Should they resume the Marbury and Madison case in the inferior courts, and proceed in this also, or should they abandon both and submit themselves to the stigma of having been the authors of false pretences and unfounded clamor, was the question to be met. The Republican party of the Union, as then constituted, was for the first time in possession of two departments of the Federal Government. Whilst in a minority they had not been regarded by their high-reaching opponents with feelings of much respect. Whatever might still have been the federal impressions of their principles or designs, there was no longer room for two opinions, in respect to their determination, their firmness and their capacity to carry out the measures they deemed necessary to the public service. Such being the circumstances in which they were placed, the Chief Justice, his associates and friends, surveyed the exposures and defenses of the only department that was left under their control, and it was natural that they should ponder upon possible consequences before they proceeded another step in a course which the other departments regarded as one of aggression. The supervision and control of the Supreme Court of the United States over the largest portion of the legislation and jurisprudence of the State governments, designed to be secured by the twenty-fifth section of the Federal Judiciary Act and the extent to which they might be carried, were, in their political aspects, looked upon by Hamilton and his followers as constituting the only remaining sheet-anchor of the government, in the sense in which they desired to see it administered. This lay completely at the mercy of their opponents. No matter what might be their confidence in the constitutionality of the provision, the whole appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is, by the express letter of the Constitution, to be exercised subject to "such exceptions and such regulations as the Congress shall make." An act of three lines repealing the clause of the Judiciary Act would except writs of error to State courts from the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and another might abolish the use of the writ of _mandamus_. The members of that court had seen too much of the temper and firmness of the President and Congress to doubt the immediate adoption of such measures if the contest in regard to the boundaries of power between the departments was continued, and were too sensible of the extent to which that high tribunal was indebted for its power and dignity to that branch of their jurisdiction to push so unprofitable a collision one step farther under their present auspices. The consequence was a suspension of all movements in that direction. No more was heard of Mr. Marbury's claims to his commission, and the new judges quietly submitted to expulsions from their life-estates in offices by a law they claimed to be unconstitutional, with a court within their reach authorized to declare