Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/223

Rh The first of these episodes was an extraordinary move on the part of two of the Judges of the new Circuit Court for the District of Coliunbia at their first session in June, 1801, in instructing the District Attorney to institute a prosecution for libel against the editor of the Administration paper, the National Intelligencer, because of its publication of a letter signed by "A friend to impartial justice", containing a gross attack on the Judiciary,^ As both of these Judges, William Cranch and James M. Marshall, were Federalists? and among President Adams' late appointments, and as William Kilty, the Republican Chief Justice of the Court, refused to join in the action, the case at once assiuned a i>olitical character. The Republican Dis- trict Attorney whose views, as he informed the Court, were ^'inimical to the interposition of the Court*', de- clined to have anything to do with the business further than, as the officer of the Court, to hand the papier in question to the Grand Jury and to express to it the sentiments of the diflferent members of the Court as well as his own. That the letter in question contained extremely violent and false views as to the Federal Judges was clear, but that it also fairly represented beliefs very generally entertained by the Republicans was also indubitable. " Our Courts with scarcely an exception," said the writer, " have been prompt to seize every occasion of aggrandizing Executive power, of destroying all freedom of opinion, of executing un- constitutional laws, and of inculcating by the wanton

1 As to details of this episode hitherto unnoted by historians, see National Intel' Hgeneer, June 12, Nov. 18, 1801; Aurora, Oct. 28, 1801; Columbian Centinel, July 6, 1801 ; Independent Chronicle, June 25, July 9, Sept. 7, 14, Nov. 5, 9, 1801 ; BoeUm Gazette, Sept. 10, 1801. The Boston Oazette, July 20, 1801, and the Columbian Centind, July 22, 1801, stated that the author of the libel was one of Jefferson's new appointees as United States Attorn^. A writer in the Charleston Oajuite stated that it is "said to have been written by a Secretary of State to shield you (Jefferson) from the indignation of an injured people." See Connedieut Courant, Aug. 17» 1801.