In his message of December 8, 1801, Jefferson gave the signal for the repeal of the obnoxious measure, and a month later Breckinridge of Kentucky introduced the necessary resolution in the Senate. In the prolonged debate which followed, the Republicans in both Senate and House rang the changes on Taylor's argument. The Federalists made a twofold answer. Some, accepting the Republican premise that the fate of the judge was necessarily involved with that of the court, denied in toto the validity of repeal. Gouverneur Morris, for instance, said: "You shall not take the man from the office but you may take the office from the man; you may not drown him, but you may sink his boat under him.... Is this not absurd?" Other Federalists, however, were ready to admit that courts of statutory origin could be abolished by statute but added that the operation of Congress's power in this connection was limited by the plain requirement of the Constitution that judges of the United States should hold office during good behavior. Hence, though a valid repeal of the Act in question would take from the judges the powers which they derived from its provisions, the repeal would still leave them judges of the United States until they died, resigned, or were legally removed in consequence of impeachment. The Federalist orators in general contended that the spirit of the Constitution confirmed its letter, and that its intention was clear that the national judges should pass finally upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress and should therefore be as secure as possible from legislative molestation. The repeal of this Act was voted by a strict party majority and was reënforced by a provision postponing the next session of the Supreme Court until the following February. The Republican leaders evidently hoped that by that time all disposition to test the validity of the Repealing Act in the Court would have passed. But by this very precaution they implied a recognition of the doctrine of judicial review and the whole trend of the debate abundantly confirmed this implication. Breckinridge, Randolph, and Giles, it is true, scouted the claim made for the courts as "unheard-of doctrine," and as "mockery of the high powers of legislation"; but the rank and file of their followers, with the excesses of the French Revolution a recent memory and a "consolidated government" a recent fear, were not to be seduced from what they clearly regarded as established doctrine. Moreover, when it came to legislation concerning the Supreme Court, the majority of the Republicans again displayed genuine moderation, for, thrusting aside an obvious temptation to swamp that tribunal with additional judges of their own creed, they merely restored it to its original size under the Act of 1789.