quated, opprobrious system of feudal vassalage", and termed the Chief Justice "a foe to republican principles . . . a and an advocate for monarchical principles satellite of ambitious administration. . . From the moment of your exaltation, we have seen the fundamental principles of our government, the operation of its checks and balances disregarded and Judiciary independence exchanged for a timid servility . . . in an ebullition of gratitude for your late appointment." And he concluded by saying that: "Every real American will execrate your name and all recording Truth shall enroll your vices in the annals of futurity. . . amid the applause of pollution from a degraded party composed of the refuse of British slaves and Tories."[1] Another Virginia paper said: "The natural right formerly secured to the citizens of this State by law to expatriate themselves is abrogated; by what? Not by the Constitution of the United States, not by laws made under it, but by the judgment of a Federal Court. An obsolete principle, applicable only to the personal right of the former feudal sovereigns of England, is enforced by a free republic founded on a total denial of all such rights. . . This odious principle is now revived here after its abolition throughout modern Europe by the practice of near two centuries. By the Chief Justice's opinion, we are still the subjects of Great Britain; we are so by this principle, her common law."[2] No decision by any Federal Judge had ever aroused so great and widespread resentment. Not only did the Anti-Federalists fear on general principles the spread of this doctrine of the English common law; but they pointed
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