Year after year, during the Republican administrations, the national Judiciary had been quietly shoring up by its decisions the fabric of the Union, as fate compelled the Jeffersonians to erect it. The "formative decisions" of John Marshall, during his thirty-four years on the Supreme bench, maintained constantly the rights of the Federal courts and added to the prerogatives of the Central Government against the States. Scarcely a decision favoured the reserved rights theory. By the opinion in Marbury _vs_. Madison, already quoted, the Executive branch, presumably entirely divorced from the Judiciary, was found to be under a certain control. The case of Cohens _vs_. Virginia sustained the power of the Federal court over an appeal from a State court. It often happened that in a decision, as in the case of Insurance Company _vs_. Canter, Marshall took occasion to bring out deductions remotely germane to the pending case, but tending to broaden the scope of the Federal power. In this instance, he declared that the constitutional power to make a treaty carried the implied power to acquire territory. This really gave authority to unauthorised acts of the Republicans in purchasing Louisiana; but their remedy was an amendment and not a decision which made the legislative and executive powers still more dependent upon the judiciary. Jefferson complained of these "obiter dissertations," which suggested consolidating actions to other parts of the Federal Government. In the trial of Aaron Burr for treason, Justice Marshall held that, according to the Constitution, some overt act was necessary to constitute treason. This practical release of his former political opponent was to Jefferson as sore a grievance as Marshall's action in sending to him for certain papers connected with the case. He declared the latter act a presumptuous infringement upon the dignity of the Chief Executive.