Chisholm vs. Georgia Supreme Court Case

Chisholm vs. Georgia Supreme Court Case

The case of Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 in the year 1793 is considered by many to be the first great United States Supreme Court case (Wikipedia PP).

In 1792, South Carolina residents executing the estate of Alexander Chisholm sued the state of Georgia in the Supreme Court over payments due them for goods that Chisholm had supplied to Georgia during the American Revolutionary War (Wikipedia PP). United States Attorney General Edmund Randolph argued the case for the plaintiff before the Court (). Georgia did not appear, claiming that as a sovereign, a state did not have to appear in Court to hear a suit against it which it did not consent (Wikipedia PP).

In a 4-1 decision, the Court found in favor of the plaintiff, with Chief Justice of the United States John Jay concurring with Justices Blair, Wilson, and Cushing, and with Justice Iredell dissenting (Wikipedia PP). During this time, there was no one majority opinion, the Justices simply delivered their own opinions one by one, in order from the most junior to the most senior (Wikipedia PP).

The Court cited Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution, which allows Federal courts the power to hear disputes between citizens and states (Wikipedia PP). Georgia's refusal to appear in front of the court, however, actually denied the Court's authority to hear a case in which a state was a defendant, and so following the decision, Georgia immediately challenged both it and the Court's own jurisdiction (Wikipedia PP).

Justice Blair stated that unless the State of Georgia "cause an appearance to be entered in behalf of the State...or then show cause to the contrary, judgement be then entered up against the State, and a writ of enquiry of damages be awarded (Chisholm PP). Justice Wilson stated:

The principle is that all human law must be prescribed by a superior...in my judgment, the basis of sound and genuine jurisprudence; laws derived from the pure source of equality and justice must be founded on the CONSENT of those whose obedience they require. The sovereign, when traced to his source, must be found in the man. I have now fixed, in the scale of things, the grade of a state; and have described its composure. I have considered the nature of sovereignty, and pointed its application to the proper object. I have examined the question before us by the principles of general jurisprudence. In those principles, I find nothing which tends to evince an exemption of the state of Georgia from the jurisdiction of the court. I find everything to have a contrary tendency" (Chisholm PP).

Citing the second section of the third article of the Constitution which grants judicial power to all cases concerning "controversies between two or more States and citizens of another State, between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States," Justice Cushing stated, "The case, then, seems clearly to fall within the letter of the Constitution" (Chisholm PP).

Justice Jay stated, '"We the people of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution'... we see the people acting as sovereigns of the whole country, and, in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will that the State governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform" (Chisholm PP).

Justice Iredell declared that, "Before such an order be made, it is proper that this Court should be satisfied it hath cognizance of the suit, for, to be sure, we ought not to enter a conditional judgement in a case where we were not fully persuaded we had authority to do so (Chisholm PP). Concerning his doubts as to whether a State can be sued, Justice Iredell referred to Article 3 Section 2 of the Constitution and stated that, "The Constitution therefore provides for the jurisdiction wherein a State is a party in" particular controversies, "and it also provides that, in all cases in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction" (Chisholm PP).