Midnight of the 3rd of March had caught forty-one of the proposed Federal justices of the peace for the District of Columbia without their appointment having been fully made. Jefferson arbitrarily cut down their number to twenty-five, "having been thought too many," as he said. Among those dropped were four whose commissions had been made out and sealed by the acting Secretary of State, but had not been delivered. Madison, who became Secretary of State under Jefferson, refused to deliver the commissions, and the men, headed by one William Marbury, made a motion in the Federal court to obtain them. They had no recourse in the State courts. From this trivial circumstance, involving the least national judiciary office, came the case of Marbury vs. Madison, involving the right of the judiciary branch of the Federal Government to give an order to the executive. One phase of the relation of these two branches had been established nearly ten years before, when President Washington attempted to get an interpretation from the Supreme Court upon the binding clauses of the vexatious treaty with France. He was told that the court was not an advisory body, but a tribunal established to adjudge specific cases brought before it. For this advisory service, the Executive must depend upon his Attorney-General. About the same time, the United States circuit courts protested against an act of Congress which made them recipients of pension applications subject to the final decision of the War Department. Evidently the Judiciary intended to remain independent of both the other branches of the National Government. One feature of the relationship between the Federal courts and the Congress had been presumed to exist by Hamilton and other commentators on the Constitution, viz., the power to adjudge of the rights of individuals under an act of Congress. This principle of passing on the constitutionality of a legislative act by the courts had been established in at least five States before the adoption of the Constitution. It had been exercised in several cases by the Federal courts before the case of Marbury _vs._ Madison arose. A new contention was involved by asking whether the request made to the Supreme Court to issue a mandamus would hold against the provisions of the Constitution, which did not include mandamus in the powers specifically given to the court.