Real Interesting Read:
As most students of constitutional law recall from studying Marbury v. Madison, in 1801 Jefferson’s Republican Party had ousted John Adams’sFederalists following a bitterly fought election,193 and before the change of administrations the Federalists had attempted to entrench their party by enacting the Judiciary Act of 1801, creating new judgeships that were hastily filled with Federalist appointees.
Understandably resentful, Jefferson launched an all-out and multifaceted assault on the judiciary. Despite Article III’s life-tenure provisions, the recent Judiciary Act was repealed and the new judgeships eliminated: Jefferson’s congressional allies explained that if the Federalist judges could not be removed from their offices, the offices would be removed from the judges. And Congress tinkered with the Supreme Court’s term, thereby preventing the Court from sitting for fourteen months.
The impeachments of Pickering and Chase (an eminent Federalist detested by the
Republicans) were the culmination of this campaign against the judiciary.
"Jefferson’s congressional allies explained that if the Federalist judges could not be removed from their offices, the offices would be removed from the judges."