the States in respect to their stay laws, their legal tender laws, their legislation as to British debts and loyalist properties and their State land grants and land titles.[1] After the adoption of the Constitution, the probable encroachment of the Federal Courts and extension of their powers had been apprehended as a certain cause of friction between the Federal Government and the States ; and five days after the enactment of the Judiciary Act in 1789, William Grayson of
Virginia had written to Patrick Henry that "whenever the Federal Judiciary comes into operation, I think the pride of the States will take alarm." As early as 1791, Congress had debated a resolve for a Constitutional Amendment abolishing the whole system of Federal Courts as distinct from the State tribunals;[2] and in December, 1791, Attorney-General Randolph had suggested to the President that the United States Attorneys should be required to present to the Attorney-General, a general statement of cases in which the "harmony of the two Judiciaries may be hazarded, and to communicate to him those topics on which the subjects of foreign nations may complain in the administration of justice."[3] As an interesting example of the confusion attendant upon the initiation of the new judicial system, the Federal Circuit Court in North Carolina actually removed by certiorari a case which had been pending in a State Court prior to the adoption of the Constitution, an attempt which was clearly unwarranted. "The Supreme Judges of the State
- ↑ In the controversies between New York and Vermont over the admission of Vermont into the Union as a new and separate State, one of the chief obstacles was "the demand on the part of Vermont to be secured against certain claims for lands which it seems they are apprehensive would be wrested from them through the means of the Federal Courts." New York Daily Advertiser, Feb. 16, 1790; Massachueetts Spy, March 4, 1790 ; and see infra, ch. 2.
- ↑ Freeman's Journal, March 9, 16, 1791; Connecticut Courant, March 21, 1791; Providence Gazette, April 2, 1791.
- ↑ Amer. State Papers, Misc., I, No. 25. letter of Dec. 28, 1791.
