As a matter of expediency and public convenience, no one seriously denied that the Federalists were altogether in the right. The introduction of railways and steamboats greatly altered the problem of judicial organization; but no system could have been better adapted to its time and purposes than that of 1801. The only solid argument brought against it was that it attained its object too completely, bringing Federal justice to every man’s door, and removing every difficulty or objection to suing in Federal courts. There was truth in the complaint that it thus placed the State judiciaries at a disadvantage. Beyond and above this, the controversy involved another question of far-reaching consequences which the Republicans were too timid to avow. A true democrat might have said openly that he wanted an elective judiciary, or would have insisted that the whole judiciary must be made subject to removal by the legislature. In neither of these opinions was anything disgraceful or improper; yet such was the dread of Federalist and conservative outcry, that although many of the Republican speakers went to the verge of the avowal, none dared make the issue. Their timidity cost the Virginians dear. They knew, and never ceased to complain, that power grew mechanically; and only their want of experience excused them for over-confidence in the strength of their own virtue. They saw that the only part of Federalist centralization still remaining beyond their control was the judiciary; and they knew that if the judiciary were allowed to escape them in their first fervor of Republican virtue, they never could grapple with it after their own hands had learned the use of centralized power and felt the charm of office. Instead of acting, they temporized, threatened without daring to strike, and were made to appear like secret conspirators, planning what they feared to avow.