Virginia  Resolutions  and  Report,  January,  1800,  p.  28.  „  „„

3  See  Story's  Com.  on  Const.,  a  1656 ;  Osbom  -v.  Sank  of  United  States,  9  Wheat.
Eep.,  846,  863,  866.
OP  THE  JUDICIAL  POWERS.  365

ingredients  of  fraud,  accident,  trust,  or  hardship,  -whicli
would  render  the  matter  an  object  of  equitable  rather
than  legal  jurisdiction,  as  the  distinction  is  established
in  several  of  the  states.  It  is  the  peculiar  province  of
a  court  of  equity  to  relieve  against  what  are  called  hard
bargains.  These  are  contracts  in  which,  though  there
may  have  been  no  direct  fraud  or  deceit  sufficient  to
invalidate  them  in  a  court  of  law,  yet  tliere  may  have
been  some  undue  and  unconscionable  advantage  taken
of  the  necessities  or  misfortunes  of  one  of  the  parties
which  a  court  of  equity  would  not  tolerate.  In  such
cases,  where  foreigners  were  concerned  on  either  side,
it  would  be  impossible  for  the  federal  judicatures  to  do
justice  without  equitslble  as  well  as  legal  jurisdiction.
This  reasoning  may  not  be  so  palpable  in  those  states
where  the  formal  and  technical  distinction  between  law
and  equity  is  not  maintained,  as  in  this  stsite,  AVherd  it
is  exemplified  by  every  day's  practice.^

g  546.  The  supreme  court  has  original  jurisdiction  in
all  cases  affecting  embassadors,  other  public  ministers
and  consuls,  and  those  cases  in  which  a  state  is  a  party.
