Theophilus Parsons of Massachusetts, Tappan Reeves of Connecticut, and Pendleton, Wythe and Roane of Virginia, with numerous others, might be added to the list. It would not be an easy matter to match these by selections from the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, highly distinguished as its incumbents have been. The State courts had, for nearly fifteen years before the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789, performed, as well in peace as in war, most of the duties which the new Constitution devolved upon the Federal judiciary. The Federal Government was authorized, by the articles of Confederation, to establish inferior courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and courts for the trial of Admiralty cases, yet these powers had been carried into effect through the State judiciaries. But all at once the State courts were deemed unworthy of trust. Whence this change? Had the State courts degenerated? No such thing; they were constantly improving, the supineness of a few in respect to the interests of the mother country, blamable as it certainly was, to the contrary notwithstanding. No, the State courts had not become worse, but the implacable opponents of those whose judicial power they represented had become stronger! The old Anti-Federal party, the inflexible and powerful champion for the rights of the States, had been overthrown--forever demolished, at least in that array. The State governments were for a season helpless. Those who were always hostile to their power--who, in the language of Hamilton after the Convention, and in the act of foreshadowing the effects of such an administration as actually succeeded, were desirous of a "triumph altogether over the State governments, and to reduce them to an entire subordination"--were all powerful in Congress. Nor was their power confined to Congress or to any particular branch of the Government. The result of the question of ratification in the different State Conventions, and the idea present to every mind that material prosperity, public and private, would be much promoted by that result, produced a great change in public sentiment adverse to the authority and influence of the State governments. It was made fashionable to deride them. The organization of the Federal judiciary was the very first opportunity that was afforded after the adoption of the Constitution to make the States feel the power which their inveterate opponents had acquired by that event, and most unsparingly was that power exercised.