A World Court in the Light of the United States Supreme Court

nts of two States. PART IV. While it is apparent from the many cases examined above that the United States Supreme Court has successfully decided and by its decisions settled in peace many controversies between two of the member States of the Union which otherwise might have resulted in war between the contestants, it must not be forgotten that all was not smooth sailing in the effort of the United States to prevent strife between its individual member States. A few cases of difference arose which threatened to bring on an armed contest between the United States and one of its member States; and one controversy at least almost precipitated an armed conflict between one of the member States of theUnion and a Territory which was an applicant for full statehood within the Union. In September, 1778, a British war vessel captured Gideon Olmstead of Connecticut and three other American fishermen near Cape Charles and took them to Jamaica. Placed there on the Sloop textit{Active laden with a cargo of arms and other supplies for the British army, they were forced to aid in navigating the vessel to New York. One night the opportunity came to Olmstead and his three companions to seize possession of the vessel, whereupon they steered for Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey. When the textit{Active was in full sight of the New Jersey coast, an armed brig equipped and commissioned by the State of Pennsylvania, the textit{Convention, pursued and by force, against the protest of Olms...