The Life of John Marshall, Volume 3: Conflict and construction, 1800-1815. Beveridge Albert Jeremiah

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СКАЧАТЬ is, perhaps, more accurate to say that the idea of secession had never been entirely out of the minds of the extreme New England Federalist leaders from the time Theodore Sedgwick threatened it in the debate over the Assumption Bill.300

      Hints of withdrawing from the Union if Virginia should become dominant crop out in their correspondence. The Republican repeal of the Judiciary Act immediately called forth many expressions in Federalist papers such as this from the Boston Palladium of March 2, 1802: "Whether the rights and interests of the Eastern States would be perfectly safe when Virginia rules the nation is a problem easy to solve but terrible to contemplate… As ambitious Virginia will not be just, let valiant Massachusetts be zealous."

      Fisher Ames declared that "the federalists must entrench themselves in the State governments, and endeavor to make State justice and State power a shelter of the wise, and good, and rich, from the wild destroying rage of the southern Jacobins."301 He thought the Federalists had neglected the press. "It is practicable," said he, "to rouse our sleeping patriotism – sleeping, like a drunkard in the snow… The newspapers have been left to the lazy or the ill-informed, or to those who undertook singly work enough for six."302

      Pickering, the truculent, brave, and persistent, anticipated "a new confederacy… There will be – and our children at farthest will see it – a separation… The British Provinces, even with the assent of Britain, will become members of the Northern Confederacy."303

      The more moderate George Cabot, on the contrary, thought that the strong defense made by the Federalists in Congress would induce the Republicans to cease their attacks on the National courts. "The very able discussions of the Judiciary Question," he wrote, "& great superiority of the Federalists in all the debates & public writings have manifestly checked the career of the Revolutionists."304 But for once Cabot was wrong; the Republicans were jubilant and hastened to press their assault more vigorously than ever.

      The Federalist newspapers teemed with long arguments against the repeal and laboriously strove, in dull and heavy fashion, to whip their readers into fighting humor. These articles were little more than turgid repetitions of the Federalist speeches in Congress, with a passage here and there of the usual Federalist denunciation. For instance, the Columbian Centinel, after restating the argument against the Repeal Act, thought that this "refutes all the absurd doctrines of the Jacobins upon that subject, … and it will be sooner or later declared by the people, in a tone terrible to the present disorganizing party, to be the true construction of their constitution, and the only one compatible with their safety and happiness."305

      The Independent Chronicle, on the other hand, was exultant. After denouncing "the impudence and scurrility of the Federal faction," a correspondent of that paper proceeded in this fashion: "The Judiciary! The Judiciary! like a wreck on Cape Cod is dashing at every wave"; but, thank Heaven, "instead of the 'Essex Junto's' Judiciary we are sailing by the grace of God in the Washington Frigate– our judges are as at first and Mr. Jefferson has thought fit to practice the old navigation and steer with the same compass by which Admiral Washington regulated his log book. The Essex Junto may be afraid to trust themselves on board but every true Washington American will step on board in full confidence of a prosperous voyage. Huzza for the Washington Judiciary– no windows broke – no doors burst in – free from leak – tight and dry."306

      Destiny was soon again to call John Marshall to the performance of an imperative duty.

      CHAPTER III

      MARBURY VERSUS MADISON

      To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. (Jefferson.)

      The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty. (Marshall.)

      To have inscribed this vast truth of conservatism upon the public mind, so that no demagogue not in the last stages of intoxication denies it – this is an achievement of statesmanship which a thousand years may not exhaust or reveal all that is good. (Rufus Choate.)

"Rawleigh, Jan^y: 2^ḍ 1803

      "My dearest Polly

      "You will laugh at my vexation when you hear the various calamaties that have befallen me. In the first place when I came to review my funds, I had the mortification to discover that I had lost 15 silver dollars out of my waist coat pocket. They had worn through the various mendings the pocket had sustained & sought their liberty in the sands of Carolina.

      "I determined not to vex myself with what coud not be remedied & orderd Peter to take out my cloaths that I might dress for court when to my astonishment & grief after fumbling several minutes in the portmanteau, staring at vacancy, & sweating most profusely he turned to me with the doleful tidings that I had no pair of breeches. You may be sure this piece of inteligence was not very graciously receivd; however, after a little scolding I determined to make the best of my situation & immediately set out to get a pair made.

      "I thought I should be a sans culotte only one day & that for the residue of the term I might be well enough dressd for the appearance on the first day to be forgotten. But, the greatest of evils, I found, was followed by still greater! Not a taylor in town coud be prevaild on to work for me. They were all so busy that it was impossible to attend to my wants however pressing they might be, & I have the extreme mortification to pass the whole time without that important article of dress I have mentiond. I have no alleviation for this misfortune but the hope that I shall be enabled in four or five days to commence my journey homeward & that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you & our dear children in eight or nine days after this reaches you.

      "In the meantime I flatter myself that you are well & happy.

"Adieu my dearest PollyI am your ever affectionateJ Marshall."307

      With the same unfailing light-heartedness which, nearly a quarter of a century before, had cheered his comrades at Valley Forge, John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, thus went about his duties and bore his troubles. Making his circuit in a battered gig or sulky, which he himself usually drove, absent-minded and laughing at himself for the mishaps that his forgetfulness and negligence continually brought upon him, he was seemingly unperturbed in the midst of the political upheaval.

      Yet he was not at ease. Rufus King, still the American Minister to Great Britain, had finally settled the controversy over the British debts, upon the very basis laid down by Marshall when Secretary of State.308 But Jefferson's Administration now did not hesitate to assert that this removal of one cause of conflict with Great Britain was the triumph of Republican diplomacy. Marshall, with unreserve so unlike him, reveals to King his disgust and sense of injury, and in doing so portrays the development of political conditions.

      "The advocates of the present administration ascribe to it great praise," wrote Marshall to our Minister in London, "for having, with so much dexterity & so little loss, extricated our country from a debt of twenty-four million of dollars in which a former administration had involved it… The mortifying reflection obtrudes itself, that the reputation of the most wise СКАЧАТЬ