The Chief Justice now assumed an apologetic attitude. It could not be denied, he said, that to issue a subpoena to a person filling the exacting position of chief magistrate was a duty which would be dispensed with much more cheerfully than it would be performed. But if it was a duty the Court could have no choice in the case. He recognized that the right to call the President into court could be abused. But, he assured, “the guard furnished to this high officer to protect him from being harassed by vexatious and unnecessary subpoenas, is to be looked for in the conduct of the Court after those subpoenas have been issued.” In short, what Judge Marshall said was that the decision as to whether it was appropriate for Mr. Jefferson to appear in Court rested with the Chief Justice, not with the President. The Chief Justice went on to defend his position. “It is not,” he said, “for the Court to anticipate the event of the present prosecution. Should it terminate as is expected on the part of the United States, all those who are concerned in it should certainly regret that a paper, which the accused believed to be essential to his defense; which may, for aught that now appears, be essential, had been withheld from him ... it would justly tarnish the reputation of the Court which had given its sanction to its being withheld.” He therefore ordered that the _subpoena duces tecum_ be issued to the President of the United States, or such of the secretaries of the departments as might have the paper mentioned. The Chief Justice had hardly finished delivering his opinion when Mr. MacRae was up, clamoring for recognition. Unless his ears had deceived him, he said, he had heard the Chief Justice remark that should the case terminate “as is expected on the part of the United States.” Against any such remark Mr. MacRae protested with all his might. “The impression,” he said, “which has been conveyed by the Court that we not only wished to have Aaron Burr accused, but that we wished to convict him, is completely abhorrent to our feelings.” The prosecution, he insisted, was interested only that Burr be tried. Judge Marshall did not immediately repudiate the comment. On the contrary, he defended it on the ground that he had inferred as much from remarks made by them assuming the guilt of the prisoner. But later, after reflection, he thought better of it. At the close of Court he called the reporters to him and observed that he had no desire that the words complained of by Mr. MacRae should remain in the written opinion and so he had expunged them.