s not avowed." Marshall himself thought to answer Roane, but
quickly learned that the Virginia press was closed to that side of the
question. He got his revenge, however, by obtaining the exclusion
of Roane's effusions from Hall's "Law Journal," an influential legal
periodical published in Philadelphia. But the personal aspect of the
controversy was the least important. "A deep design," Marshall again
wrote his colleague, "to convert our Government into a mere league of
States has taken hold of a powerful and violent party in Virginia. The
attack upon the judiciary is in fact an attack upon the Union." Nor was
Virginia the only State where this movement was formidable, and an early
effort to repeal Section XXV was to be anticipated.

That the antijudicial movement was extending to other States was indeed
apparent. The decision in Sturges vs. Crowinshield * left for several
years the impression that the States could not pass bankruptcy laws even
for future contracts and consequently afforded a widespread grievance.
Ohio had defied the ruling in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, and her Treasurer
was languishing in jail by the mandate of the Federal Circuit Court.
Kentucky had a still sharper grievance in the decision in Green vs.
Biddle, * * which invalidated a policy she had been pursuing for nearly
a quarter of a century with reference to squatters' holdings; and what
made the decision seem the more outrageous was the mistaken belief that
it had represented the views of only a minority of the justices.

* 4 Wheaton, 122.

* * 8 Wheaton, 1.

The Legislatures of the aggrieved States were soon in full hue and cry
at the heels of the Court; and from them the agitation quickly spread to
Congress. * On December 12, 1821, Senator Johnson of Kentucky proposed
an amendment to the Constitution which was intended to substitute
the Senate for the Supreme Court in all constitutional cases. In his
elaborate speech in support of his proposition, Johnson criticized at
length the various decisions of the Court but especially those grounded
on its interpretation of the "obligation of contracts" clause. More than
that, however, he denied in toto the rights of the Federal Courts to
pass upon the constitutionality either of acts of Congress or of state
legislative measures. So long as judges were confined to the field of
jurisprudence, the principles of which were established and immutable,
judicial independence was all very well, said Jo