Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/217

Rh to continue in office under the new Administration. Among these, John Marshall and Charles Lee are provided for; Marshall's brother-in-law is also nom- inated, and I expect some of his Kentucky connections will be remembered when the nominations are made/' "It is a law which may be considered as the last eflfort of the most wicked, insidious and turbulent faction that ever disgraced our political annals," wrote another correspondent from Kentucky, " the ne plus ultra of an expiring faction to enthral the measures likely to be pursued by the new Administration, and to serve as one of the principal cogs in the wheel of consoli- dation." ^ One feature of the statute was regarded by President-elect Jefferson as aimed directly at himself and as an intentional diminution of his powers, namely, the reduction of the number of the Court from six to five, by providing that when the next vacancy occurred it should not be filled. As Judge Cushing, who was an elderly man and in extremely bad health, might naturally be expected to resign within a short time, the restriction on his replacement by Jefferson bore, quite reasonably, the aspect of an attempt to keep the Court wholly Federalist.

On March 4, 1801 (after twelve years of Federalist administration), j>olitical control of the United States passed into the hands of the Anti-Federalist party (now becoming known as Republican). "The Administration of Mr. Jefferson will be that of Reason and Virtue. The time seems to have returned when Republicanism, pure and undefiled, will evince its infinite value to social felicity," wrote Bishop James

^ Breckmridge Papert MSS, letters of Nicholas, April 15, 1801, Mason, Feb. 12, «9, 1801, James Hopkins, Feb. 18, March «7, 180«. Scdem Register, Feb. 4, 181«: **Thi8 celebrated act was scrambled into the House and hurried out as a law, to the disgrace of its framers.'