In spite of his anxieties and misgivings, Marshall, in his capacity as Chief Justice, performed his official duty in administering the oath of office to President Jefferson. How painful that duty must have been is revealed by a letter he wrote on the same day to his friend Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina: “The Democrats are divided into speculative theorists and absolute terrorists. With the latter I am disposed to class Mr. Jefferson. If he ranges himself with them it is not difficult to foresee that much difficulty is in store for the country--if he does not, they will soon be his enemies and calumniators.” Strong words for the Chief Justice to use against the President of the United States so soon after the Chief Justice had administered the oath to the President. During the first nine months of his administration Jefferson had sufficient evidence of the animosity of the Federal bench, largely directed by Marshall, to write to a friend: “The Federalists have retired into the judiciary as a stronghold ... and from that battery all the works of republicanism are to be broken down and erased.” The Republicans were not slow in taking up the Federalist challenge. Their first major offensive was the impeachment of Justice Chase. The blustering, choleric Chase, with his violent partisan comments from the bench, had provided just cause for complaint, Heaven knows. Yet his trial by the Senate and his exoneration from the charges leveled at him by the House indicated that impeachment was a dull and unreliable weapon. The verdict left Jefferson more than ever convinced that a grave error had been committed in the Constitution by granting to the judiciary authority equal to that of the executive and legislative branches. Marshall’s epochal decision in the case of Marbury versus Madison, confirming the Supreme Court’s right to pass on the constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress, strengthened that belief. Nowhere was the presumption of the judiciary better exemplified than in the person and actions of John Marshall. Jefferson’s unerring political instinct told him that the quickest and surest way to cut the judiciary down to size was to get rid of Marshall, either by impeachment or by amending the Constitution to make Federal judges removable from office at the will of the President and Congress. But a case must first be made against Marshall. The Burr trial presented a perfect opportunity. Of this the President and the Chief Justice were both well aware, and the party leaders no less than the President and the Chief Justice. So it was that, at Richmond in the spring of 1807, Aaron Burr did not stand at the bar alone. The Chief Justice also was on trial.