From these words arises the doctrine of Political Questions, an escape clause from the trammels of judicial review for high executive officers in the performance of their discretionary duties. The doctrine was continued, even expanded, by Marshall's successor. In Luther _v._ Borden,[43] decided in 1849, the Court was invited to review the determination by the President that the existing government of Rhode Island was "republican" in form. It declined the invitation, holding that the decision of Congress and of the President as Congress's delegate was final in the matter, and bound the courts. Otherwise said Chief Justice Taney, the guarantee clause of the Constitution (Article IV, section 4) "is a guarantee of anarchy and not of order". But a year later the same Chief Justice, speaking again for the unanimous Court, did not hesitate to rule that the President's powers as commander-in-chief were purely military in character, those of any top general or top admiral.[44] Hamilton had said the same thing in Federalist No. 69. Alongside the opinions of the Court of this period, however, stand certain opinions of Attorneys General that yield a less balanced bill of fare. For it is the case that, from the first down to the present year of grace, these family lawyers of the Administration in power have tended to favor expansive conceptions of presidential prerogative. As early as 1831 we find an Attorney-General arguing before the Supreme Court that, in performance of the trust enjoined upon him by the "faithful execution" clause, the President "not only may, but ... is bound to avail himself of every appropriate means not forbidden by law."[45] Especially noteworthy is a series of opinions handed down by Attorney-General Cushing in the course of the years 1853 to 1855. In one of these the Attorney-General laid down the doctrine that a marshal of the United States, when opposed in the execution of his duty by unlawful combinations too powerful to be dealt with by the ordinary processes of a federal court, had authority to summon the entire able-bodied force of his precinct as a _posse comitatus_, comprising not only bystanders and citizens generally but any and all armed forces,[46] which is precisely the theory upon which Lincoln based his call for volunteers in April, 1861.