numberless disputes will arise between them and oui*
own citizens, they will bring their suits in the Federal
Court even when they have but little prosi)ect of success
here, with a determination to appeal to the Supreme
Court ; the distance is so great, the scarcity of money
and indigent circumstances of many of our citizens
such that they will not be able to follow the appeal,
they must either give up their lands or be forced into
an ungenerous and unjust compromise/' No less an
eminent lawyer than Thomas Todd, then a Judge of
the State Court of Appeals, and five years later destined
to be appointed upon the Federal Supreme Court,
wrote : ^ "The debates in the Senate on the resolution
introduced by you have been highly interesting to us
here as well as in other parts of the Union. • • . I
really conceive the passage of that bill of immense
consequence to this State in particular. The serious
mischief which exists in this coimtry is the danger of
conflicting decisions on our land claims in the State and
Federal Courts. This mischief, I conceive, was greatly
increased by the law of Congress you are now attempt-
ing to repeal. We had better submit our causes to the
decision of one Judge who is a contemporary with the
law, has been almost an eye-witness to the circum-
stances which gave rise to a great many claims origi-
nating imder it, for many years a practicing lawyer at
the bar of Courts which were settling principles arising
out of it, and whose principles and decisions are more
in unison with the State Courts than it is possible those
of the additional Judges can be. ... I resist every
idea of having suits decided by foreigners." And that
the Kentuckians were adverse to all Federal Courts
^ Breekenridge Papers MSS. letter of Thomas Todd to Breckenridge, Feb. 17» 1802. Harry Innes, Judge of the United States District Court for KentudEy* had written in the same strain, Dec. 27» 1801, that there was "no necessity for the Circuit Court system in the Western Country."
