The uncertainty of the law was in large part responsible for this lack of prestige. "Too great inattention," complained a Boston lawyer, in the _Columbian Centinel_ in 1801, "has hitherto prevailed as to the preservation of the decisions of our courts of law. We have neither authorized nor voluntary reporters. Hence we are compelled to the loose and interested recollections of counsel, or to depend wholly on British decisions." The first systematic attempt to secure records of opinions was made by Connecticut in 1785. Four years later, Ephraim Kirby, a printer in Litchfield, issued "the first regular printed law reports in America." This example was followed in other States; and in 1798 the first volume of United States Supreme Court Reports was published by Dallas. The great period in the history of the Supreme Court coincides with the thirty-four years during which John Marshall held the office of Chief Justice. President John Adams rendered no more lasting service to the Federalist cause than when he appointed this great Virginian to the bench, for Marshall, if not a Federalist of the strictest sect, was a thoroughgoing nationalist. Down to his appointment only six decisions involving constitutional questions of any moment had been handed down; between 1801 and 1835, sixty-two were rendered, of which Marshall wrote thirty-six. The decisions of the court during "the reign of Marshall" fill thirty volumes of the Reports. Seven hundred and fifty-three cases were taken on appeal to the Supreme Court from the lower federal courts, and in nearly one half of these cases the decisions were reversed. An American constitutional law did not exist when Marshall took office. Few precedents were available. In some of his important cases Marshall did not cite a single judicial decision. He reached his conclusions by the light of reason. "There, Story," he would say to his associate, "is the law. Now you must find the authorities." In a peculiar sense it is true to say that Marshall both laid the foundations of constitutional law and reared the superstructure, as one of his biographers remarks. But Marshall was ably supported by his colleagues; and he owed much, as he freely admitted, to the arguments of a remarkable body of lawyers of the federal bar. Wirt, Pinkney, and Webster were as truly creators of American constitutional law as the learned justices. The constitutional importance of the decision of the Supreme Court in _Marbury_ v. _Madison_ has already been pointed out. In the development of the idea of national sovereignty, the significance of the decision lies in the emphatic assertion that the Supreme Court is the tribunal of last resort in cases involving the constitutionality of acts of Congress.