Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/241

Rh would, when they had power, endeavour to destroy a work whose adoption they opposed and whose exe- cution they have constantly counteracted. But I do not imagine they will stop here ; they will proceed in their mad and wicked career and the People^s eyes will be opened.'* James Hillhouse wrote that "now the constitutional independence of the Judges is a mere cobweb.'* ^ Fisher Ames wrote to Rufus King: "To repeal the Judicial Law to save a small sum shocks many who could swallow the claim of a Constitutional right to repeal it. . . . Gouv. Morris' speeches are justly admired and have had efiFect on thinking men — i.e. on 600 of 6 millions"; and to Theodore Dwight, he wrote, **the angels of destruction . . . are making haste.'' Theodore Sedgwick wrote to King: "All men who have been misled by an attachment to re- fined theory, and who really wish a security of property and person, will be shocked by the establishment of a precedent which renders the Judiciary, the only in- stnmient of this security, dependent on, and subser- vient to, the prevailing faction in the Legislature ; and the more so when they reflect that this measure is in direct violation of the Constitution, and not only so, but establishes a principle of complete consolidation of all National and State authority. For if the Legis- lature may do this, there can be no established defence against legislative usurpation." Gouvemeur Morris wrote that "the repeal of the Judiciary Bill battered down the great outwork of the Constitution. The Judiciary has been overthrown," and again, writing


 * Life and Letters cf Simeon Baldwin (1919), by Simeon E. Baldwin ; letter of Hinhoiue to Baldwin, Feb. 4, 1802; King, IV, letter of Sedgwick, Feb. 20, 1802. See National Aegie, June 2, 1802, to the effect that it was rumored that Rufus King was to be called home from Great Britain, that John Marshall was to succeed him as Ambassador there and that Thomas McKean, the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, was to be made Chief Justice in Marshall's place. Works of Fisher Ames (18M)» I, 287» letter of Ames to Ehnght, April 16, 1802.