The validity and authority of a
presidential proclamation was established by the prosecution in the
circuit court at Richmond of an offender against Washington's neutrality
proclamation. But the decision during Washington's administration which
especially made for the Union was in the case of Penhallow _v_. Doane's
executors, which sustained all the actions of the old Congress both
during the Revolutionary period and under the Articles, and made its
decisions final in cases of appeal from State tribunals. Thus was the
national sovereignty, by a single decision, extended backward over
local government to the very beginnings of independency and, at the
same time, established for the future so long as the National Government
should exist.
Not only in the intangible shape of Supreme Court decisions, but in
a thousand practical particulars, the central agency was making itself
manifest to the people and gaining friends among them. The general
condition of the country was prosperous. Over ten million dollars had
been paid on the national debt. A dependable revenue was being collected
in scores of United States custom-houses scattered through the different
States.
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