onstrous
assumption was presently brought to an ignominious end; and strange as
it may appear, by one of the judges of the court itself. Samuel Chase
of Maryland, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,
had been an Anti-Federalist and a strong State-Right's man, as such
insisting on a strict construction of the Constitution. Singular as it
may appear he was made a Judge in 1796, and what is yet more
surprising, in 1798, declared "the United States as a Federal
government, had no Common Law," and thus ended this claim.[153] But
tyranny did not end; nay, he himself, a man of uncommon powers and
legal attainments, became a most atrocious example of Judicial
despotism.

[Footnote 152: Wharton, State Trials, 653. See too Virginia
Resolutions (Richmond, 1850), Preface, xiii. _et seq._; Virginia
Resolutions by Madison, and his Report thereon; Kentucky Resolutions
by Jefferson, in 4 Eliot's Debates (1836).]

[Footnote 153: Wharton, 197; 3 Dallas, 384; see 5 Hildreth, 230.]

1. In 1791 a direct tax was levied by Act of Congress on all lands and
houses; excise officers were to ascertain their value. The "Alien and
Sedition Laws" were also passed the same year. The execution of the
law relative to the direct tax was resisted in Northampton county,
Penn., and some prisoners rescued from an officer of the United
States. The President, Mr. Adams, issued his proclamation. In 1799
John Fries was arrested on the charge of treason. The overt act
alleged was resistance to that one special law of Congress. Judge
Iredell charged the Grand-Jury, "You have heard the government as
grossly abused as if it had been guilty of the vilest tyranny." Had he
read the private correspondence of the Cabinet, he might have found
other specimens of "abuse." He defended both the Alien and Sedition
Laws.--They were "constitutional" and "proper."[154]

[Footnote 154: See a defence of them in 2 Gibbs's Administration, 74,
78; also 162.]

Mr. Fries was indicted for treason. The Judiciary Act of Congress of
1789 provides that "in cases punishable with death the trial shall be
had in the county where the offence was committed; or when that cannot
be done without great inconvenience, twelve petit jurors at least
shall be summoned from thence." The offence was committed in
Northampton county, and he was indicted and brought to trial in
Philadelphia county, nor could the court be induced to comply with the
statute!

The government laid down t