Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/459

1807. ." He returned threat for threat, with something in addition:—


 * "In what terms of decency can we speak of this? As if an express could go to Natchez or the mouth of the Cumberland and return in five weeks, to do which has never taken less than twelve! . . .  But all the principles of law are to be perverted which would bear on the favorite offenders who endeavor to overturn this odious republic! . . .  All this, however, will work well.  The nation will judge both the offender and judges for themselves.  If a member of the Executive or Legislature does wrong, the day is never far distant when the people will remove him.  They will see then and amend the error in our Constitution which makes any branch independent of the nation.  They will see that one of the great co-ordinate branches of the government, setting itself in opposition to the other two and to the common-sense of the nation, proclaims impunity to that class of offenders which endeavors to overturn the Constitution, and are protected in it by the Constitution itself; for impeachment is a farce which will not be tried again.  If their protection of Burr produces this amendment, it will do more good than his condemnation would have done; . . . and if his punishment can be commuted now for a useful amendment of the Constitution, I shall rejoice in it."

In substance Jefferson said that if Marshall should suffer Burr to escape, Marshall himself should be removed from office. No secret was made of this intention. The letter in which Jefferson announced the threat was written to the Virginia senator William