Chisholm v. Georgia

Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793), is considered the first great decision by the United States Supreme Court. Given its early date, there was little available legal precedent in American law. It was almost immediately superseded by the Eleventh Amendment.

Chisholm v. Georgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 5, 1793 Decided February 18, 1793
Full case name	Alexander Chisholm, Executors v. Georgia
Citations	2 U.S. 419 (more) 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419; 1 L. Ed. 440; 1793 U.S. LEXIS 249
Prior history	Original action filed, U.S. Supreme Court, August, 1792
Subsequent history	None on record
Holding
Article III, Section 2's grant of federal jurisdiction over suits "between a State and Citizens of another State" abrogated the States' sovereign immunity and granted federal courts the affirmative power to hear disputes between private citizens and States.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Jay Associate Justices James Wilson · William Cushing John Blair · James Iredell
Case opinions
Seriatim opinion	Cushing
Seriatim opinion	Blair
Seriatim opinion	Wilson
Seriatim opinion	Jay
Dissent	Iredell
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. III; Judiciary Act of 1789
Superseded by
U.S. Const. amend. XI

Background

In 1777, needed supplies for the Revolutionary War were purchased from a South Carolina businessman by the Executive Council of Georgia. The supplies were delivered but Georgia never paid as they had promised. After the businessman's death, Alexander Chisholm, the executor of his estate, took the case to court trying to collect from the state of Georgia. Georgia maintained it was not under the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

United States Attorney General Edmund Randolph argued the case for the plaintiff before the court. The defendant, Georgia, refused to appear, claiming that, as a sovereign state, it could not be sued without granting its consent to the suit.

The decision

In a four to one decision, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, with Chief Justice John Jay and associate justices John Blair, James Wilson, and William Cushing constituting the majority. Only Justice Iredell dissented. The court ruled that Article 3, Section 2, of the Constitution did not allow the states' sovereign immunity. In short, the Court ruled that Georgia was subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court. It granted federal courts the power to hear disputes between private citizens and states.

Effects

The resulting public sentiment in favor of states' rights led directly to the passage of the Eleventh Amendment in 1795. In Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), the court ruled that pending court actions from Chisholm were dismissed due to passage of the Eleventh Amendment. This removed federal jurisdiction in cases where citizens of one state or of foreign countries attempt to sue another state.

Supreme Court decisions overturned by Constitutional Amendments

Chisholm is one of only four decisions by the Supreme Court that were overturned by an amendment to the United States Constitution. The other three are:

• Dred Scott v. Sandford, which was overturned by passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., which was overturned by passage of the Sixteenth Amendment.
• Oregon v. Mitchell, which was reversed by the Twenty-sixth Amendment.

Arguably, one more case could be added:

• Minor v. Happersett, which was indirectly overturned by the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1875, Virginia Minor, in trying to gain the right to vote for women, argued the Fourteenth Amendment gave citizens the right to vote. The Court said it did not. The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, 45 years later, gave women the right to vote. However, Minor v. Happersett was still cited as case law into the 1960s in other right to vote issues.