No life tenure would hold for an office which did not exist.
The anathemas of the "promoted" officials, thus fallen between stools,
added to the pleasure of the Jeffersonians. The names of twenty-two
unfortunates, whom the Senate failed to find time to ratify in the
closing hours, were recalled by Jefferson, under the caption, "Nominated
but not appointed."
Midnight of the 3rd of March had caught forty-one of the proposed
Federal justices of the peace for the District of Columbia without
their appointment having been fully made. Jefferson arbitrarily cut
down their number to twenty-five, "having been thought too many," as
he said. Among those dropped were four whose commissions had been made
out and sealed by the acting Secretary of State, but had not been
delivered. Madison, who became Secretary of State under Jefferson,
refused to deliver the commissions, and the men, headed by one William
Marbury, made a motion in the Federal court to obtain them. They had
no recourse in the State courts. From this trivial circumstance,
involving the least national judiciary office, came the case of Marbury
vs.
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