Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 27.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

‘ [311] the measure of its own powers; but as in all cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infraction as of the mode and measure of redress.’ On this platform Mr. Jefferson was elected President in 1800, overthrowing John Adams and the Federal party. It was the corner-stone of the Democratic faith, and the government was administered on it in the main from 8000 to 1861, excepting the intersigna of John Quincy, of Andrew Jackson, and of Millard Filmore. The national Democratic conventions affirmed it time and again. But John Marshall, in the Supreme Court, steadily enlarged the delegated power of the common agent, and the northern people generally lost sight of the nature of the Federal government, and, applying the principle of the resolutions of 1798, in the case of secession, set itself up ‘to judge for itself, as well of infraction as of the mode and measure of redress.’

Mr. Calhoun wrote his book to establish the proposition, and I can well understand how President Davis, Senators Wigfall, Mason, and Hunter all agreed that there should be no Supreme Court, the creature of the Federal authority, to become a ‘common arbiter’ in all time in disputes between States, or between States and the Federal government. The conclusion I arrive at is, that there was no Supreme Court, because the Confederate States would not tolerate a ‘common arbiter’ appointed by their agent, the Confederate government.