The question which underlay all other questions, down to the Civil War,
was the determination of the seat of sovereignty. Hamilton and the
Federalists held it to be axiomatic that, if the federal government were
to be more than a shadow, it must interpret the meaning of the
instrument which created it, and, if so, that it must signify its
decisions through the courts. Only in this way, they argued, could
written limitations on legislative power be made effective. Only in this
way could statutes which contravened the Constitution be set aside.[7]

Jefferson was abroad when Hamilton wrote _The Federalist_, but his views
have since been so universally accepted as embodying the opposition to
Hamilton, that they may be conveniently taken as if they had been
published while the Constitution was under discussion. Substantially
the same arguments were advanced by others during the actual debate, if
not quite so lucidly or connectedly then, as afterward by him.

Very well, said Jefferson, in answer to Hamilton, admitting, for the
moment, that the central government shall define its own powers, and
that the courts shall be the organ through which the exposition shall be
made, both of which propositions I vehemently deny, you have this
result: The judges who will be called upon to pass upon the validity of
national and state legislation will be plunged in the most heated of
controversies, and in those controversies they cannot fail to be
influenced by the same passions and prejudices which sway other men. In
a word they must decide like legislators, though they will be exempt
from the responsibility to the public which controls other legislators.
Such conditions you can only meet by making the judicial tenure of
office ephemeral, as all legislative tenure is ephemeral.

It is vain to pretend, continued he, in support of fixity of tenure,