The first of these episodes was an extraordinary move
on the part of two of the Judges of the new Circuit
Court for the District of Coliunbia at their first session
in June, 1801, in instructing the District Attorney to
institute a prosecution for libel against the editor of
the Administration paper, the National Intelligencer,
because of its publication of a letter signed by "A
friend to impartial justice", containing a gross attack
on the Judiciary,^ As both of these Judges, William
Cranch and James M. Marshall, were Federalists?
and among President Adams' late appointments, and
as William Kilty, the Republican Chief Justice of the
Court, refused to join in the action, the case at once
assiuned a i>olitical character. The Republican Dis-
trict Attorney whose views, as he informed the Court,
were ^'inimical to the interposition of the Court*', de-
clined to have anything to do with the business further
than, as the officer of the Court, to hand the papier in
question to the Grand Jury and to express to it the
sentiments of the diflferent members of the Court as
well as his own. That the letter in question contained
extremely violent and false views as to the Federal
Judges was clear, but that it also fairly represented
beliefs very generally entertained by the Republicans
was also indubitable. " Our Courts with scarcely an
exception," said the writer, " have been prompt to
seize every occasion of aggrandizing Executive power,
of destroying all freedom of opinion, of executing un-
constitutional laws, and of inculcating by the wanton
1 As to details of this episode hitherto unnoted by historians, see National Intel' Hgeneer, June 12, Nov. 18, 1801; Aurora, Oct. 28, 1801; Columbian Centinel, July 6, 1801 ; Independent Chronicle, June 25, July 9, Sept. 7, 14, Nov. 5, 9, 1801 ; BoeUm Gazette, Sept. 10, 1801. The Boston Oazette, July 20, 1801, and the Columbian Centind, July 22, 1801, stated that the author of the libel was one of Jefferson's new appointees as United States Attorn^. A writer in the Charleston Oajuite stated that it is "said to have been written by a Secretary of State to shield you (Jefferson) from the indignation of an injured people." See Connedieut Courant, Aug. 17» 1801.
