CHAPTER SIX
IMPEACHMENT AND TREASON
1803-1808
That the decision in Marbury v. Madison did not evoke more hostility at the time it was rendered was undoubtedly due in part to the fact that another case was decided by the Court, only six days later, in a man- ner highly satisfactory to the Republicans. On March 2, 1803, an opinion was rendered by Judge Paterson in Stuart v. Bairdy 1 Cranch, 299, sustaining the con- stitutionality of the Circuit Court Act of 1802, and finally setting at rest the bitter political struggle over this legislation. The result was as pleasing to the Administration party as it was unexpected. Two constitutional questions had been involved — one as to the right of Congress, by repealing the Act of 1801, to abolish the judicial positions therein created; the second as to the right of Congress to impose upon the Supreme Court Judges the duty of sitting in the new Circuit Courts. Immediately after its enactment in 1802, Chief Justice Marshall, finding that the June session of the Court had been abolished and that it was thus prevented from considering the question in hanCj communicated with his Associate Judges, asking for their opinion whether they should comply with the new statute by performing the Circuit duty prescribed by it.^ Writing to Judge Paterson, he said: "I hope
- The correspondenoe of Marwhall on this subject appears hitherto to have escaped the attention of legal historians, and is to be fomid in Paterson Papers M88, George Bancroft transcript, in the New York Public Library, letters of Marshall to Paterson* April 6, 19, May 8, 1808; letters of Judge Samuel Chase to Paterson,
