The case came before the full bench of the Supreme Court, and was argued for the plaintiff by Edmund Randolph, then Attorney-General, the prominent member of the general convention and that of Virginia, who stated his opinion strongly against this claim of Georgia. The decision was against Georgia; Blair and Wilson, who were members of the convention that made the Constitution, the Chief-Justice Jay, and Cushing giving fully reasoned opinions. Iredell, a member of the North Carolina Convention, gave a dissenting opinion; it was not because he held that Georgia was a sovereign State as generally stated. He said as to sovereignty: “The United States are sovereign as to all the powers of government actually surrendered; each State in the Union is sovereign as to all the powers reserved.” This same doctrine, as to the sovereignty of a State in unsurrendered powers, was held by Marshall.[60] [60] Providence Bank _vs._ Billings, 4 Peters, 514. The reason of Iredell’s dissent was that before the adoption of the Constitution a State could not be sued; that no suit now could be brought against a State, because Congress had not made a law providing for it. Further, he intimated it was not intended by the Constitution to give the right of a compulsory suit against a State. As to the sovereignty of the United States in the powers conferred to it, the court was unanimous. In the same suit, Jay and Cushing maintained that the United States cannot be sued, a dictum since followed, though the Constitution gives jurisdiction to the courts where the United States are a party. At this time all the States were greatly indebted and many suits were instituted against them, the United States Courts maintaining their jurisdiction over the States. The alarm was general, and to quiet the apprehension that was so extensively entertained, an amendment, taking from the United States judicial power in suits against a State, was adopted in Congress and afterwards ratified by the State Legislatures in 1798. That its motive was not to maintain the sovereignty of a State from the degradation supposed to attend a compulsory appearance before the tribunal of the nation may be inferred from the terms of the amendment. It left jurisdiction to the United States of controversies to which the United States shall be a party, of controversies between two or more States, between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming under grants of different States.[61] [61] Chief-Justice Marshall’s remarks in Cohens _vs._ Virginia, 6 Wallace, 264.