The Federalist newspapers teemed with long arguments against the repeal and laboriously strove, in dull and heavy fashion, to whip their readers into fighting humor. These articles were little more than turgid repetitions of the Federalist speeches in Congress, with a passage here and there of the usual Federalist denunciation. For instance, the _Columbian Centinel_, after restating the argument against the Repeal Act, thought that this "refutes all the absurd doctrines of the Jacobins upon that subject, ... and it will be sooner or later declared by the people, in a tone terrible to the present disorganizing party, to be the true construction of their constitution, and the only one compatible with their safety and happiness."[306]
The _Independent Chronicle_, on the other hand, was exultant. After denouncing "the impudence and scurrility of the Federal faction," a correspondent of that paper proceeded in this fashion: "The Judiciary! The Judiciary! like a wreck on Cape Cod is dashing at every wave"; but, thank Heaven, "instead of the 'Essex Junto's' Judiciary we are sailing by the grace of God in the Washington _Frigate_--our judges are as at first and Mr. Jefferson has thought fit to practice the old navigation and steer with the same compass by which _Admiral Washington_ regulated his log book. The Essex Junto may be afraid to trust themselves on board but every true Washington American will step on board in full confidence of a prosperous voyage. Huzza for the _Washington Judiciary_--no windows broke--no doors burst in--free from leak--tight and dry."[307]
Destiny was soon again to call John Marshall to the performance of an imperative duty.
[146] The Senate then met in the chamber now occupied by the Supreme Court.
[148] Jefferson to Congress, Dec. 8, 1801, _Works_: Ford, IX, 321 _et seq._; also _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_: Richardson, I, 331.
[149] Jefferson, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong., partly quoted in Beard: _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy_, 454-55.
[150] For full text of this exposition of Constitutional law by Jefferson see Appendix A.
[151] Ames to King, Dec. 20, 1801, King, IV, 40.
Like most eminent Federalists, except Marshall, Hamilton, and Cabot, Fisher Ames was soon to abandon his Nationalism and become one of the leaders of the secession movement in New England. (See vol. IV, chap. I, of this work.)