The new Government was in full operation. No one longer questioned its
success or its fitness for the task before it. Fears for individual
rights had been quieted by the adoption of ten amendments to the
Constitution, guaranteeing the continuance of such birthrights as
freedom of conscience, trial by jury, free possession of property, and
habeas corpus. The Union had come off victorious in its first case of
discipline. It had made practical demonstration that its laws would
be enforced and that it could use State militia regardless of State
lines in enforcing them. Its system of judges and marshals extended
over the entire domain. Its Supreme Court had sustained the claim of
a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia. State
sovereignty had received a blow and national supremacy an impulse. The
Superior Court had also declared that a treaty of the United States
predominated over a State law, and that no State could confiscate a
debt owed to a British subject. According to another decision, the
United States District Courts were sustained in their admiralty
jurisdiction over the State courts.
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