Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/217

1808. assist in doing any of the acts proscribed, such person should also suffer death as a traitor. Fortunately for Southern theories the bill, although it passed the Senate by means of Southern votes, was lost in the House, where John Randolph had introduced a bill of his own more moderate in character.

Although the attack on the Supreme Court was more persistent and was carried further than ever before, it met with passive resistance which foreshadowed failure, and probably for this reason was allowed to exhaust its strength in the committee-rooms of Congress. The chief-justice escaped without a wound. Under the shadow of the embargo he could watch in security the slow exhaustion of his antagonist. Jefferson had lost the last chance of reforming the Supreme Court. In another six months Congress would follow the will of some new Executive chief; and if in the full tide of Jefferson's power Marshall had repeatedly thwarted or defied him with impunity, the chance was small that another President would meet a happier fate.

The failure of his attack on the Supreme Court was not the only evidence that Jefferson's authority when put to the test was more apparent than real. If in the President's eyes Marshall deserved punishment, another offender merited it still more. Senator Smith of Ohio was deeply implicated in Burr's conspiracy.