Heated elections, fraught presidential transitions, and strategic maneuvering for lame-duck appointments are nothing new in American politics—even in situations that historians deem to be dramatically escalated or wholly unprecedented in recent years. But not all of that happens in the open. Indeed, some of the most consequential developments occur off the record in social environments. Consider a dinner that outgoing president John Adams had with his newly almost-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, in late January 1801.