important trait of this draft, the reasoning ought to be
extensively understood. I therefore hope to be indulged in a particular
statement of it.

Causes of all kinds, between citizens of different states, are to be tried
before a continental court. This court is not bound to try it according to
the local laws where the controversies happen; for in that case it may as
well be tried in a state court. The rule which is to govern the new
courts, must, therefore, be made by the court itself, or by its employers,
the Congress. If by the former, the legislative and judicial departments
will be blended; and if by the Congress, though these departments will be
kept separate, still the power of legislation departs from the state in
all those cases. The Congress, therefore, have the right to make rules for
trying all kinds of questions relating to property between citizens of
different states. The sixth article of the new constitution provides, that
the continental laws shall be the supreme law of the land, and that all
judges in the separate states shall be bound thereby, anything in the
constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding. All the
state officers are also bound by oath to support this constitution. These
provisions cannot be understood otherwise than as binding the state judges
and other officers, to execute the continental laws in their own proper
departments within the state. For all questions, other than those between
citizens of the same state, are at once put within the jurisdiction of the
continental courts. As no authority remains to the state judges, but to
decide questions between citizens of the same state, and those judges are
to be bound by the laws of Congress, it clearly follows, that all
questions between citizens of the same state are to be decided by the
general laws and not by the local ones.

Authority is also given to the continental courts, to try all causes
between a state and its own citizens. A question of property between these
parties rarely occurs. But if such questions were more frequent than they
are, the proper process is not to sue the state before an higher
authority; but to apply to the supreme authority of the state, by way of
petition. This is the universal practice of all states, and any other mode
of redress destroys the sovereignty of the state over its own subjects.
The only case of the kind in which the state would probably be sued, would
be upon the state not