The first open resistance of a State to federal authority, as asserted by the Supreme Court, occurred in 1809, when the legislature of Pennsylvania interposed its authority to prevent the payment of prize money which had been awarded by a federal district court to Gideon Olmstead and others for their capture of the sloop Active during the Revolution. All efforts to secure a peaceful settlement of this controversy having failed, the Attorney-General, in behalf of Olmstead, applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of _mandamus_, directing Judge Peters of the district court to enforce his judgment. In granting the writ, Chief Justice Marshall pointed out the gravity of the issue. "If the legislatures of the several States," said he, "may at will annul the judgment of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the Constitution becomes a solemn mockery, and the nation is deprived of the means of enforcing its laws by the instrumentality of its own tribunals." Such a conclusion he emphatically repudiated. Reviewing the history of the case with all its details, he reached the uncompromising conclusion that "the State of Pennsylvania can possess no constitutional right to resist the legal process which may be directed in this cause.... A peremptory _mandamus_ must be awarded." Judge Peters issued the writ, but all efforts of the marshal to serve the writ were thwarted by the state militia. The marshal then summoned a _posse comitatus_ of two thousand men. Bloodshed seemed imminent; but after an ineffectual appeal to the President, the Pennsylvania authorities gave way and paid over the money. Subsequently the officer commanding the militia and others were indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to fine and imprisonment, for resisting the writ of a federal court; but they were pardoned by the President because "they had acted under a mistaken sense of duty." In this conflict of authority the National Government won at every point. Even the resolution which the legislature adopted in the heat of the controversy, calling for an amendment to the Constitution which should establish "an impartial tribunal to determine disputes between the General and State Governments," met with no approval from other States. Virginia, soon to be of a very different mind, responded that "a tribunal is already provided ... to wit: the Supreme Court, more eminently qualified from their habits and duties, from the mode of their selection, and from the tenure of their offices, to decide the disputes aforesaid in an enlightened and impartial manner, than any other tribunal which could be erected."