The Life of John Marshall, Volume 3: Conflict and construction, 1800-1815. Beveridge Albert Jeremiah
of the conditions that forced Marshall to pronounce his famous opinion in the case of Marbury
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The Senate then met in the chamber now occupied by the Supreme Court.
147
See
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Jefferson to Congress, Dec. 8, 1801,
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Jefferson, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong., partly quoted in Beard:
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For full text of this exposition of Constitutional law by Jefferson see Appendix A.
151
Ames to King, Dec. 20, 1801, King, iv, 40.
Like most eminent Federalists, except Marshall, Hamilton, and Cabot, Fisher Ames was soon to abandon his Nationalism and become one of the leaders of the secession movement in New England. (See vol. iv, chap. i, of this work.)
152
See vol. ii, 531, 547-48, 550-52, of this work.
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
Grayson to Henry, Sept. 29, 1789, Tyler, i, 170-71.
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Davie to Iredell, Aug. 2, 1791,
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Vol. ii, 552-53, of this work.
162
Jay to Adams, Jan. 2, 1801,
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See vol. i, chap. vi, of this work. The conditions of travel are well illustrated by the experiences of six members of Congress, when journeying to Philadelphia in 1790. "Burke was shipwrecked off the Capes; Jackson and Mathews with great difficulty landed at Cape May and traveled one hundred and sixty miles in a wagon to the city; Burke got here in the same way. Gerry and Partridge were overset in the stage; the first had his head broke, … the other had his ribs sadly bruised… Tucker had a dreadful passage of sixteen days with perpetual storms." (Letter of William Smith, as quoted by Johnson:
On his way to Washington from Amelia County in 1805, Senator Giles was thrown from a carriage, his leg fractured and his knee badly injured. (Anderson, 101.)
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This arrangement proved to be so difficult and vexatious that in 1792 Congress corrected it to the extent of requiring only one Justice of the Supreme Court to hold circuit court with the District Judge; but this slight relief did not reach the serious shortcomings of the law. (
See Adams:
166
See statement of Ogden,
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Of course, to some extent this evil still continued in the appeals to the Circuit Bench; but the ultimate appeal was before judges who had taken no part in the cause.
The soundness of the Federalist Judiciary Act of 1801 was demonstrated almost a century later, in 1891-95, when Congress reënacted every essential feature of it. (See "Act to establish circuit courts of appeals and to define and regulate in certain cases the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and for other purposes," March 3, 1891, chap. 517, amended Feb. 18, 1895, chap. 96.)
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For example, Senator Cocke of Tennessee asserted the expense to be $137,000. (
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It was to Breckenridge that Jefferson had entrusted the introduction of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 into the Legislature of that State. It was Breckenridge who had led the fight for them. At the time of the judiciary debate he was Jefferson's spokesman in the Senate; and later, at the President's earnest request, resigned as Senator to become Attorney-General.
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Breckenridge's constituents insisted that the law be repealed, because they feared that the newly established National courts would conflict with the system of State courts which the Legislature of Kentucky had just established. (See Carpenter,
Although the repeal had been determined upon by Jefferson almost immediately after his inauguration (see Jefferson to Stuart, April 8, 1801;
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172
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175
Monroe to Breckenridge, Jan. 15, 1802, Breckenridge MSS. Lib. Cong.
176
See
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This unfortunate declaration of Morris gave the Republicans an opportunity of unlimited demagogic appeal. See
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Morris spoke for an hour. There was a "large audience, which is not common for that House." He prepared his speech for the press. (
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