"Sovereignty of Reason:" An Approach to Sovereign Immunity and Copyright Ownership of Distance-Education Courses at Public Colleges and Universities

Journal of Law and Education, Apr 2005 by Klein, Michael W

Chisholm then brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a written protest, the state of Georgia refused to enter an appearance, and Chisholm-represented by U.S. Attorney General Edmund Randolph, who was retained as private counsel-moved for a default judgment.111

Under the contemporary practice, the justices delivered their opinions in seriatim, each speaking separately, after which the judgment of the Court was announced.112 The Court ruled 4-1 that states were subject to suits brought by citizens of other states.113

Justice James Iredell, whose opinion is the first to appear in the case, dissented and found that the Court had no jurisdiction.114 Justices John Blair and William Cushing offered relatively brief opinions, focusing on a literal reading of the provision in Article III.115

Justice James Wilson and Chief Justice John Jay delivered the principal opinions holding that the Court had jurisdiction. Justice Wilson, examining the meaning of sovereignty, found that the Court had jurisdiction over the state of Georgia.116 He then examined the purpose behind the Constitution:

[T]he people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national Government, complete in all its parts, with powers Legislative, Executive and Judiciary; and, in all those powers, extending over the whole nation. . . . [W]e may safely conclude, as the legitimate result of this Constitution, that the State of Georgia is amenable to the jurisdiction of this Court.117

Chief Justice Jay, in the latter part of his opinion, analyzed the extension of the power of the federal judiciary over cases between states and citizens of another state.118 He wrote:

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.119

The chief justice found it logical within the purpose of the Constitution for a citizen of one state to be able to sue another state:

The exception contended for, would contradict and do violence to the great and leading principles of a free and equal national government, one of the great objects of which is, to ensure justice to all: To the few against the many, as well as to the many against the few. It would be strange, indeed, that the joint and equal sovereigns of this country, should, in the very Constitution by which they professed to establish justice, so far deviate from the plain path of equality and impartiality, as to give to the collective citizens of one State, a right of suing individual citizens of another State, and yet deny to those citizens a right of suing them.120