Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/261

Rh that the Senate was being called upon "to aid in an audacious attempt to pry into Executive secrets by a tribunal which had no authority to do any such thing, and to enable the Supreme Court to assume an unheard of and unbounded power, if not despotism. It is to enable the Judiciary to exercise an authority over the President which he can never consent to. It is well known that the persons applying are enemies to the President, and that the Court are not friendly to him. . • . No Court on earth can control the Legis- lature, and yet it has been held here on the floor that they can, and this is a part of the same attempt to set the Court above the President and to cast a stigma upon him.'* Jackson of Georgia hoped that the Senate "will not interfere in it and become a party to an accusation which may end in an impeachment, of which the Sen- ate were the constitutional Judges.'* Breckenridge of Kentucky repeated the arguments which he had made the previous spring. "The Senate should not counte- nance,'* he said, "the Judiciary in their attack on the Executive power which is not constitutionally amenable to the Judges. ... It is dangerous to coimtenance the pretensions set up by the Judges to examine into the conduct of the other branches of the Government ; for if they have a right to examine, they must have, as a necessary incident, the right to control the other de- partments of Government. Such right is inconsistent with every idea of good government, and must neces- sarily degrade those branches which the Judiciary should thus undertake to direct. The present suit is therefore levelled at the dignity of the first Executive Magistrate, and the Senate is bound to protect that dig- nity." Jefferson's friends succeeded in causing the