he federal legislature enacted the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting such suits. The Supreme Court existed without power. (3)In the first year that John Marshall served as Chief Justice the cases emphasized how harmless the court was. There was only one decision handed down in his February term and another in the August term and two major and two minor cases in the December term. Some of the cases involved disputes over ships captured as prizes on the high seas and land titles in the western lands. In these three cases, nothing established a precedent for American law but when Marshall was finished; he had pulled some principles that he used to build an independent judiciary. John Marshall was determined to strengthen the judiciary and to strengthen the system of using the law to solve political problems. (4)In August 1801, John Marshall received his first case. This case was known as Talbot v. Seeman. This case involved a merchant ship Amelia who was owned by a neutral Hamburg merchant and was captured by the French. An American ship later recaptured it, and the American captain, Silas Talbot, wanted salvage from the owner before he returned it. He referred to a law in 1799 that allowed salvage of up to half the ship?s value. Talbot?s claim was that the ship was taken from the enemy. The Hamburg owner claimed he was neutral and that Talbot was not entitled to salvage. Marshall argued that the American ship had the right to attack the Amelia because it was armed by the French and at the time they were in a partial state of war with the Americans. The American ship could expect to be attacked by the French so the American ship had the right to attack and seize the ship like they did. The question still remained if they still had the right to salvage. Marshall determined by common sense and not by congressional authorizations and argued that the right to salvage was contingent upon services rendered. Y...
