Chisholm v. Georgia

Chisholm v. Georgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 5, 1793 Decided February 18, 1793
Full case name	Alexander Chisholm, Executors v. Georgia
Citations	2 U.S. 419 (more) 2 Dall. 419; 1 L. Ed. 440; 1793 U.S. LEXIS 249
Case history
Prior	Original action filed, U.S. Supreme Court, August, 1792 [note 1]
Holding
Article III, Section 2's grant of federal jurisdiction over suits "between a State and Citizens of another State" abrogated the States' sovereign immunity and granted federal courts the affirmative power to hear disputes between private citizens and States.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Jay Associate Justices James Wilson · William Cushing John Blair Jr. · James Iredell
Case opinions
Seriatim	Cushing
Seriatim	Blair
Seriatim	Wilson
Seriatim	Jay
Dissent	Iredell
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. III; Judiciary Act of 1789
Superseded by
U.S. Const. amend. XI

Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793), is considered the first United States Supreme Court case of significance and impact.^[2] Since the case was argued prior to the establishment of judicial review by Marbury v. Madison (1803), there was little available legal precedent (particularly in U.S. law).^[3] The Court, in a 4-1 decision, ruled in favor of Alexander Chisholm, a citizen of South Carolina, stating that states did not enjoy sovereign immunity from suits made by citizens of other states in federal court. The case was superseded in 1795 by the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution which was considered binding by the Court in Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798). The Supreme Court formally established sovereign immunity in federal courts in Hans v. Louisiana (1890) and state courts in Alden v. Maine (1999) using the Eleventh Amendment, effectively overturning their decision.

Background of the case[]

On October 31st, 1777, the Executive Council of Georgia authorized Thomas Stone and Edward Davies, as commissioners of the state, to purchase goods from Robert Farquhar, a South Carolina merchant to help stationed troops in Savannah who were in dire need of supplies. Stone and Davies agreed to give Farquhar $169,613.33 (in indigo or continental currency) for his merchandise. However, at the time of Farquhar's death in 1784, he had not received payment for his merchandise and one of the executors of his estate, Alexander Chisholm, a merchant in Charleston, brought suit against the state in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Georgia in a case known as Farquhar's Executor v. Georgia.^{[1]: 20–22}

Chisholm asked for £100,000 sterling in payment and damages while the Governor of Georgia Edward Telfair argued that Georgia was "a free, sovereign and independent State...[and] cannot be drawn or compelled...to answer, against the will of the said State of Georgia, before any Justices of the federal Circuit Court for the District of Georgia or before any Justices of any Court of Law or Equity whatsoever",^[1]: 22 a stance of sovereign immunity. The case was argued and decided in October 1791 with Supreme Court Justice James Iredell (who was required to "ride" circuit under the Judiciary Act of 1789) and U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Pendleton siding with Georgia, believing that the state could not be sued by a citizen of another state in Circuit Court. ^{[1] : 23}

Chisholm took the case to the Supreme Court, sometime in 1792, where he sought damages amounting to $500,000 with the case being filed as Chisholm v. Georgia.^[1]: 23 When the Supreme Court convened to hear the case on August 11th, 1792, Georgia was not represented before the Court with John Halloway and Attorney General Edmund Randolph acted as attorneys for the plantiff. The Court agreed to delay the case until February 4th, 1793. However, despite several invitations issued by the Court, no attorneys or representatives for the state arrived and the Court heard Randolph's arguments on that date. ^{[1]: 23–24}

The court’s decision[]

In a four-to-one decision, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, with Chief Justice John Jay and associate justices John Blair, James Wilson, and William Cushing constituting the majority; only Justice Iredell dissented. (At that time, there was no opinion of the court or majority opinion; the justices delivered their opinions seriatim or individually, in ascending order of seniority.)^{[citation needed]} The court ruled that Article 3, Section 2, of the Constitution abrogated the states' sovereign immunity and granted federal courts the affirmative power to hear disputes between private citizens and states.

In the opening words of his opinion, Justice Wilson stated the essential principle on which the case turned: "This is a case of uncommon magnitude. One of the parties to it is a State; certainly respectable, claiming to be sovereign. The question to be determined is, whether this State, so respectable, and whose claim soars so high, is amenable to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States? This question, important in itself, will depend on others, more important still; and, may, perhaps, be ultimately resolved into one, no less radical than this 'do the people of the United States form a Nation?'"^[3]

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Iredell stated, “A general question of great importance here occurs. What controversy of a civil nature can be maintained against a State by an individual? The framers of the Constitution, I presume, must have meant one of two things: either 1. in the conveyance of that part of the judicial power which did not relate to the execution of the other authorities of the general Government (which it must be admitted are full and discretionary, within the restrictions of the Constitution itself), to refer to antecedent laws for the construction of the general words they use; or, 2. to enable Congress in all such cases to pass all such laws as they might deem necessary and proper to carry the purposes of this Constitution into full effect, either absolutely at their discretion, or at least in cases where prior laws were deficient for such purposes, if any such deficiency existed.” Iredell stated that neither of these things was argued in the case, and reasoned that under common law each State was sovereign, just as under English law, and they could not be sued without their consent.

Subsequent developments[]

Although Justice Iredell's was the only dissenting opinion, his opinion ultimately became the law of the land. The States, surprised by the decision of the Supreme Court, called for the 11th Amendment to the Constitution, which precludes a State from being sued in Federal Court without that State's consent. By February 1795, 12 of the then 15 states had ratified the 11th Amendment; South Carolina ratified it in 1797, and New Jersey and Pennsylvania took no action on ratification. In 1795, the Eleventh Amendment was ratified to negate the holding in Chisholm v. Georgia. Under the 11th Amendment, citizens of one state or of foreign countries can only sue a state with the state's consent or if Congress, pursuant to a valid exercise of Fourteenth Amendment remedial powers, abrogates the states' immunity from suit. See Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 (1976).

See also[]

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 2

Notes[]

References[]

• Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer Of A Nation, New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1996.
• Jean Edward Smith, The Constitution And American Foreign Policy, St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1989.
• William Anderson LaBach, The Supreme Court Fails Its First Test: Chisholm v. Georgia, Saarbrücken, Germany, VDM Verlag, 2009.

External links[]

• Text of Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793) is available from: Cornell  Findlaw  Justia  Library of Congress  OpenJurist