Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-02-15
FEBRUARY Is, 1885
Judicial rictsons.

Sud others was unquestionably a suit
against the Commonwealth Of Virginia.
Bus the Federal Constitution forbids
suits against State to be brought in
the Federal courts by citizens Of another
State or by citizens or subjects Of any
foreign State. The provision in ques-
ton is the 1lth article Of amendments,
aud was incorporated into the Consti-
tuition because State had been thus
sued. That article reads as follows:
1.-THE judicial power of the United
State shall not be construed to extend
to any suit in law or equity commenced
on prosecuted against one Of the United
States by citizens Of another State, or
by citizens or subjects OF any foreign
State"
BY resorting TO q judicial fiction the
Federal courts have rendered that pro-
vision Of the Federal Constitution en-
tirely imperative. The Constitution, so
this judicial fiction says, forbids the
State of Virginia to be sued, but it al
lows Dir. MARYE, her Auditor, to be
sued; and so. as we have said, the
18th article Of the amendments has
proved to be entirely impotent. The
Judges ridicule il treat it with contempt;
laugh it out of court. This is monstrous
usurpation. And it is time that q
halt were called. Congress ought
to act in the matter. But IT
Congress does not do so very soon,
the Supreme Court Of the United States
ought to be asked to review the ques-
tions involved. and see whether that
tribunal has not been wrong all this
time. That court often rehears cases.
1t rehcard the celebrated legal-tender
cases and reversed its own decision. II
cannot rchear the old case in which it
created the judicial fiction we are speak
ing Of now-the judge-made law that is
causing this old Commonwealth SO much
troublt--but it can hear a new case i'll
volying the main question, and remedy
the wrong which stands out before all
the world in the case Of PARSONS rs.
MARYE, &c.
Here is case in which sovereign
State is threatened with bankruptcy as
the result Of suit against the State,
and yet the courts assume and act upon
the fiction that it was not suit against
the State. 1t is downright false pre-
tence. II is wrong to the Common
wealth perpetrated under thin dis
guise. II is as if the courts were to
hold that to steal mans goods from
his house is not to steal them from him.
Another judicial fiction, or rather
false construction, is the assumption
that the trainers Of the Federal COnsti-
tuition intended the following provision
Of that instrument to apply to State
debts. The Constition says;
" No State shall pass any
law impairing the obligation
of contracts.
This provision was not intended to
control States action in regard to its
own debts, but was meant to forbid
AMY legislation impairing the obligation
of dSontracts between persons. But the
.ourtA have stretched it so as to make
!, apply to the debts of the States.
BLACKsToNE says there is remedy
for every wrong. Here is stupendous
~song perpetrated by Judges HUGHES
and BOND. Where is the remedy?
Who will discover it, This is a mo-
mentous question.
The Supreme Court of the United
States will on the 10th Of next month
begin the hearing of all the Virginia
cases now pending in that court. The
outrageous judicial usurpation of which
Judges BOND and HUGHES have been
guilty may possibly exercise some in
Huence over the minds of the justices of
that high tribunal, and result in obiter
dicfa--if in nothing better---telling the
inferior courts that the Federal Consti-
tuition must not be made plaything.