John Marshall

“ All these warrants were equally entitled to be satisfied out of the land 'reserved by law on the southeast side of the Ohio for the Virginia troops on continental establishment.' They were equally 'legal bounties,' equally bounties 'which had been engaged to them by the laws of Virginia,' before her cession of the territory northwest of the Ohio; for a resolution receiving the assent of both houses, is a law as operative as an act of assembly. ”

“ Our inquiries are in this case limited to the question, whether the record shows that an act of congress has been misconstrued, to the injury of the plaintiff in error, or the title of the defendant in error has been sustained by a law of a state which is repugnant to a law of the United States. ”

“ They possessed the same power to bestow that bounty on an individual in the form of a resolution, as on their officers, generally, in the form of an act. The one conferred the same rights as the other, and was equally obligatory on the state. Had the lands been retained by Virginia, no distinction could have been made between these claims, and it is impossible to perceive any reason why she should have distinguished between them in the reservation contained in her act of cession. ”