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Immediately after the Revolutionary War the State courts were crowded
with business, because of the numerous bankruptcies, arising from war
habits, the changes in the condition of families, repudiation of debts,
false currency, etc. Marshall was one of the first lawyers who rose to
the magnanimity to admit the propriety of a federal judiciary, different
from that of the States. The other lawyers thought it would not do to
take the business away from these courts. They preferred to see the
people hanging around Richmond, with their cases undecided and unheard
on account of the pressure of business, rather than to concede a
national judiciary. All sorts of novel questions were arising at that
time, cases which had no precedents, which the English law-books did not
reach, and where the man of native powers, pushing out like Columbus on
the unknown, soon developed a sturdy strength and self-reliance the mere
popinjay and student of the law could never get. Among the cases he
argued was the British debt case, tried in 1793. The United States now
had its Circuit Court, and Chief-justice Jay presided at Richmond. The
treaty of peace of England provided that the creditors on either side
should meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value
of all _bona fide_ debts theretofore contracted. The question was
whether debts sequestrated by the Virginia Legislature during the war
came under this treaty. It is said that the Countess of Huntingdon heard
the speeches on this case, and said that every one of the lawyers, if in
England, would have been given a peerage.
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