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CourtSpeak: Chisholm v. Georgia State vs. State Case (1793)
Decisions
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Chief Justice John Jay (majority): “If we attend to the words, we find them to be express, positive, free from ambiguity, and without room for such implied expressions: ‘The judicial power of the United States shall extend to controversies between a state and citizens of another state.’ If the Constitution really meant to extend these powers only to those controversies in which a State might be Plaintiff, to the exclusion of those in which citizens had demands against a State, it is inconceivable that it should have attempted to convey that meaning in words, not only so incompetent, but also repugnant to it; if it meant to exclude a certain class of these controversies, why were they not expressly excepted; on the contrary, not even an intimation of such intention appears in any part of the Constitution. It cannot be pretended that where citizens urge and insist upon demands against a State, which the State refuses to admit and comply with, that there is no controversy between them. If it is a controversy between them, then it clearly falls not only within the spirit, but the very words of the Constitution.”
Justice John Blair (majority): “It seems to me, that if this Court should refuse to hold jurisdiction of a case where a State is a Defendant, it would renounce part of the authority conferred, and consequently, part of the duty imposed on it by the Constitution; because it would be a refusal to take cognizance of a case where a State is a party.”
Justice James Wilson (majority): “‘The judicial power of the United States shall extend to controversies, between a state and citizens of another State.’ Could the strictest legal language; could even that language, which is peculiarly appropriated to an art, deemed, by a great master, to be one of the most honorable, laudable, and profitable things in our law; could this strict and appropriated language, describe, with more precise accuracy, the cause now depending before the tribunal?”
Justice William Cushing (majority): “Upon the whole, I am of the opinion, that the Constitution warrants a suit against a State, by an individual citizen of another State.”
Justice James Iredell (dissenting): “I believe there is no doubt that neither in the State now in question, nor in any other in the Union, any particular Legislative mode, authorizing a compulsory suit for the recovery of money against a State, was in being either when the Constitution was adopted, or at the time the judicial act was passed.”