cuit Court Act) is as good to the party as an election/*
a Washington correspondent of the Aurora had writ-
ten; and General Harry Lee had said that "it is the
only resource which the Government would have to
secure strength, since the standing army could not be
retained/' Regarding this measure, therefore, as a
mere partisan move, Jefferson and his party leaders
were determined ui>on its*repeal as soon as the new Con-
gress should convene. Within ten days after his in-
auguration, Jefferson wrote that the principal Federa-
lists "have retreated into the Judiciary as a stronghold,
the tenure of which renders it difficult to dislodge them."
Within three weeks after his inauguration, he wrote
that while the Supreme Court was "so decidedly Fed-
eral and irremovable", the new Circuit Judges would
remain in office only until the recent statute could be
repealed; and later, he wrote that such action was
necessary, since "the Federalists have retired into the
Judiciary as a stronghold . . . and from that battery
all the works of republicanism are to be beaten down
and erased." And Jefferson's views were echoed by
William B. Giles, who wrote that the Federalists "saw
their doom approaching" and selected the Judiciary
Department "in which they could entrench themselves.
. . . The Judiciary has been filled with men who had
manifested the most indecorous zeal in favor of the
principles of the Federal party." Others of his party
associates warmly supported his intended course.
"It is generally expected," wrote Elbridge Gerry to
Jefferson as early as May, 1801, "that among the first
acts of the next Congress will be a repeal of the ex-
traordinary judicial bill, the design of which was too
palpable to elude common observation." ^ "What con-
^ Aurora, Feb. 88, 1801 ; speech of Giles, 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 581, 590; Jefferson. IX, letters to Joel Bariow, Blarch 14, 1801, and to Giles, Biaidi 28, 1801 ; WriUnge
