Once Marshall had swept aside the irrelevant notion of State Sovereignty, he proceeded with the remainder of his argument without difficulty. Counsel for Virginia had contended that "a case arising under the Constitution or a law must be one in which a party comes into court to demand something conferred on him by the Constitution or a law"; but this construction Marshall held to be "too narrow." "A case in law or equity consists of the right of the one party as well as of the other, and may truly be said to arise under the Constitution or a law of the United States whenever its correct decision depends on the construction of either." From this it followed that Section XXV was a measure necessary and proper for extending the judicial power of the United States appellately to such cases whenever they were first brought in a state court. Nor did Article XI of the Amendments nullify the power thus conferred upon the Court in a case which the State itself had instituted, for in such a case the appeal taken to the national tribunal was only another stage in an action "begun and prosecuted," not against the State, but by the State. The contention of Virginia was based upon the assumption that the Federal and the State Judiciaries constituted independent systems for the enforcement of the Constitution, the national laws, and treaties, and such an assumption Marshall held to be erroneous. For the purposes of the Constitution the United States "form a single nation," and in effecting these purposes the Government of the Union may "legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory." "Our opinion in the Bank Case," Marshall had written Story from Richmond in 1819, a few weeks after M'Culloch vs. Maryland, "has roused the sleeping spirit of Virginia, if indeed it ever sleeps." Cohens vs. Virginia, in 1821, produced an even more decided reaction. Jefferson, now in retirement, had long since nursed his antipathy for the Federal Judiciary to the point of monomania. It was in his eyes "a subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine our confederated fabric"; and this latest assault upon the rights of the States seemed to him, though perpetrated in the usual way, the most outrageous of all: "An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his own mind by the turn of his own reasoning."