democrats are continually 'letting the cat out of the bag.' As late as the last month, the Grand Jury of the Federal Circuit Court in Virginia presented as a national grievance the recovery of debts due to British subjects, contracted prior to the year 1774. Spendall in the play says, 'It is a cursed thing to pay debts—it has ruined many a man.' See also Wirt, II, letter to Gilmer, Nov. 2, 1828.
