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The Supreme Court in United States History (1)
The Supreme Court in United States History - 1 Author:Charles Warren Volume: 1 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1922 Original Publisher: Little, Brown Subjects: Law United States Courts History / United States / General History / United States / 19th Century Law / Courts Political Science / Government / Judicial Branch Notes: This is a black and white OCR repr... more »int of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Governor of Pennsylvania to place guards over The William; he issued an Executive order that prizes taken by French privateers in violation of neutrality and brought into our ports should be restored to their owners; and to Genet's protest at this action he replied, through Jefferson as Secretary of State, that "an appeal to the Court of last resort" would decide the question finally.1 Meanwhile, in order to avoid further delay, Washington took the radical step of causing a letter to be sent by Jefferson, addressed to Chief Justice Jay, and asking the Judges of the Supreme Court whether the President might seek their advice on questions of law: The war which has taken place among the powers of Europe produces frequent transactions within our ports and limits, on which questions arise of considerable difficulty, and of greater importance to the peace of the United States. These questions depend for their solution on the construction of our treaties, on the laws of nature and nations, and on the laws of the land, and are often presented under circumstances which do not give a cognizance of them to the tribunals of the country. Yet their decision is so little analogous to the ordinary functions of the Executive as to occasion much embarrassment and difficulty to them. The President would, therefore, be much relieved if he found himself free to refer questions of this description to the op...« less