"The greatness of one party cannot give it a superiority or advantage over the other. The state or its representative, the assembly, has no more power over an act of this kind, after it has passed, than if the state was a private person. It is the glory of a republic to have it so, because it secures the individual from becoming the prey of power, and prevents might from overcoming right. If any difference or dispute arise between the state and the individuals with whom the agreement is made respecting the contract, or the meaning or extent of any of the matters contained in the act, which may affect the property or interest of either, such difference or dispute must be judged of and decided upon by the laws of the land, in a court of justice and trial by jury; that is, by the laws of the land already in being at the time such act and contract was made." "That this is justice," adds Paine, "that it is the true principle of republican government, no man will be so hardy as to deny." So, indeed, it seemed in those days. In the next year those principles were embodied in the Constitution; and in 1792, when a State pleaded its sovereign right to repudiate a contract ("Chisholm vs. Georgia") the Supreme Court affirmed every contention of Paine's pamphlet, using his ideas and sometimes his very phrases. Our first Attorney-General (Edmund Randolph, of Virginia) eloquently maintained that the inferiority of one party, or dignity of the other, could not affect the balances of justice. Individuals could not be left the victims of States. So it was decided. Justice Wilson remarked that the term sovereignty is unknown to the Constitution: "The term 'sovereign' has for its correlative, 'subject.'" A State contracting as a merchant cannot, when asked to fulfil its contract, take refuge in its "sovereignty." "The rights of individuals," said Justice Cushing, "and the justice due to them are as dear and precious as those of States. Indeed the latter are founded on the former; and the great end and object of them must be to secure and support the rights of individuals, or else vain is government."* But the decline of republicanism set in; the shameful Eleventh Amendment was adopted; Chisholm was defrauded of his victory by a retrospective action of this amendment; and America stands to-day as the only nation professing civilization, which shields repudiation under "State sovereignty." 1 See "Omitted Chapters of History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph," Chap. XVIII., for a full history of this subject. In the strength of these principles Paine was able to overwhelm the whole brood of heresies,--State privilege, legal tender, repudiation, retrospective laws. His arguments are too modern to need repetition here; in fineness and force they are like the ribs of his bridge: as to-day commerce travels on Paine's iron span, so on his argumentative arch it passes over freshets endangering honest money.