Whether Sunday, August 30, 1807, was Parson Buchanan’s turn in the pulpit or Parson Blair’s history does not record. Judge Marshall was an intimate of both parsons and a devout churchman as well. But it is unlikely that, with the exacting business in hand, he found time to attend church that day. Even with that allowance there was not much time for reflection. A plausible explanation is that while the lawyers were debating the Chief Justice was formulating his opinion. This one was to be the longest in the whole trial and the one containing the most references to the authorities. It may well be that he made notes of these authorities cited by the speakers as the argument proceeded. Did he work by candlelight long into the night? Did he wake up with the birds and labor during the cool hours of the early morning? Or did he sit under the trees in his spacious yard during the day, braving the critical looks of his neighbors as they returned from church? Whatever the Chief Justice’s method, when court met on Monday morning, August 31, he was ready to deliver his opinion. Counsel, jury, and public in attendance knew that the crisis in the trial had been reached. The ever-courteous Marshall made use of his introduction to compliment counsel on both sides. The motion, he said, had been argued in a manner worthy of its importance and with an earnestness evincing the strong conviction felt by opposing counsel that the law was with them. “A degree of eloquence,” he declared, “seldom displayed on any occasion has embellished a solidity of argument and a depth of research by which the court has been greatly aided in forming the opinion it is about to deliver.” The Chief Justice restated the issue which was that, the testimony having shown that the prisoner was not present when the overt act mentioned in the indictment took place, objection had been raised that testimony offered to connect him with those who committed the overt act was totally irrelevant and therefore must be rejected. His first task was to clarify the confusion arising out of the opinion in the Bollman and Swartwout case, which already had been brought up by counsel on both sides. It was said that it was on the basis of that opinion that the Grand Jury had seen fit to bring in the indictments for treason. The offending phrase was the one which said: “If a body of men be actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable object, all those who perform any part, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actually leaguered in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors.”