162 impeach Marshall and write a constitutional amendment that would roll back Marshall’s decisions and sharply circumscribe judicial authority. ‘We had supposed we possessed fixed laws to guard just equally against treason and oppression’, Jefferson raged. “But it now appears we have no law but the will of the Judge.” (Thomas Jefferson to Willam Thompson, September 26, 1807, Ford, works of TJ, 10: 501-502). Jefferson ordered ‘Let the Judge be impeached’, demanded the Richmond Enquirer which call Federal Judges in general ‘too independent of the people’ and Marshall in particular ‘a disgrace to the bench of justice’. (Enquirer (Richmond), December, 1808). Jefferson’s Republican in congress acted to dilute Marshall’s powers by increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices to seven to ensure a large enough Republican majority to dispatch Chief Justice John Marshall and his opinions into legal obscurity, but he failed 255). in his endeavour. (John Marshall, page