All we are told is that Judge Griffin sat on the bench with the Chief Justice. So he goes down in history as a footnote. But he should be a footnote in heavy black type. For in his humble position in that famous trial he was the perfect symbol of all the poor mortals whose fate it is to be just important enough to occupy a place on the stage, but to be given no speaking lines and to serve merely as background for the star performers. But the chief object of attention was the prisoner at the bar. To many there Burr was already a well-known figure; others were seeing him for the first time. They craned their necks out of curiosity to learn what manner of man this was who had set to work to carve an empire in the Southwest and in so doing disrupt the nation. If Burr had been denied the opportunity to arrange the setting dramatically, as he had done for the impeachment proceedings against Justice Chase, he still was at liberty to give attention to his personal appearance. He had selected a suit of fine black silk and he wore his hair powdered, a picture of scrupulous neatness. His manner was calm, collected, and dignified, his mind apparently concentrated on the proceedings and indifferent to the stares of the curious. To Winfield Scott, who was watching him from the far end of the hall, he looked “as composed, as immovable as one of Canova’s living marbles.” Impressive too was the Chief Justice. His admirers had accustomed themselves to the carelessness of his dress. They centered their attention on his majestic head, without a single gray hair, set on broad shoulders, his ruddy weather-beaten face, his dark luminous eyes approached in beauty only by the hazel eyes of Burr. It was frequently remarked during the trial that never before had two such pairs of eyes beheld each other. Marshall’s friends spoke of him as the soul of dignity and honor, prudent, courageous, immovably resolute to do the right, “the Washington of the Bench.” Not so the champions of Jefferson. They saw him on the contrary as “suave, almost unctuous, wearing the mask of impartial benevolence” which was “to slip conspicuously more than once in the course of the trial ... revealing a partisan as malevolent as any that Jefferson ever faced.” When the courtroom had quieted down proceedings were opened by the clerk calling the names of those who had been summoned for the Grand Jury. Burr was on his feet at once. He lost no time in making it clear that he was going to act as his own counsel. Learned in the law and thoroughly at home with court procedure he was not going to hesitate to interpose when he saw a chance to make a point in his favor. When he spoke his remarks were crisp and to the point.