The Life of John Marshall (Volume 2 of 4). Beveridge Albert Jeremiah

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ judgments for debts long due them. In Virginia the debtors of British merchants, who for many years had been rendered immune from payment, were brought to the bar of this "alien" tribunal. Popular feeling ran high. A resolution was introduced into the House of Delegates requesting the Virginia Senators and Representatives in Congress to "adopt such measures as will tend, not only to suspend all executions and the proceedings thereon, but prevent any future judgments to be given by the Federal Courts in favor of British creditors until" Great Britain surrendered the posts and runaway negroes.214 Thus was the practical overthrow of the National Judiciary proposed.215

      Nor was this all. A State had been haled before a National Court.216 The Republicans saw in this the monster "consolidation." The Virginia Legislature passed a resolution instructing her Senators and Representatives to "unite their utmost and earliest exertions" to secure a constitutional amendment preventing a State from being sued "in any court of the United States."217 The hostility to the National Bank took the form of a resolution against a director or stockholder of the Bank of the United States being a Senator or Representative in Congress.218 But apparently this trod upon the toes of too many ambitious Virginians, for the word "stockholders" was stricken out.219

      The slander that the Treasury Department had misused the public funds had been thoroughly answered;220 but the Legislature of Virginia by a majority of 111 out of a total vote of 124, applauded her Senators and Representatives who had urged the inquiry.221 Such was the developing temper of Republicanism as revealed by the emotionless pages of the public records; but these furnish scarcely a hint of the violence of public opinion.

      Jefferson was now becoming tigerish in his assaults on the measures of the Administration. Many members of Congress had been holders of certificates which Assumption and Funding had made valuable. Most but not all of them had voted for every feature of Hamilton's financial plan.222 Three or four were directors of the Bank, but no dishonesty existed.223 Heavy speculation went on in Philadelphia.224 This, said Republicans, was the fruit which Hamilton's Nationalist financial scheme gathered from the people's industry to feed to "monocrats."

      "Here [Philadelphia]," wrote Jefferson, "the unmonied farmer … his cattle & corps [sic] are no more thought of than if they did not feed us. Script & stock are food & raiment here… The credit & fate of the nation seem to hang on the desperate throws & plunges of gambling scoundrels."225 But Jefferson comforted himself with the prophecy that "this nefarious business" would finally "tumble its authors headlong from their heights."226

      The National law taxing whiskey particularly aroused the wrath of the multitude. Here it was at last! – a direct tax laid upon the universal drink of the people, as the razor-edged Pennsylvania resolutions declared.227 Here it was, just as the patriotic foes of the abominable National Constitution had predicted when fighting the ratification of that "oppressive" instrument. Here was the exciseman at every man's door, just as Henry and Mason and Grayson had foretold – and few were the doors in the back counties of the States behind which the owner's private still was not simmering.228 And why was this tribute exacted? To provide funds required by the corrupt Assumption and Funding laws, asserted the agitators.

      Again it was the National Government that was to blame; in laying the whiskey tax it had invaded the rights of the States, hotly declared the Republicans. "All that powerful party," Marshall bears witness, "which attached itself to the local [State] rather than to the general [National] government … considered … a tax by Congress on any domestic manufacture as the intrusion of a foreign power into their particular concerns which excited serious apprehensions for state importance and for liberty."229 The tariff did not affect most people, especially those in the back country, because they used few or no imported articles; but the whiskey tax did reach them, directly and personally.230

      Should such a despotic law be obeyed? Never! It was oppressive! It was wicked! Above all, it was "unconstitutional"! But what to do! The agencies of the detested and detestable National Government were at work! To arms, then! That was the only thing left to outraged freemen about to be ravaged of their liberty!231 Thus came the physical defiance of the law in Pennsylvania; Washington's third proclamation232 demanding obedience to the National statutes after his earnest pleas233 to the disaffected to observe the laws; the march of the troops accompanied by Hamilton234 against the insurgents; the forcible suppression of this first armed assault on the laws of the United States in which men had been killed, houses burned, mails pillaged – all in the name of the Constitution,235 which the Republicans now claimed as their peculiar property.236

      Foremost in the fight for the whiskey insurgents were the democratic societies, which, as has been seen, were the offspring of the French Jacobin Clubs. Washington finally became certain that these organizations had inspired this uprising against National law and authority. While the Whiskey Rebellion was economic in its origin, yet it was sustained by the spirit which the French Revolution had kindled in the popular heart. Indeed, when the troops sent to put down the insurrection reached Harrisburg, they found the French flag flying over the courthouse.237

      Marshall's old comrade in the Revolution, close personal friend, and business partner,238 Henry Lee, was now Governor of Virginia. He stood militantly with Washington and it was due to Lee's efforts that the Virginia militia responded to help suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. He was made Commander-in-Chief of all the forces that actually took the field.239 To Lee, therefore, Washington wrote with unrestrained pen.

      "I consider," said the President, "this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Democratic Societies … instituted by … artful and designing members [of Congress] … to sow the seeds of jealousy and distrust among the people of the government… I see, under a display of popular and fascinating guises, the most diabolical attempts to destroy … the government."240 He declared: "That they have been the fomenters of the western disturbances admits of no doubt."241

      Never was that emphatic man more decided than now; he was sure, he said, that, unless lawlessness were overcome, republican government was at an end, "and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected hereafter."242 If "the daring and factious spirit" is not crushed, "adieu to all government in this country, except mob and club government."243

      Such were Washington's positive and settled opinions, and they were adopted and maintained by Marshall, his faithful supporter.

      And not only by argument and speech did Marshall uphold the measures of Washington's Administration. In 1793 he had been commissioned as Brigadier-General of Militia, and when СКАЧАТЬ