Note 988 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
At the noon hour "a friend" told the Chief Justice of the impression produced, and Marshall hastened to forestall the use that he knew Jefferson would make of it. Calling the reporters about him, he "explicitly stated" that this passage in his opinion "had no allusion to the conduct of the government in the case before him." It was, he assured the representatives of the press, "only an elucidation of Blackstone." (Burr Trials, i, footnote to 11.)