Browse -
Information -
Catalogue of Titles -
Submission of Manuscripts -
The Olmsted Case: Privateers, Property, and Politics in Pennsylvania, 1778-1810
By M. Ruth Kelly
Susquehanna University Press, Associated University Presses, dist. 2010 East Park Blvd, Cranbury, NJ 08512. Price: $39.50
This concise monograph unfolds the political and legal background of one of the least studied of the great constitutional cases of the early American republic. Beginning as a prize claim in a Pennsylvania admiralty court in 1778, the Olmsted case expanded into a complex test of the meaning and scope of state sovereignty, the Eleventh Amendment and federal judicial supremacy. M. Ruth Kelly explores these issues while deeply embedding the Olmsted case in Pennsylvania's highly factionalized politics. The book will be of great interest to specialists in the history of federalism and sovereign immunity as well as scholars focused on the politics of revolutionary and early republican America.
The Olmsted case takes its name from Gideon Olmsted, a Connecticut seaman who in 1778 led three other Americans in an audacious takeover of the Active, a British sloop on which they were serving as crew members. The vessel was subsequently intercepted by two privateers, one of them owned by the state of Pennsylvania, and on this ground Pennsylvania's Court of Admiralty divided the prize equally among Olmsted, the two privateer captains, and the state. The Continental Congress's Committee on Appeals reversed that decree, awarding Olmsted the entire prize, and two federal court rulings later affirmed the committee's decision. But every branch of the state government of Pennsylvania prevented enforcement of the award. The Court of Admiralty executed its own award, disbursing the state's share to David Rittenhouse, the state treasurer. When Olmsted won a federal suit in 1803 against Rittenhouse's heirs, who still held the state's share, the state legislature ordered the heirs to pay the funds to the state and directed the governor to prevent execution of the judgment. In United States vs. Peters (1809), Olmsted won a mandamus from the U.S. Supreme Court compelling federal district judge Richard Peters to enforce his 1803 judgment. Rejecting Pennsylvania's longstanding legal arguments, the Marshall Court confirmed that the Continental Congress's Committee on Appeals had had jurisdiction in the case and that the state was not a party to the case within the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment Still determined to resist, Governor Simon Snyder ordered the Philadelphia militia to stand guard at the Rittenhouse home and prevent the federal marshal from arresting the heirs. After a three-week standoff-the "Battle of Fort Rittenhouse"- the state of Pennsylvania finally agreed to pay Olmsted the money. General Michael Bright and his small band of militiamen were subsequently prosecuted and convicted for their role in the affair-Kelly makes effective use of Thomas Lloyd's vivid account of the trial-but President James Madison, who had unambiguously defended federal power throughout, immediately pardoned them.
Readers will be struck by the boldness of Pennsylvania's resistance to federal authority in this case. Kelly's narrative makes it possible to position the Olmsted resistance in the same line of opposition as the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) and Fries's Rebellion (1799). Indeed, the Olmsted resistance might have turned at least as violent had it taken place outside Philadelphia, where the governor had unusual difficulty rousing the militia to join General Bright. Meanwhile, one cannot help but be further struck by the full-throttle resistance of every branch of the Pennsylvania state government. From this point of view, the Olmsted resistance resembles less the disheveled rebellions of 1790s Pennsylvania than the state-driven legal standoffs characteristic of Georgia in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) and the Cherokee Cases (1831, 1832).
That alone would give the Olmsted case high standing in American legal history. Kelly offers the additional argument that the Peters decision, including Madison's approval of it, emboldened the Supreme court to issue the strong rulings in favor of federal judicial supremacy that followed in the 1810s (pp. 12, 13, 20, 147, 150n20). This is an intriguing thesis that merits fuller treatment. Clearly, Peters was part of a stream of federal judicial assertions that had begun virtually from the Court's inception. Among many examples, the most apt is the ruling in Penhallow v. Doane's Administrators (1795), a case so similar to Peters that it is difficult to regard the latter as a complete breakthrough. In Olney v. Arnold (1796), too, the Supreme Court reversed a state Supreme Court ruling-a decision that puts Peters as well as the rulings of the 1810s cited by Kelly in a less innovative light.
Despite this qualm, Kelly has vindicated her view that the Olmsted case "deserves a much higher rank in the canon of American constitutional history" than it has thus far received (p. 12). By interweaving the political history of the case with the legal, the author shows the great lengths to which an American stat in the early republic was willing to go to assert its own interpretation of American federalism.
The Olmsted case takes its name from Gideon Olmsted, a Connecticut seaman who in 1778 led three other Americans in an audacious takeover of the Active, a British sloop on which they were serving as crew members. The vessel was subsequently intercepted by two privateers, one of them owned by the state of Pennsylvania, and on this ground Pennsylvania's Court of Admiralty divided the prize equally among Olmsted, the two privateer captains, and the state. The Continental Congress's Committee on Appeals reversed that decree, awarding Olmsted the entire prize, and two federal court rulings later affirmed the committee's decision. But every branch of the state government of Pennsylvania prevented enforcement of the award. The Court of Admiralty executed its own award, disbursing the state's share to David Rittenhouse, the state treasurer. When Olmsted won a federal suit in 1803 against Rittenhouse's heirs, who still held the state's share, the state legislature ordered the heirs to pay the funds to the state and directed the governor to prevent execution of the judgment. In United States vs. Peters (1809), Olmsted won a mandamus from the U.S. Supreme Court compelling federal district judge Richard Peters to enforce his 1803 judgment. Rejecting Pennsylvania's longstanding legal arguments, the Marshall Court confirmed that the Continental Congress's Committee on Appeals had had jurisdiction in the case and that the state was not a party to the case within the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment Still determined to resist, Governor Simon Snyder ordered the Philadelphia militia to stand guard at the Rittenhouse home and prevent the federal marshal from arresting the heirs. After a three-week standoff-the "Battle of Fort Rittenhouse"- the state of Pennsylvania finally agreed to pay Olmsted the money. General Michael Bright and his small band of militiamen were subsequently prosecuted and convicted for their role in the affair-Kelly makes effective use of Thomas Lloyd's vivid account of the trial-but President James Madison, who had unambiguously defended federal power throughout, immediately pardoned them.
Readers will be struck by the boldness of Pennsylvania's resistance to federal authority in this case. Kelly's narrative makes it possible to position the Olmsted resistance in the same line of opposition as the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) and Fries's Rebellion (1799). Indeed, the Olmsted resistance might have turned at least as violent had it taken place outside Philadelphia, where the governor had unusual difficulty rousing the militia to join General Bright. Meanwhile, one cannot help but be further struck by the full-throttle resistance of every branch of the Pennsylvania state government. From this point of view, the Olmsted resistance resembles less the disheveled rebellions of 1790s Pennsylvania than the state-driven legal standoffs characteristic of Georgia in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) and the Cherokee Cases (1831, 1832).
That alone would give the Olmsted case high standing in American legal history. Kelly offers the additional argument that the Peters decision, including Madison's approval of it, emboldened the Supreme court to issue the strong rulings in favor of federal judicial supremacy that followed in the 1810s (pp. 12, 13, 20, 147, 150n20). This is an intriguing thesis that merits fuller treatment. Clearly, Peters was part of a stream of federal judicial assertions that had begun virtually from the Court's inception. Among many examples, the most apt is the ruling in Penhallow v. Doane's Administrators (1795), a case so similar to Peters that it is difficult to regard the latter as a complete breakthrough. In Olney v. Arnold (1796), too, the Supreme Court reversed a state Supreme Court ruling-a decision that puts Peters as well as the rulings of the 1810s cited by Kelly in a less innovative light.
Despite this qualm, Kelly has vindicated her view that the Olmsted case "deserves a much higher rank in the canon of American constitutional history" than it has thus far received (p. 12). By interweaving the political history of the case with the legal, the author shows the great lengths to which an American stat in the early republic was willing to go to assert its own interpretation of American federalism.
Anthony M. Joseph, Eastern University <Top>
SU Press (570)372-4175/fax (570)372-4021 | Email: SUPress | Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA 17870