That this law was understood to reach a citizen of a State resisting the authority of the United States is clearly shown by the letter of Luther Martin, a distinguished jurist, and also the Attorney-General of Maryland, and afterwards a leader of the bar in the United States Courts, and who as a lawyer was accustomed to consider the meaning of instruments like the Constitution. In this letter to the Legislature of Maryland objecting to the ratification of the Constitution, he declares that this clause was kept for the purpose of coercing a State. He wrote: “The time may come when it shall be the duty of a State in order to preserve itself from the oppression of the General Government to have recourse to the sword; in which case, the proposed form of government declares, that the State, and every one of its citizens who acts under its authority, are guilty of a direct act of treason,” and a citizen is thus put in the dilemma of being exposed to punishment, either by the State or the United States, however he may act. To prevent this, he writes, he offered an amendment that acts done under the authority of one or more States should not be deemed treason or punished as such; but this provision was not adopted.[18] [18] Martin’s Letter, Elliot’s _Debates_, vol. I., pp. 382, 383. The interference of the United States with a State is expressly directed by another clause in the Constitution, that by which the United States is obliged to protect a State against domestic violence and guarantees to put down any government if it be not republican. There is no limit to this guaranty and it is no matter if the unrepublican government be established by a majority or unanimity of votes. A sovereign government seldom, if ever, allows itself to be sued, and never gives the decision of a suit against itself or between itself and other governments to _another jurisdiction_. That is a direct surrender of sovereignty. The Constitution as originally adopted, gave to the United States judicial power in controversies to which the United States shall be a party, in controversies between two or more States, between a State and citizens of another State and between a State and foreign states, citizens, or subjects. The jurisdiction in suits by individuals against a State was afterwards taken away by the passage of an amendment to the Constitution, leaving however jurisdiction in controversies to which the United States shall be a party and between two or more States and a foreign State. The fact, however, remains, that the Constitution as formed and as adopted by the original States, (all that can claim to have been sovereign), did give jurisdiction to the United States over all claims, even those of individuals out of the State against the State, as if the State had no more political importance than a county or a town.