with every evidence of admiration and respect for the
great powers of his mind. Campbell was neglected
and slighted and came home in disgust. Marshall's
maxim seems always to have been ‘Aim exclusively at
strength. Of his reception and first acquaintance
in Philadelphia, on this initial appearance before the
Court, Marshall himself wrote: "I then became acquainted with Mr. (George) Cabot, Mr. (Fisher) Ames,
Mr. (Samuel) Dexter, Mr. Sedgwick of Massachusetts,
Mr. (Jeremiah) Wadsworth of Connecticut, Mr. (Rufus)
King of New York. I was delighted with these
gentlemen. The particular subject (the British Treaty)
which introduced me to their notice, was at that time so
interesting, and a Virginian who supported with any
sort of reputation the measures of the government was
such a rara avis, that I was received by them all with a
degree of kindness which I had not anticipated."[1]
While the Court was gravely impressed with "the
uncommon magnitude of the subject, its novelty, the
high expectation it has excited and the consequences
with which a decision may be attended" (in the words
of Judge Iredell), it found little difficulty in reaching a
conclusion; and within two weeks after the argument,
four Judges then sitting (Paterson, Cushing, Wilson
and Chase) concurred in declaring that the British
treaty provisions must prevail over any State laws,
that the British creditors were entitled to recover, and
in general that a treaty so far as it is compatible with
the Constitution supersedes all State laws which dero-
gate from its provisions. Thus was settled forever
one of the fundamental doctrines of American law. On
the day after the decision of this momentous case,
the Court rendered its opinion in a case of even greater
import in the history of the law, Hylton v. United States,
- ↑ See Oration of William Henry Rawle, May 10, 1884, 112 U. S. App. 753.
