THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL
Standard Library Edition
IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOLUME I
[Illustration: JOHN MARSHALL AT 43
From a miniature painted in Paris]
THE LIFE
OF
JOHN MARSHALL
BY
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
VOLUME I
FRONTIERSMAN, SOLDIER
LAWMAKER
1755-1788
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PREFACE
The work of John Marshall has been of supreme importance in the
development of the American Nation, and its influence grows as time
passes. Less is known of Marshall, however, than of any of the great
Americans. Indeed, so little has been written of his personal life, and
such exalted, if vague, encomium has been paid him, that, even to the
legal profession, he has become a kind of mythical being, endowed with
virtues and wisdom not of this earth.
He appears to us as a gigantic figure looming, indistinctly, out of the
mists of the past, impressive yet lacking vitality, and seemingly
without any of those qualities that make historic personages
intelligible to a living world of living men. Yet no man in our history
was more intensely human than John Marshall and few had careers so full
of movement and color. His personal life, his characteristics and the
incidents that drew them out, have here been set forth so that we may
behold the man as he appeared to those among whom he lived and worked.
It is, of course, Marshall's public work with which we are chiefly
concerned. His services as Chief Justice have been so lauded that what
he did before he ascended the Supreme Bench has been almost entirely
forgotten. His greatest opinions, however, cannot be fully understood
without considering his previous life and experience. An account of
Marshall the frontiersman, soldier, legislator, lawyer, politician,
diplomat, and statesman, and of the conditions he faced in each of these
capacities, is essential to a comprehension of Marshall the constructive
jurist and of the problems he solved.
In order to make clear the significance of Marshall's public activities,
those episodes in American history into which his life was woven have
been briefly stated. Although to the historian these are twice-told
tales, many of them are not fresh in the minds of the reading public. To
say that Marshall took this or that position with reference to the
events and questions of his time, without some explanation of them,
means little to any one except to the historical scholar.
In the development of his career there must be some clear understanding
of the impression made upon him by the actions and opinions of other
men, and these, accordingly, have been considered. The influence of his
father and of Washington upon John Marshall was profound and
determinative, while his life finally became so interlaced with that of
Jefferson that a faithful account of the one requires a careful
examination of the other.
Vitally important in their effect upon the conduct and attitude of
Marshall and of the leading characters of his time were the state of the
country, the condition of the people, and the tendency of popular
thought. Some reconstruction of the period has, therefore, been
attempted. Without a background, the picture and the figures in it lose
much of their significance.
The present volumes narrate the life of John Marshall before his epochal
labors as Chief Justice began. While this was the period during which
events prepared him for his work on the bench, it was also a distinctive
phase of his career and, in itself, as important as it was picturesque.
It is my purpose to write the final part as soon as the nature of the
task permits.
For reading one draft of the manuscript of these volumes I am indebted
to Professor Edward Channing, of Harvard University; Dr. J. Franklin
Jameson, of the Carnegie Foundation for Historical Research; Professor
William E. Dodd, of Chicago University; Professor James A. Woodburn, of
Indiana University; Professor Charles A. Beard, of Columbia University;
Professor Charles H. Ambler, of Randolph-Macon College; Professor
Clarence W. Alvord, of the University of Illinois; Professor D. R.
Anderson, of Richmond College; Dr. H. J. Eckenrode, of Richmond College;
Dr. Archibald C. Coolidge, Director of the Harvard University Library;
Mr. Worthington C. Ford, of the Massachusetts Historical Society; and
Mr. Lindsay Swift, Editor of the Boston Public Library. Dr. William G.
Stanard, of the Virginia Historical Society, has read the chapters which
touch upon the colonial period. I have availed myself of the many
helpful suggestions made by these gentlemen and I gratefully acknowledge
my obligations to them.
Mr. Swift and Dr. Eckenrode, in addition to reading early drafts of the
manuscript, have read the last draft with particular care and I have
utilized their criticisms. The proof has been read by Mr. Swift and the
comment of this finished critic has been especially valuable.
I am indebted in the highest possible degree to Mr. Worthington C. Ford,
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, who has generously aided me
with his profound and extensive knowledge of manuscript sources and of
the history of the times of which this work treats. His sympathetic
interest and whole-hearted helpfulness have not only assisted me, but
encouraged and sustained me in the prosecution of my labors.
In making these acknowledgments, I do not in the least shift to other
shoulders the responsibility for anything in these volumes. That burden
is mine alone.
I extend my thanks to Mr. A. P. C. Griffin, Assistant Librarian, and Mr.
Gaillard Hunt, Chief of the Manuscripts Division, of the Library of
Congress, who have been unsparing in their efforts to assist me with all
the resources of that great library. The officers and their assistants
of the Virginia State Library, the Boston Public Library, the Library of
Harvard University, the Manuscripts Division of the New York Public
Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Pennsylvania
Historical Society, and the Virginia Historical Society have been most
gracious in affording me all the sources at their command.
I desire to express my appreciation for original material furnished me
by several of the descendants and collateral relatives of John Marshall.
Miss Emily Harvie, of Richmond, Virginia, placed at my disposal many
letters of Marshall to his wife. For the use of the book in which
Marshall kept his accounts and wrote notes of law lectures, I am
indebted to Mrs. John K. Mason, of Richmond. A large number of original
and unpublished letters of Marshall were furnished me by Mr. James M.
Marshall, of Front Royal, Virginia, Mr. Robert Y. Conrad, of Winchester,
Virginia; Mrs. Alexander H. Sands, of Richmond, Virginia; Miss Sallie
Marshall, of Leeds, Virginia; Mrs. Claudia Jones, and Mrs. Fannie G.
Campbell of Washington, D.C.; Judge J. K. M. Norton, of Alexandria,
Virginia; Mr. A. Moore, Jr., of Berryville, Virginia; Dr. Samuel Eliot
Morison, of Boston, Massachusetts, and Professor Charles William Dabney,
of Cincinnati, Ohio. Complete copies of the highly valuable
correspondence of Mrs. Edward Carrington were supplied by Mr. John B.
Minor, of Richmond, Virginia, and by Mr. Carter H. FitzHugh, of Lake
Forest, Illinois. Without the material thus generously opened to me,
this narrative of Marshall's life would have been more incomplete than
it is and many statements in it would, necessarily, have been based on
unsupported tradition.
Among the many who have aided me, Judge James Keith, of Richmond,
Virginia, until recently President of the Court of Appeals of Virginia;
Judge J. K. M. Norton and the late Miss Nannie Burwell Norton of
Alexandria, Virginia; Mr. William Marshall Bullitt, of Louisville,
Kentucky; Mr. Thomas Marshall Smith, of Baltimore, Maryland; Mr. and
Mrs. Alexander H. Sands; Mr. W. P. Taylor and Dr. H. Norton Mason, of
Richmond, Virginia; Mr. Lucien Keith, Mr. William Horgan, and Mr.
William C. Marshall, of Warrenton, Virginia; Judge Henry H. Downing and
Mr. Aubrey G. Weaver, of Front Royal, Virginia, have rendered notable
assistance in the gathering of data.
I am under particular obligations to Miss Emily Harvie for the use of
the striking miniature of Marshall, the reproduction of which appears as
the frontispiece to the first volume; to Mr. Roland Gray, of Boston, for
the right to reproduce the portrait by Jarvis as the frontispiece of the
second volume; to Mr. Douglas H. Thomas of Baltimore, Maryland, for
photographs of the portraits of William Randolph, Mary Isham, and Mary
Randolph Keith; and to Mr. Charles Edward Marshall, of Glen Mary,
Kentucky, for permission to photograph the portrait of Colonel Thomas
Marshall.
The large number of citations has made abbreviations necessary. At the
end of each volume will be found a careful explanation of references,
giving the full title of the work cited, together with the name of the
author or editor, and a designation of the edition used.
The index has been made by Mr. David Maydole Matteson, of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and his careful work has added to whatever of value these
volumes possess.
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
CONTENTS
I. ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT 1
The defeat of Braddock--Influence on American opinion--
Washington's heroism--Effect on Marshall's parents--
Marshall's birth--American solidarity the first lesson
taught him--Marshall's ancestry--Curious similarity to
that of Jefferson, to whom he was related--The paternal
line: the "Marshall legend"--Maternal line: the Randolphs,
the Ishams, and the Keiths--Character of Marshall's
parents--Colonial Virginia society--Shiftless agriculture
and abundant land--Influence of slavery--Jefferson's
analysis--Drinking heavy and universal--Education of the
gentry and of the common people--The social divisions--
Causes of the aristocratic tone of Virginia society--
The backwoodsmen--Their character--Superiority of an
occasional frontier family--The Marshalls of this class--
The illustrious men produced by Virginia just before the
Revolution.
II. A FRONTIER EDUCATION 33
Marshall's wilderness birthplace--His father removes to
the Blue Ridge--The little house in "The Hollow"--Neighbors
few and distant--Daily life of the frontier family--
Marshall's delight in nature--Effect on his physical and
mental development--His admiration for his father--The
father's influence over and training of his son--Books:
Pope's Poems--Marshall commits to memory at the age of
twelve many passages--The "Essay on Man"--Marshall's father
an assistant of Washington in surveying the Fairfax grant--
Story of Lord Fairfax--His influence on Washington and on
Marshall's father--Effect on Marshall--His father elected
Burgess from Fauquier County--Vestryman, Sheriff, and
leading man of his county--He buys the land in "The
Hollow"--John Thompson, deacon, teaches Marshall for a
year--His father buys more land and removes to Oak Hill--
Subscribes to the first American edition of Blackstone--
Military training interferes with Marshall's reading of
Blackstone--He is sent to Campbell's Academy for a few
months--Marshall's father as Burgess supports Patrick
Henry, who defeats the tidewater aristocracy in the Robinson
loan-office contest--Henry offers his resolutions on the
Stamp Act: "If this be treason, make the most of it"--
Marshall's father votes with Henry--1775 and Henry's
"Resolutions for Arming and Defense"--His famous speech:
"Give me liberty or give me death"--Marshall's father again
supports Henry--Marshall learns from his father of these
great events--Father and son ready to take the field against
the British.
III. A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION 69
The "Minute Men" of Virginia--Lieutenant John Marshall
drills his company and makes a war speech--His appearance
in his nineteenth year--Uniforms of the frontier--The
sanguinary fight at Great Bridge--Norfolk--The Marshalls
in the Continental service, the father as major, the son as
lieutenant--Condition of the army--Confusion of authority--
Unreliability of militia "who are here to-day and gone
to-morrow"--Fatal effect of State control--Inefficiency
and powerlessness of Congress--Destitution of the troops:
"our sick naked and well naked"--Officers resign, privates
desert--The harsh discipline required: men whipped, hanged,
and shot--Impression on Marshall--He is promoted to
be captain-lieutenant--The march through disaffected
Philadelphia--Marshall one of picked men forming the
light infantry--Iron Hill--The battle of the Brandywine--
Marshall's father and his Virginians prevent entire
disaster--Marshall's part in the battle--The retreat--
The weather saves the Americans--Marshall one of rear guard
under Wayne--The army recovers and tries to stop the British
advance--Confused by false reports of the country people who
are against the patriots "almost to a man"--Philadelphia
falls--The battle of Germantown--Marshall at the bloodiest
point of the fight--The retreat of the beaten Americans--
Unreasonable demands of "public opinion"--Further decline
of American fortunes--Duché's letter to Washington:
"How fruitless the expense of blood"--Washington faces the
British--The impending battle--Marshall's vivid description--
The British withdraw.
IV. VALLEY FORGE AND AFTER 108
The bitter winter of 1777--The British in Philadelphia:
abundance of provisions, warm and comfortable quarters,
social gayeties, revels of officers and men--The Americans
at Valley Forge, "the most celebrated encampment in the
world's history": starvation and nakedness--Surgeon Waldo's
diary of "camp-life": "I'll live like a Chameleon upon
Air"--Waldo's description of soldiers' appearance--Terrible
mortality from sickness--The filthy "hospitals"--Moravians
at Bethlehem--The Good Samaritans to the patriots--Marshall's
cheerfulness: "the best tempered man I ever knew"--His pranks
and jokes--Visitors to the camp remark his superior
intelligence--Settles disputes of his comrades--Hard
discipline at Valley Forge: a woman given a hundred lashes--
Washington alone holds army together--Jealousy of and
shameful attacks upon him--The "Conway Cabal"--His dignity in
the face of slander--His indignant letter to Congress--Faith
of the soldiers in Washington--The absurd popular demand that
he attack Philadelphia--The amazing inferiority of Congress--
Ablest men refuse to attend--Washington's pathetic letter on
the subject: "Send your ablest men to Congress; Where is
Jefferson"--Talk of the soldiers at Valley Forge--Jefferson
in the Virginia Legislature--Comparison of Marshall and
Jefferson at this period--Marshall appointed Deputy Judge
Advocate of the army--Burnaby's appeal to Washington to stop
the war: efforts at reconciliation--Washington's account of
the sufferings of the army--The spring of 1778--Sports in
camp--Marshall the best athlete in his regiment: "Silver
Heels" Marshall--The Alliance with the King of France--
Rejoicing of the Americans at Valley Forge--Washington has
misgivings--The services of Baron von Steuben--Lord Howe's
departure--The "Mischianza"--The British evacuate
Philadelphia--The Americans quick in pursuit--The battle of
Monmouth--Marshall in the thick of the fight--His fairness to
Lee--Promoted to be captain--One of select light infantry
under Wayne, assigned to take Stony Point--The assault of
that stronghold--Marshall in the reserve command--One of the
picked men under "Light Horse Harry" Lee--The brilliant dash
upon Powles Hook--Term of enlistment of Marshall's regiment
expires and he is left without a command--Returns to Virginia
while waiting for new troops to be raised--Arnold invades
Virginia--Jefferson is Governor; he fails to prepare--Marshall
one of party to attack the British--Effect of Jefferson's
conduct on Marshall and the people--Comment of Virginia
women--Inquiry in Legislature as to Jefferson's conduct--
Effect of Marshall's army experience on his thinking--The
roots of his great Nationalist opinions run back to Valley
Forge.
V. MARRIAGE AND LAW BEGINNINGS 148
Marshall's romance--Visits his father who is commanding
at Yorktown--Mythical story of his father's capture at
Charleston--The Ambler family--Rebecca Burwell, Jefferson's
early love--Attractiveness of the Amblers--The "ball" at
Yorktown--High expectations of the young women concerning
Marshall--Their disappointment at his uncouth appearance and
rustic manners--He meets Mary Ambler--Mutual love at first
sight--Her sister's description of the ball and of Marshall--
The courtship--Marshall goes to William and Mary College for
a few weeks--Description of the college--Marshall elected to
the Phi Beta Kappa Society--Attends the law lectures of
Mr. Wythe--The Ambler daughters pass though Williamsburg--
The "ball" at "The Palace"--Eliza Ambler's account:
"Marshall was devoted to my sister"--Marshall leaves college
and follows Mary Ambler to Richmond--Secures license to
practice law--Resigns his command--Walks to Philadelphia to
be inoculated against smallpox--Tavern-keeper refuses to
take him in because of his appearance--Returns to Virginia
and resumes his courtship of Mary Ambler--Marshall's account
of his love-making--His sister-in-law's description of
Marshall's suit--Marshall's father goes to Kentucky and
returns--Marshall elected to the Legislature from Fauquier
County--He marries Mary Ambler: "but one solitary guinea
left"--Financial condition of Marshall's father at this
time--Lack of ready money everywhere--Marshall's account--
He sets up housekeeping in Richmond--Description of Richmond
at that time--Brilliant bar of the town--"Marshall's slender
legal equipment"--The notes he made of Mr. Wythe's lectures--
His Account Book--Examples of his earnings and expenditures
from 1783 until 1787--Life of the period--His jolly letter to
Monroe--His books--Elected City Recorder--Marshall's first
notable case: Hite vs. Fairfax--His first recorded argument--
His wife becomes an invalid--His tender care of her--Mrs.
Carrington's account: Marshall "always and under every
circumstance, an enthusiast in love."
VI. IN THE LEGISLATURE AND COUNCIL OF STATE 200
In the House of Delegates--The building where the Legislature
met--Costumes and manners of the members---Marshall's
popularity and his father's influence secure his election--
He is appointed on important committees--His first vote--
examples of legislative business--Poor quality of the
Legislature: Madison's disgust, Washington's opinion--
Marshall's description and remarkable error--He is elected
member of Council of State--Pendleton criticizes the
elevation of Marshall--Work as member of Council--Resigns
from Council because of criticism of judges--Seeks and
secures reëlection to Legislature from Fauquier County--
Inaccuracy of accepted account of these incidents--Marshall's
letter to Monroe stating the facts--Becomes champion of needy
Revolutionary soldiers--Leads fight for relief of Thomas
Paine--Examples of temper of the Legislature--Marshall favors
new Constitution for Virginia--The "Potowmack Company"--Bills
concerning courts--Reform of the High Court of Chancery--
The religious controversy--State of religion in Virginia--
Marshall's languid interest in the subject--Great question
of the British debts--Long-continued fight over payment or
confiscation--Marshall steadily votes and works for payment
of the debts--Effect of this contest on his economic and
political views--His letter to Monroe--Instability of
Legislature: a majority of thirty-three changed in two weeks
to an adverse majority of forty-nine--No National Government--
Resolution against allowing Congress to lay any tax whatever:
"May prove destructive of rights and liberties of the
people"--The debts of the Confederation--Madison's extradition
bill--Contempt of the pioneers for treaties--Settlers' unjust
and brutal treatment of the Indians--Struggle over Madison's
bill--Patrick Henry saves it--Marshall supports it--Henry's
bill for amalgamation of Indians and whites--Marshall regrets
its defeat--Anti-National sentiment of the people--Steady
change in Marshall's ideas--Mercantile and financial interests
secure the Constitution--Shall Virginia call a Convention to
ratify it?--Marshall harmonizes differences and Convention is
called--He is in the first clash over Nationalism.
VII. LIFE OF THE PEOPLE: COMMUNITY ISOLATION 250
The state of the country--A résumé of conditions--Revolutionary
leaders begin to doubt the people--Causes of this doubt--
Isolation of communities--Highways and roads--Difficulty and
danger of travel--The road from Philadelphia to Boston: between
Boston and New York--Roads in interior of New England, New York,
Philadelphia, and New Jersey--Jefferson's account of roads from
Richmond to New York--Traveler lost in the "very thick woods" on
way from Alexandria to Mount Vernon to visit Washington--Travel
and transportation in Virginia--Ruinous effect on commerce--
Chastellux lost on journey to Monticello to visit Jefferson--
Talleyrand's description of country--Slowness of mails--Three
weeks or a month and sometimes two months required between
Virginia and New York--Mail several months in reaching interior
towns--News that Massachusetts had ratified the Constitution
eight days in reaching New York--Ocean mail service--letters
opened by postmasters or carriers--Scarcity of newspapers--
Their untrustworthiness--Their violent abuse of public men--
Franklin's denunciation of the press: he advises "the liberty
of the cudgel" to restrain "the liberty of the press"--
Jefferson's disgust--The country newspaper: Freneau's "The
Country Printer"--The scantiness of education--Teachers and
schools--The backwoodsmen--The source of abnormal American
individualism--The successive waves of settlers--Their
ignorance, improvidence, and lack of social ideals--Habits and
characteristics of Virginians--Jefferson's harsh description
of them--Food of the people--Their houses--Continuous drinking
of brandy, rum, and whiskey--This common to whole country--
Lack of community consciousness--Abhorrence of any National
Government.
VIII. POPULAR ANTAGONISM TO GOVERNMENT 288
Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"--Its tremendous influence:
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary
evil"--Popular antagonism to the very idea of government--
Impossibility of correcting falsehoods told to the people--
Popular credulity--The local demagogue--North Carolina
preacher's idea of the Constitution--Grotesque campaign story
about Washington and Adams--Persistence of political canard
against Levin Powell--Amazing statements about the Society of
the Cincinnati: Ædanus Burke's pamphlet; Mirabeau's pamphlet;
Jefferson's denunciation--Marshall and his father members of
the Cincinnati--Effect upon him of the extravagant abuse of
this patriotic order--Popular desire for general division of
property and repudiation of debts--Madison's bitter comment--
Jay on popular greed and "impatience of government"--Paper
money--Popular idea of money--Shays's Rebellion--Marshall's
analysis of its objects--Knox's report of it--Madison comes
to the conclusion that "the bulk of mankind" are incapable
of dealing with weighty subjects--Washington in despair--He
declares mankind unfit for their own government--Marshall
also fears that "man is incapable of governing himself"--
Jefferson in Paris--Effect on his mind of conditions in
France--His description of the French people--Jefferson
applauds Shays's Rebellion: "The tree of liberty must be
refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants"--Influence
of French philosophy on Jefferson--The impotence of Congress
under the Confederation--Dishonorable conduct of the States--
Leading men ascribe evil conditions to the people themselves--
Views of Washington, Jay, and Madison--State Sovereignty the
shield of turmoil and baseness--Efforts of commercial and
financial interests produce the Constitution--Madison wants
a National Government with power of veto on all State laws
"whatsoever"--Jefferson thinks the Articles of Confederation
"a wonderfully perfect instrument"--He opposes a "strong
government"--Is apprehensive of the Constitution--Thinks
destruction of credit a good thing--Wishes America "to stand
with respect to Europe precisely on the footing of China"--
The line of cleavage regarding the Constitution--Marshall for
the Constitution.
IX. THE STRUGGLE FOR RATIFICATION 319
The historic Convention of 1788 assembles--Richmond at that
time--General ignorance of the Constitution--Even most members
of the Convention poorly informed--Vague popular idea of
Constitution as something foreign, powerful, and forbidding--
People in Virginia strongly opposed to it--The Virginia debate
to be the greatest ever held over the Constitution--The
revolutionary character of the Constitution: would not have
been framed if the people had known of the purposes of the
Federal Convention at Philadelphia: "A child of fortune"--
Ratification hurried--Pennsylvania Convention: hastily called,
physical violence, small number of people vote at election of
members to Pennsylvania Convention--People's ignorance of the
Constitution--Charges of the opposition--"The humble address
of the low born"--Debate in Pennsylvania Convention--Able
"Address of Minority"--Nationalism of the Constitution the
principal objection--Letters of "Centinel": the Constitution
"a spurious brat"--Attack on Robert Morris--Constitutionalist
replies: "Sowers of sedition"--Madison alarmed--The struggle
in Massachusetts--Conciliatory tactics of Constitutionalists--
Upper classes for Constitution--Common people generally
opposed--Many towns refuse to send delegates to the
Convention--Contemporary descriptions of the elections--
High ability and character of Constitutionalist members--
Self-confessed ignorance and incapacity of opposition: Madison
writes that there is "Scarcely a man of respectability among
them"--Their pathetic fight against the Constitution--Examples
of their arguments--The bargain with Hancock secures enough
votes to ratify--The slender majority: one hundred and
sixty-eight vote against ratification--Methods of
Constitutionalists after ratification--Widgery's amusing
account: hogsheads of rum--Gerry's lament--Bribery charged--
New Hampshire almost rejects Constitution--Convention adjourned
to prevent defeat--"Little information among the people," but
most "men of property and abilities" for Constitution--
Constitution receives no deliberate consideration until debated
in the Virginia Convention--Notable ability of the leaders of
both sides in the Virginia contest.
X. IN THE GREAT CONVENTION 357
Virginia the deciding State--Anxiety of Constitutionalists
in other States--Hamilton writes Madison: "No hope unless
Virginia ratifies"--Economic and political importance of
Virginia--Extreme effort of both sides to elect members to the
Convention--Preëlection methods of the Constitutionalists--
They capture Randolph--Marshall elected from opposition
constituency--Preëlection methods of Anti-Constitutionalists--
The Convention meets--Neither side sure of a majority--
Perfect discipline and astute Convention tactics of the
Constitutionalists--They secure the two powerful offices
of the Convention--The opposition have no plan of action--
Description of George Mason--His grave error in parliamentary
tactics--Constitutionalists take advantage of it: the
Constitution to be debated clause by clause--Analysis of the
opposing forces: an economic class struggle, Nationalism
against provincialism--Henry tries to remedy Mason's mistake--
Pendleton speaks and the debate begins--Nicholas speaks--His
character and personal appearance--Patrick Henry secures the
floor--Description of Henry--He attacks the Constitution:
why "_we the people_ instead of _we_ the States"? Randolph
replies--His manner and appearance--His support of the
Constitution surprises the opposition--His speech--His
about-face saves the Constitution--The Clinton letter: if
Randolph discloses it the Anti-Constitutionalists will win--
He keeps it from knowledge of the Convention--Decisive
importance of Randolph's action--His change ascribed to
improper motives--Mason answers Randolph and again makes
tactical error--Madison fails to speak--Description of Edmund
Pendleton--He addresses the Convention: "the war is between
government and licentiousness"--"Light Horse Harry" Lee--The
ermine and the sword--Henry secures the floor--His great
speech: the Constitution "a revolution as radical as that
which separated us from Great Britain"--The proposed National
Government something foreign and monstrous--"This government
is not a Virginian but an American government"--Marshall
studies the arguments and methods of the debaters--Randolph
answers Henry: "I am a child of the Revolution"--His error
concerning Josiah Philips--His speech ineffective--Description
of James Madison--He makes the first of his powerful
expositions of the Constitution, but has little or no effect
on the votes of the members--Speech of youthful Francis
Corbin--Randolph's futile effort--Madison makes the second
of his masterful speeches--Henry replies--His wonderful art--
He attacks Randolph for his apostasy--He closes the first
week's debate with the Convention under his spell.
XI. THE SUPREME DEBATE 401
Political managers from other States appear--Gouverneur
Morris and Robert Morris for the Constitutionalists and
Eleazer Oswald for the opposition--Morris's letter:
"depredations on my purse"--Grayson's letter: "our affairs
suspended by a thread"--Opening second week of the debate--
The New Academy crowded--Henry resumes his speech--Appeals
to the Kentucky members, denounces secrecy of Federal
Convention, attacks Nationalism--Lee criticizes lobbying
"out of doors" and rebukes Henry--Randolph attacks Henry:
"If our friendship must fall, _let it fall like Lucifer,
never to rise again_"--Randolph challenges Henry: a duel
narrowly averted--Personal appearance of James Monroe--
He speaks for the Revolutionary soldiers against the
Constitution and makes no impression--Marshall put forward
by the Constitutionalists--Description of him: badly dressed,
poetic-looking, "habits convivial almost to excess"--
Best-liked man in the Convention; considered an orator--
Marshall's speech: Constitutionalists the "firm friends of
liberty"; "we, sir, idolize democracy"; only a National
Government can promote the general welfare--Marshall's
argument his first recorded expression on the Constitution--
Most of speech on necessity of providing against war and
inspired by his military experience--Description of Benjamin
Harrison--Mason attacks power of National taxation and sneers
at the "well-born"--He denounces Randolph--Lee answers with
a show of anger--William Grayson secures the floor--His
character, attainments, and appearance--His learned and
witty speech: "We are too young to know what we are good
for"--Pendleton answers: "government necessary to protect
liberty"--Madison makes his fourth great argument--Henry
replies: "the tyranny of Philadelphia [National Government]
may be like the tyranny of George III, a horrid, wretched,
dreadful picture"; Henry's vision of the West--Tremendous
effect on the Convention--Letter of Gouverneur Morris to
Hamilton describing the Convention--Madison's report to
Hamilton and to Washington: "the business is in the most
ticklish state that can be imagined"--Marshall speaks again--
Military speech: "_United we are strong, divided we fall_"--
Grayson answers Marshall--Mason and Henry refer to "vast
speculations": "we may be taxed for centuries to give
advantage to rapacious speculators"--Grayson's letter to
Dane--The advantage with the Anti-Constitutionalists at the
end of the second week.
XII. THE STRATEGY OF VICTORY 444
The climax of the fight--The Judiciary the weakest point for
the Constitutionalists--Reasons for this--Especially careful
plans of the Constitutionalists for this part of the debate--
Pendleton expounds the Judiciary clause--Mason attacks it--
His charge as to secret purpose of many Constitutionalists--
His extreme courtesy causes him again to make a tactical
error--He refers to the Fairfax grant--A clever appeal to
members from the Northern Neck--Madison's distinguished
address--Henry answers Madison--His thrilling speech: "Old
as I am, it is probable I may yet have the appellation of
_rebel_. As to this government [the Constitution] I despise
and abhor it"--Marshall takes the floor--Selected by the
Constitutionalists to make the principal argument for the
Judiciary clause--His speech prepared--The National Judiciary
"will benefit collective Society"; National Courts will be
as fair as State Courts; independence of judges necessary;
if Congress should pass an unconstitutional law the National
Courts "_would declare it void_"; they alone the only
"protection from an infringement of the Constitution";
State courts "crowded with suits which the life of man will
not see determined"; National Courts needed to relieve this
congestion; under the Constitution, States cannot be sued
in National Courts; the Constitution does not exclude trial
by jury: "Does the word _court_ only mean the judges?";
comparison with the Judiciary establishment of Virginia;
reply to Mason's argument on the Fairfax title; "what
security have you for justice? The independence of your
Judiciary!"--Marshall's speech unconnected and discursive,
but the Constitutionalists rest their case upon it--Madison's
report to Hamilton: "If we can weather the storm against the
Judiciary I shall hold the danger to be pretty well over"--
Anti-Constitutionalists try to prolong debate until meeting
of Legislature which is strongly against the Constitution--
Secession threatened--Madison's letter to Hamilton--Contest
so close that "ordinary casualties may vary the result"--
Henry answers Marshall--His compliment to the young lawyer--
His reference to the Indians arouses Colonel Stephen who
harshly assails Henry--Nicholas insults Henry, who demands
an explanation--Debate draws to a close--Mason intimates
forcible resistance to the Constitution--Lee rebukes him--
The Constitutionalists forestall Henry and offer amendments--
Henry's last speech: "Nine-tenths of the people" against
the Constitution; Henry's vision of the future; a sudden
and terrific storm aids his dramatic climax; members and
spectators in awe--The Legislature convenes--Quick, resolute
action of the Constitutionalists--Henry admits defeat--The
Virginia amendments--Absurdity of some of them--Necessary
to secure ratification--Marshall on the committee to report
amendments--Constitutionalists win by a majority of only
ten--Of these, two vote against their instructions and eight
vote against the well-known desires of their constituents--
The Clinton letter at last disclosed--Mason's wrath--Henry
prevents Anti-Constitutionalists from talking measures to
resist the new National Government--Washington's account:
"Impossible for anybody not on the spot to conceive what the
delicacy and danger of our situation have been."
APPENDIX 481
I. WILL OF THOMAS MARSHALL, "CARPENTER" 483
II. WILL OF JOHN MARSHALL "OF THE FOREST" 485
III. DEED OF WILLIAM MARSHALL TO JOHN MARSHALL "OF THE FOREST" 487
IV. MEMORIAL OF THOMAS MARSHALL FOR MILITARYE MOLUMENTS 489
WORKS CITED IN THIS VOLUME 491
ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN MARSHALL AT 43 _Colored Frontispiece_
From a miniature painted on ivory by an unknown artist. It was
executed in Paris in 1797-98, when Marshall was there on the X. Y.
Z. Mission. It is now in the possession of Miss Emily Harvie, of
Richmond, Virginia. It is the only portrait in existence of
Marshall at this period of his life and faithfully portrays him as
he was at the time of his intellectual duel with Talleyrand.
COLONEL WILLIAM RANDOLPH 10
From a copy in the possession of Mr. Douglas H. Thomas, of
Baltimore, after the original portrait in the possession of Mr.
Edward C. Mayo, of Richmond. The painter of the original is
unknown. It was painted about 1673 and has passed down through
successive generations of the family. Mr. Thomas's copy is a
faithful one, and has been used for reproduction here because the
original is not sufficiently clear and distinct for the purpose.
MARY ISHAM RANDOLPH, WIFE OF COLONEL WILLIAM RANDOLPH 10
From a copy in the possession of Mr. Douglas H. Thomas, of
Baltimore, after the original in the possession of Miss Anne
Mortimer Minor. The original portrait was painted about 1673 by an
unknown artist. It is incapable of satisfactory reproduction.
COLONEL THOMAS MARSHALL, THE FATHER OF JOHN MARSHALL 14
From a portrait in the possession of Charles Edward Marshall, of
Glen Mary, Kentucky. This is the only portrait or likeness of any
kind in existence of John Marshall's father. It was painted at
some time between 1790 and 1800 and was inherited by Charles
Edward Marshall from his parents, Charles Edward and Judith
Langhorne Marshall. The name of the painter of this unusual
portrait is not known.
MARY RANDOLPH (KEITH) MARSHALL, WIFE OF THOMAS MARSHALL AND
MOTHER OF JOHN MARSHALL 18
From a portrait in the possession of Miss Sallie Marshall, of
Leeds, Virginia. The portrait was painted at some time between
1790 and 1800, but the painter's name is unknown. The reproduction
is from a photograph furnished by Mr. Douglas H. Thomas.
"THE HOLLOW" 36
The Blue Ridge home of the Marshall family where John Marshall
lived from early childhood to his eighteenth year. The house is
situated on a farm at Markham, Va. From a photograph.
OAK HILL 56
From a water-color in the possession of Mr. Thomas Marshall Smith,
of Baltimore. The small house at the rear of the right of the main
building was the original dwelling, built by John Marshall's
father in 1773. The Marshall family lived here until after the
Revolution. The large building was added nearly forty years
afterward by Thomas Marshall, son of the Chief Justice. The name
of the painter is unknown.
OAK HILL 64
This is the original house, built in 1773 and carefully kept in
repair. The brick pavement is a modern improvement. From a
photograph.
FACSIMILE OF THE LAST PAGE OF A LETTER FROM JOHN MARSHALL TO
HIS WIFE, DESCRIBING THEIR COURTSHIP 152
This letter was written at Washington, February 23, 1824,
forty-one years after their marriage. No part of it has ever
before been published.
MARY AMBLER MARSHALL, THE WIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL 168
A crayon drawing from the original painting now in the possession
of Mrs. Carroll, a granddaughter of John Marshall, living at Leeds
Manor, Va. This is the only painting of Mrs. Marshall in existence
and the name of the artist is unknown.
RICHMOND IN 1800 184
From a painting in the rooms of the Virginia Historical Society.
FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF MARSHALL'S ACCOUNT BOOK, MAY, 1787 198
In this book Marshall kept his accounts of receipts and expenses
for twelve years after his marriage in 1783. In the first part of
it he also recorded his notes of law lectures during his brief
attendance at William and Mary College. The original volume is
owned by Mrs. John K. Mason, of Richmond.
FACSIMILES OF SIGNATURES OF JOHN MARSHALL AT TWENTY-NINE AND
FORTY-TWO AND OF THOMAS MARSHALL 210
These signatures are remarkable as showing the extreme
dissimilarity between the signature of Marshall as a member of the
Council of State before he was thirty and his signature in his
mature manhood, and also as showing the basic similarity between
the signatures of Marshall and his father. The signature of
Marshall as a member of the Council of State in 1784 is from the
original minutes of the Council in the Archives of the Virginia
State Library. His 1797 signature is from a letter to his wife,
the original of which is in the possession of Miss Emily Harvie,
of Richmond. The signature of Thomas Marshall is from the original
roster of the officers of his regiment in the Manuscripts Division
of the Library of Congress.
FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF A LETTER FROM MARSHALL TO JAMES
MONROE, APRIL 17, 1784 212
From the original in the Manuscript Division of the New York
Public Library. This letter has never before been published. It is
extremely important in that it corrects extravagant errors
concerning Marshall's resignation from the Council of State and
his reëlection to the legislature.
JOHN MARSHALL 294
From a profile drawing by Charles Balthazar Julien Fèvre de Saint
Mémin, in the possession of Miss Emily Harvey of Richmond, Va., a
granddaughter of John Marshall. Autograph from manuscript
collection in the Library of the Boston Athenæum.
GEORGE WYTHE 368
From an engraving by J. B. Longacre after a portrait by an unknown
painter in the possession of the Virginia State Library. George
Wythe was Professor of Law at William and Mary College during
Marshall's brief attendance.
JOHN MARSHALL 420
From a painting by J. B. Martin in the Robe Room of the Supreme
Court of the United States, Washington, D.C.
PATRICK HENRY 470
From a copy (in the possession of the Westmoreland Club, of
Richmond) of the portrait by Thomas Sully. Sully, who never saw
Patrick Henry himself, painted the portrait from a miniature on
ivory done by a French artist in Richmond about 1792. John
Marshall, under date of December 30, 1816, attested its excellence
as follows: "I have been shown a painting of the late Mr. Henry,
painted by Mr. Sully, now in possession of Mr. Webster, which I
think a good likeness."
LIST OF ABBREVIATED TITLES MOST FREQUENTLY CITED
_All references here are to the List of Authorities at the end of
this volume._
Beard: _Econ. I. C._ _See_ Beard, Charles A. Economic Interpretation of
the Constitution of the United States.
Beard: _Econ. O. J. D._ _See_ Beard, Charles A. Economic Origins of
Jeffersonian Democracy.
Bruce: _Econ._ _See_ Bruce, Philip Alexander. Economic History of
Virginia in the Seventeeth Century.
Bruce: _Inst._ _See_ Bruce, Philip Alexander. Institutional History of
Virginia in the Seventeeth Century.
_Cor. Rev._: Sparks. _See_ Sparks, Jared. Correspondence of the
Revolution.
Eckenrode: _R. V._ _See_ Eckenrode, H. J. The Revolution in Virginia.
Eckenrode: _S. of C. and S._ _See_ Eckenrode, H. J. Separation of Church
and State in Virginia.
Jefferson's _Writings_: Washington. _See_ Jefferson, Thomas. Writings.
Edited by H. A. Washington.
Monroe's _Writings_: Hamilton. _See_ Monroe, James. Writings. Edited by
Stanislaus Murray Hamilton.
_Old Family Letters._ _See_ Adams, John. Old Family Letters. Edited by
Alexander Biddle.
Wertenbaker: _P. and P._ _See_ Wertenbaker, Thomas J. Patrician and
Plebeian in Virginia; or the Origin and Development of the Social
Classes of the Old Dominion.
Wertenbaker: _V. U. S._ _See_ Wertenbaker, Thomas J. Virginia Under the
Stuarts, 1607-1688.
_Works_: Adams. _See_ Adams, John. Works. Edited by Charles Francis
Adams.
_Works_: Ford. _See_ Jefferson, Thomas. Works. Federal Edition. Edited
by Paul Leicester Ford.
_Works_: Hamilton. _See_ Hamilton, Alexander. Works. Edited by John C.
Hamilton.
_Works_: Lodge. _See_ Hamilton, Alexander. Works. Federal Edition.
Edited by Henry Cabot Lodge.
_Writings_: Conway. _See_ Paine, Thomas. Writings. Edited by Moncure
Daniel Conway.
_Writings_: Ford. _See_ Washington, George. Writings. Edited by
Worthington Chauncey Ford.
_Writings_: Hunt. _See_ Madison, James. Writings. Edited by Gaillard
Hunt.
_Writings_: Smyth. _See_ Franklin, Benjamin. Writings. Edited by Albert
Henry Smyth.
_Writings_: Sparks. _See_ Washington, George. Writings. Edited by Jared
Sparks.
THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL
THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT
Often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events
and in to-day already walks to-morrow. (Schiller.)
I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an
American. (Webster.)
"The British are beaten! The British are beaten!" From cabin to cabin,
from settlement to settlement crept, through the slow distances, this
report of terror. The astounding news that Braddock was defeated finally
reached the big plantations on the tidewater, and then spread dismay and
astonishment throughout the colonies.
The painted warriors and the uniformed soldiers of the French-Indian
alliance had been growing bolder and bolder, their ravages ever more
daring and bloody.[1] Already the fear of them had checked the thin wave
of pioneer advance; and it seemed to the settlers that their hereditary
enemies from across the water might succeed in confining British
dominion in America to the narrow strip between the ocean and the
mountains. For the royal colonial authorities had not been able to cope
with their foes.[2]
But there was always the reserve power of Great Britain to defend her
possessions. If only the home Government would send an army of British
veterans, the colonists felt that, as a matter of course, the French and
Indians would be routed, the immigrants made safe, and the way cleared
for their ever-swelling thousands to take up and people the lands beyond
the Alleghanies.
So when at last, in 1755, the redoubtable Braddock and his red-coated
regiments landed in Virginia, they were hailed as deliverers. There
would be an end, everybody said, to the reign of terror which the
atrocities of the French and Indians had created all along the border.
For were not the British grenadiers invincible? Was not Edward Braddock
an experienced commander, whose bravery was the toast of his fellow
officers?[3] So the colonists had been told, and so they believed.
They forgave the rudeness of their British champions; and Braddock
marched away into the wilderness carrying with him the unquestioning
confidence of the people.[4] It was hardly thought necessary for any
Virginia fighting men to accompany him; and that haughty, passionate
young Virginia soldier, George Washington (then only twenty-three years
of age, but already the chief military figure of the Old Dominion), and
his Virginia rangers were invited to accompany Braddock more because
they knew the country better than for any real aid in battle that was
expected of them. "I have been importuned," testifies Washington, "to
make this campaign by General Braddock, ... conceiving ... that the ...
knowledge I have ... of the country, Indians, &c. ... might be useful to
him."[5]
So through the ancient and unbroken forests Braddock made his slow and
painful way.[6] Weeks passed; then months.[7] But there was no
impatience, because everybody knew what would happen when his scarlet
columns should finally meet and throw themselves upon the enemy. Yet
this meeting, when it came, proved to be one of the lesser tragedies of
history, and had a deep and fateful effect upon American public opinion
and upon the life and future of the American people.[8]
Time has not dulled the vivid picture of that disaster. The golden
sunshine of that July day; the pleasant murmur of the waters of the
Monongahela; the silent and somber forests; the steady tramp, tramp of
the British to the inspiriting music of their regimental bands playing
the martial airs of England; the bright uniforms of the advancing
columns giving to the background of stream and forest a touch of
splendor; and then the ambush and surprise; the war-whoops of savage
foes that could not be seen; the hail of invisible death, no pellet of
which went astray; the pathetic volleys which the doomed British troops
fired at hidden antagonists; the panic; the rout; the pursuit; the
slaughter; the crushing, humiliating defeat![9]
Most of the British officers were killed or wounded as they vainly tried
to halt the stampede.[10] Braddock himself received a mortal hurt.[11]
Raging with battle lust, furious at what he felt was the stupidity and
cowardice of the British regulars,[12] the youthful Washington rode
among the fear-frenzied Englishmen, striving to save the day. Two horses
were shot under him. Four bullets rent his uniform.[13] But, crazed with
fright, the Royal soldiers were beyond human control.
Only the Virginia rangers kept their heads and their courage. Obeying
the shouted orders of their young commander, they threw themselves
between the terror-stricken British and the savage victors; and,
fighting behind trees and rocks, were an ever-moving rampart of fire
that saved the flying remnants of the English troops. But for Washington
and his rangers, Braddock's whole force would have been annihilated.[14]
Colonel Dunbar and his fifteen hundred British regulars, who had been
left a short distance behind as a reserve, made off to Philadelphia as
fast as their panic-winged feet could carry them.[15]
So everywhere went up the cry, "The British are beaten!" At first rumor
had it that the whole force was destroyed, and that Washington had been
killed in action.[16] But soon another word followed hard upon this
error--the word that the boyish Virginia captain and his rangers had
fought with coolness, skill, and courage; that they alone had prevented
the extinction of the British regulars; that they alone had come out of
the conflict with honor and glory.
Thus it was that the American colonists suddenly came to think that they
themselves must be their own defenders. It was a revelation, all the
more impressive because it was so abrupt, unexpected, and dramatic, that
the red-coated professional soldiers were not the unconquerable warriors
the colonists had been told that they were.[17] From colonial "mansion"
to log cabin, from the provincial "capitals" to the mean and exposed
frontier settlements, Braddock's defeat sowed the seed of the idea that
Americans must depend upon themselves.[18]
As Bacon's Rebellion at Jamestown, exactly one hundred years before
Independence was declared at Philadelphia, was the beginning of the
American Revolution in its first clear expression of popular rights,[19]
so Braddock's defeat was the inception of that same epoch in its lesson
of American military self-dependence.[20] Down to Concord and Lexington,
Great Bridge and Bunker Hill, the overthrow of the King's troops on the
Monongahela in 1755 was a theme of common talk among men, a household
legend on which American mothers brought up their children.[21]
Close upon the heels of this epoch-making event, John Marshall came into
the world. He was born in a little log cabin in the southern part of
what now is Fauquier County, Virginia (then a part of Prince William),
on September 24, 1755,[22] eleven weeks after Braddock's defeat. The
Marshall cabin stood about a mile and a half from a cluster of a dozen
similar log structures built by a handful of German families whom
Governor Spotswood had brought over to work his mines. This little
settlement was known as Germantown, and was practically on the
frontier.[23]
Thomas Marshall, the father of John Marshall, was a close friend of
Washington, whom he ardently admired. They were born in the same county,
and their acquaintance had begun, apparently, in their boyhood.[24]
Also, as will presently appear, Thomas Marshall had for about three
years been the companion of Washington, when acting as his assistant in
surveying the western part of the Fairfax estate.[25] From that time
forward his attachment to Washington amounted to devotion.[26]
Also, he was, like Washington, a fighting man.[27] It seems strange,
therefore, that he did not accompany his hero in the Braddock
expedition. There is, indeed, a legend that he did go part of the
way.[28] But this, like so many stories concerning him, is untrue.[29]
The careful roster, made by Washington of those under his command,[30]
does not contain the name of Thomas Marshall either as officer or
private. Because of their intimate association it is certain that
Washington would not have overlooked him if he had been a member of that
historic body of men.
So, while the father of John Marshall was not with his friend and leader
at Braddock's defeat, no man watched that expedition with more care,
awaited its outcome with keener anxiety, or was more affected by the
news, than Thomas Marshall. Beneath no rooftree in all the colonies,
except, perhaps, that of Washington's brother, could this capital event
have made a deeper impression than in the tiny log house in the forests
of Prince William County, where John Marshall, a few weeks afterwards,
first saw the light of day.
Wars and rumors of wars, ever threatening danger, and stern, strong,
quiet preparation to meet whatever befell--these made up the moral and
intellectual atmosphere that surrounded the Marshall cabin before and
after the coming of Thomas and Mary Marshall's first son. The earliest
stories told this child of the frontier[31] must have been those of
daring and sacrifice and the prevailing that comes of them.
Almost from the home-made cradle John Marshall was taught the idea of
American solidarity. Braddock's defeat, the most dramatic military event
before the Revolution,[32] was, as we have seen, the theme of fireside
talk; and from this grew, in time, the conviction that Americans, if
united,[33] could not only protect their homes from the savages and the
French, but defeat, if need be, the British themselves.[34] So thought
the Marshalls, father and mother; and so they taught their children, as
subsequent events show.
It was a remarkable parentage that produced this child who in manhood
was to become the master-builder of American Nationality. Curiously
enough, it was exactly the same mingling of human elements that gave to
the country that great apostle of the rights of man, Thomas Jefferson.
Indeed, Jefferson's mother and Marshall's grandmother were first
cousins. The mother of Thomas Jefferson was Jane Randolph, daughter of
Isham Randolph of Turkey Island; and the mother of John Marshall was
Mary Randolph Keith, the daughter of Mary Isham Randolph, whose father
was Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe, the brother of Jefferson's maternal
grandfather.
Thus, Thomas Jefferson was the great-grandson and John Marshall the
great-great-grandson of William Randolph and Mary Isham. Perhaps no
other couple in American history is so remarkable for the number of
distinguished descendants. Not only were they the ancestors of Thomas
Jefferson and John Marshall, but also of "Light Horse Harry" Lee,
of Revolutionary fame, Edmund Randolph, Washington's first
Attorney-General, John Randolph of Roanoke, George Randolph, Secretary
of War under the Confederate Government, and General Robert E. Lee, the
great Southern military leader of the Civil War.[35]
The Virginia Randolphs were one of the families of that proud colony who
were of undoubted gentle descent, their line running clear and unbroken
at least as far back as 1550. The Ishams were a somewhat older family,
their lineage being well established to 1424. While knighthood was
conferred upon one ancestor of Mary Isham, the Randolph and Isham
families were of the same social stratum, both being of the English
gentry.[36] The Virginia Randolphs were brilliant in mind, physically
courageous, commanding in character, generally handsome in person, yet
often as erratic as they were gifted.
[Illustration: COLONEL WILLIAM RANDOLPH]
[Illustration: MARY ISHAM RANDOLPH]
When the gentle Randolph-Isham blood mingled with the sturdier currents
of the common people, the result was a human product stronger, steadier,
and abler than either. So, when Jane Randolph became the wife of Peter
Jefferson, a man from the grass roots, the result was Thomas Jefferson.
The union of a daughter of Mary Randolph with Thomas Marshall, a man of
the soil and forests, produced John Marshall.[37]
Physically and mentally, Peter Jefferson and Thomas Marshall were much
alike. Both were powerful men of great stature. Both were endowed with
rare intellectuality.[38] Both were hard-working, provident, and
fearless. Even their occupations were the same: both were land
surveyors. The chief difference between them was that, whereas Peter
Jefferson appears to have been a hearty and convivial person,[39]
Thomas Marshall seems to have been self-contained though adventurous,
and of rather austere habits. Each became the leading man of his
county[40] and both were chosen members of the House of Burgesses.[41]
On the paternal side, it is impossible to trace the origin of either
Peter Jefferson[42] or Thomas Marshall farther back than their
respective great-grandfathers, without floundering, unavailingly, in
genealogical quicksands.
Thomas Marshall was the son of a very small planter in Westmoreland
County, Virginia. October 23, 1727, three years before Thomas was born,
his father, John Marshall "of the forest," acquired by deed, from
William Marshall of King and Queen County, two hundred acres of poor,
low, marshy land located on Appomattox Creek.[43] Little as the value of
land in Virginia then was, and continued to be for three quarters of a
century afterwards,[44] this particular tract seems to have been of an
especially inferior quality. The deed states that it is a part of twelve
hundred acres which had been granted to "Jno. Washington & Thos. Pope,
gents ... & by them lost for want of seating."
Here John Marshall "of the forest"[45] lived until his death in 1752,
and here on April 2, 1730, Thomas Marshall was born. During the quarter
of a century that this John Marshall remained on his little farm, he had
become possessed of several slaves, mostly, perhaps, by natural
increase. By his will he bequeaths to his ten children and to his wife
six negro men and women, ten negro boys and girls, and two negro
children. In addition to "one negro fellow named Joe and one negro woman
named Cate" he gives to his wife "one Gray mair named beauty and side
saddle also six hogs also I leave her the use of my land During her
widowhood, and afterwards to fall to my son Thomas Marshall and his
heirs forever."[46] One year later the widow, Elizabeth Marshall, deeded
half of this two hundred acres to her son Thomas Marshall.[47]
Such was the environment of Thomas Marshall's birth, such the property,
family, and station in life of his father. Beyond these facts, nothing
positively is known of the ancestry of John Marshall on his father's
side. Marshall himself traces it no further back than his grandfather.
"My Father, Thomas Marshall, was the eldest son of John Marshall, who
intermarried with a Miss Markham and whose parents migrated from Wales,
and settled in the county of Westmoreland, in Virginia, where my Father
was born."[48]
It is probable, however, that Marshall's paternal great-grandfather was
a carpenter of Westmoreland County. A Thomas Marshall, "carpenter," as
he describes himself in his will, died in that county in 1704. He
devised his land to his son William. A William Marshall of King and
Queen County deeded to John Marshall "of the forest," for five
shillings, the two hundred acres of land in Westmoreland County, as
above stated.[49] The fair inference is that this William was the elder
brother of John "of the forest" and that both were sons of Thomas the
"carpenter."
[Illustration: THOMAS MARSHALL]
Beyond his paternal grandfather or at furthest his great-grandfather,
therefore, the ancestry of John Marshall, on his father's side, is lost
in the fogs of uncertainty.[50] It is only positively known that his
grandfather was of the common people and of moderate means.[51]
Concerning his paternal grandmother, nothing definitely is established
except that she was Elizabeth Markham, daughter of Lewis Markham, once
Sheriff of Westmoreland County.[52]
John Marshall's lineage on his mother's side, however, is long, high,
and free from doubt, not only through the Randolphs and Ishams, as we
have seen, but through the Keiths. For his maternal grandfather was an
Episcopal clergyman, James Keith, of the historic Scottish family of
that name, who were hereditary Earls Marischal of Scotland. The Keiths
had been soldiers for generations, some of them winning great
renown.[53] One of them was James Keith, the Prussian field marshal and
ablest of the officers of Frederick the Great.[54] James Keith, a
younger son of this distinguished family, was destined for the
Church;[55] but the martial blood flowing in his veins asserted itself
and, in his youth, he also became a soldier, upholding with arms the
cause of the Pretender. When that rebellion was crushed, he fled to
Virginia, resumed his sacred calling, returned to England for orders,
came back to Virginia[56] and during his remaining years performed his
priestly duties with rare zeal and devotion.[57] The motto of the Keiths
of Scotland was "Veritas Vincit," and John Marshall adopted it. During
most of his life he wore an amethyst with the ancient Keith motto
engraved upon it.[58]
When past middle life the Scottish parson married Mary Isham
Randolph,[59] granddaughter of William Randolph and Mary Isham. In 1754
their daughter, Mary Randolph Keith, married Thomas Marshall and became
the mother of John Marshall. "My mother was named Mary Keith, she was
the daughter of a clergyman, of the name of Keith, who migrated from
Scotland and intermarried with a Miss Randolph of James River" is
Marshall's comment on his maternal ancestry.[60]
Not only was John Marshall's mother uncommonly well born, but she was
more carefully educated than most Virginia women of that period.[61] Her
father received in Aberdeen the precise and methodical training of a
Scottish college;[62] and, as all parsons in the Virginia of that time
were teachers, it is certain that he carefully instructed his daughter.
He was a deeply religious man, especially in his latter years,--so much
so, indeed, that there was in him a touch of mysticism; and the two
marked qualities of his daughter, Mary, were deep piety and strong
intellectuality. She had, too, all the physical hardiness of her
Scottish ancestry, fortified by the active and useful labor which all
Virginia women of her class at that time performed.
[Illustration: MARY RANDOLPH KEITH MARSHALL (Mrs. Thomas Marshall)]
So Thomas Marshall and Mary Keith combined unusual qualities for the
founding of a family. Great strength of mind both had, and powerful
wills; and through the veins of both poured the blood of daring. Both
were studious-minded, too, and husband and wife alike were seized of a
passion for self-improvement as well as a determination to better their
circumstances. It appears that Thomas Marshall was by nature religiously
inclined;[63] and this made all the greater harmony between himself and
his wife. The physical basis of both husband and wife seems to have been
well-nigh perfect.
Fifteen children were the result of this union, every one of whom lived
to maturity and almost all of whom rounded out a ripe old age. Every one
of them led an honorable and successful life. Nearly all strongly
impressed themselves upon the community in which they lived.
It was a peculiar society of which this prolific and virile family
formed a part, and its surroundings were as strange as the society
itself. Nearly all of Virginia at that time was wilderness,[64] if we
look upon it with the eyes of to-day. The cultivated parts were given
over almost entirely to the raising of tobacco, which soon drew from the
soil its virgin strength; and the land thus exhausted usually was
abandoned to the forest, which again soon covered it. No use was made of
the commonest and most obvious fertilizing materials and methods; new
spaces were simply cleared.[65] Thus came a happy-go-lucky improvidence
of habits and character.
This shiftlessness was encouraged by the vast extent of unused and
unoccupied domain. Land was so cheap that riches measured by that basis
of all wealth had to be counted in terms of thousands and tens of
thousands of acres.[66] Slavery was an even more powerful force making
for a kind of lofty disdain of physical toil among the white
people.[67] Black slaves were almost as numerous as white free men.[68]
On the great plantations the negro quarters assumed the proportions of
villages;[69] and the masters of these extensive holdings were by
example the arbiters of habits and manners to the whole social and
industrial life of the colony. While an occasional great planter was
methodical and industrious,[70] careful and systematic methods were
rare. Manual labor was, to most of these lords of circumstance, not only
unnecessary but degrading. To do no physical work that could be avoided
on the one hand, and on the other hand, to own as many slaves as
possible, was, generally, the ideal of members of the first estate.[71]
This spread to the classes below, until it became a common ambition of
white men throughout the Old Dominion.
While contemporary travelers are unanimous upon this peculiar aspect of
social and economic conditions in old Virginia, the vivid picture drawn
by Thomas Jefferson is still more convincing. "The whole commerce
between master and slave," writes Jefferson, "is a perpetual exercise of
the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one
part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and
learn to imitate it.... Thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in
tyranny ... the man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and
morals undepraved.... With the morals of the people their industry also
is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who
can make another labour for him.... Of the proprietors of slaves a very
small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour."[72]
Two years after he wrote his "Notes on Virginia" Jefferson emphasized
his estimate of Virginia society. "I have thought them [Virginians] as
you found them," he writes Chastellux, "aristocratical, pompous,
clannish, indolent, hospitable ... careless of their interests, ...
thoughtless in their expenses and in all their transactions of
business." He again ascribes many of these characteristics to "that
warmth of their climate which unnerves and unmans both body and
mind."[73]
From this soil sprang a growth of habits as noxious as it was luxuriant.
Amusements to break the monotony of unemployed daily existence took the
form of horse-racing, cock-fighting, and gambling.[74] Drinking and all
attendant dissipations were universal and extreme;[75] this, however,
was the case in all the colonies.[76] Bishop Meade tells us that even
the clergy indulged in the prevailing customs to the neglect of their
sacred calling; and the church itself was all but abandoned in the
disrepute which the conduct of its ministers brought upon the house of
God.[77]
Yet the higher classes of colonial Virginians were keen for the
education of their children, or at least of their male offspring.[78]
The sons of the wealthiest planters often were sent to England or
Scotland to be educated, and these, not infrequently, became graduates
of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.[79] Others of this class were
instructed by private tutors.[80] Also a sort of scanty and fugitive
public instruction was given in rude cabins, generally located in
abandoned fields. These were called the Old Field Schools.[81]
More than forty per cent of the men who made deeds or served on juries
could not sign their names, although they were of the land-owning and
better educated classes;[82] the literacy of the masses, especially that
of the women,[83] was, of course, much lower.
An eager desire, among the "quality," for reading brought a considerable
number of books to the homes of those who could afford that luxury.[84]
A few libraries were of respectable size and two or three were very
large. Robert Carter had over fifteen hundred volumes,[85] many of which
were in Latin and Greek, and some in French.[86] William Byrd collected
at Westover more than four thousand books in half a dozen languages.[87]
But the Carter and Byrd libraries were, of course, exceptions. Byrd's
library was the greatest, not only in Virginia, but in all the colonies,
except that of John Adams, which was equally extensive and varied.[88]
Doubtless the leisure and wealth of the gentry, created by the peculiar
economic conditions of the Old Dominion, sharpened this appetite for
literature and afforded to the wealthy time and material for the
gratification of it. The passion for reading and discussion persisted,
and became as notable a characteristic of Virginians as was their
dislike for physical labor, their excessive drinking, and their love of
strenuous sport and rough diversion.
There were three social orders or strata, all contemporary observers
agree, into which Virginians were divided; but they merged into one
another so that the exact dividing line was not clear.[89] First, of
course, came the aristocracy of the immense plantations. While the
social and political dominance of this class was based on wealth, yet
some of its members were derived from the English gentry, with, perhaps,
an occasional one from a noble family in the mother country.[90] Many,
however, were English merchants or their sons.[91] It appears, also,
that the boldest and thriftiest of the early Virginia settlers, whom the
British Government exiled for political offenses, acquired extensive
possessions, became large slave-owners, and men of importance and
position. So did some who were indentured servants;[92] and, indeed, an
occasional transported convict rose to prominence.[93]
But the genuine though small aristocratic element gave tone and color to
colonial Virginia society. All, except the "poor whites," looked to this
supreme group for ideals and for standards of manners and conduct.
"People of fortune ... are the pattern of all behaviour here," testifies
Fithian of New Jersey, tutor in the Carter household.[94] Also, it was,
of course, the natural ambition of wealthy planters and those who
expected to become such to imitate the life of the English higher
classes. This was much truer in Virginia than in any other colony; for
she had been more faithful to the Crown and to the royal ideal than had
her sisters. Thus it was that the Old Dominion developed a distinctively
aristocratic and chivalrous social atmosphere peculiar to herself,[95]
as Jefferson testifies.
Next to the dominant class came the lesser planters. These corresponded
to the yeomanry of the mother country; and most of them were from the
English trading classes.[96] They owned little holdings of land from a
few hundred to a thousand and even two thousand acres; and each of these
inconsiderable landlords acquired a few slaves in proportion to his
limited estate. It is possible that a scanty number of this middle class
were as well born as the best born of the little nucleus of the genuine
aristocracy; these were the younger sons of great English houses to whom
the law of primogeniture denied equal opportunity in life with the elder
brother. So it came to pass that the upper reaches of the second estate
in the social and industrial Virginia of that time merged into the
highest class.
At the bottom of the scale, of course, came the poverty-stricken whites.
In eastern Virginia this was the class known as the "poor whites"; and
it was more distinct than either of the two classes above it. These
"poor whites" lived in squalor, and without the aspirations or virtues
of the superior orders. They carried to the extreme the examples of
idleness given them by those in higher station, and coarsened their
vices to the point of brutality.[97] Near this social stratum, though
not a part of it, were classed the upland settlers, who were poor
people, but highly self-respecting and of sturdy stock.
Into this structure of Virginia society Fate began to weave a new and
alien thread about the time that Thomas Marshall took his young bride to
the log cabin in the woods of Prince William County where their first
child was born. In the back country bordering the mountains appeared the
scattered huts of the pioneers. The strong character of this element of
Virginia's population is well known, and its coming profoundly
influenced for generations the political, social, industrial, and
military history of that section. They were jealous of their "rights,"
impatient of restraint, wherever they felt it, and this was seldom.
Indeed, the solitariness of their lives, and the utter self-dependence
which this forced upon them, made them none too tolerant of law in any
form.
These outpost settlers furnished most of that class so well known to our
history by the term "backwoodsmen," and yet so little understood. For
the heroism, the sacrifice, and the suffering of this "advance guard of
civilization" have been pictured by laudatory writers to the exclusion
of its other and less admirable qualities. Yet it was these latter
characteristics that played so important a part in that critical period
of our history between the surrender of the British at Yorktown and the
adoption of the Constitution, and in that still more fateful time when
the success of the great experiment of making out of an inchoate
democracy a strong, orderly, independent, and self-respecting nation was
in the balance.
These American backwoodsmen, as described by contemporary writers who
studied them personally, pushed beyond the inhabited districts to get
land and make homes more easily. This was their underlying purpose; but
a fierce individualism, impatient even of those light and vague social
restraints which the existence of near-by neighbors creates, was a
sharper spur.[98] Through both of these motives, too, ran the spirit of
mingled lawlessness and adventure. The physical surroundings of the
backwoodsman nourished the non-social elements of his character. The log
cabin built, the surrounding patch of clearing made, the seed planted
for a crop of cereals only large enough to supply the household
needs--these almost ended the backwoodsman's agricultural activities and
the habits of regular industry which farming requires.
While his meager crops were coming on, the backwoodsman must supply his
family with food from the stream and forest. The Indians had not yet
retreated so far, nor were their atrocities so remote, that fear of
them had ceased;[99] and the eye of the backwoodsman was ever keen for a
savage human foe as well as for wild animals. Thus he became a man of
the rifle,[100] a creature of the forests, a dweller amid great
silences, self-reliant, suspicious, non-social, and almost as savage as
his surroundings.[101]
But among them sometimes appeared families which sternly held to high
purposes, orderly habits, and methodical industry;[102] and which clung
to moral and religious ideals and practices with greater tenacity than
ever, because of the very difficulties of their situation. These chosen
families naturally became the backbone of the frontier; and from them
came the strong men of the advanced settlements.
Such a figure among the backwoodsmen was Thomas Marshall. Himself a
product of the settlements on the tidewater, he yet was the
personification of that spirit of American advance and enterprise which
led this son of the Potomac lowlands ever and ever westward until he
ended his days in the heart of Kentucky hundreds of miles through the
savage wilderness from the spot where, as a young man, he built his
first cabin home.
This, then, was the strange mingling of human elements that made up
Virginia society during the middle decades of the eighteenth century--a
society peculiar to the Old Dominion and unlike that of any other place
or time. For the most part, it was idle and dissipated, yet also
hospitable and spirited, and, among the upper classes, keenly
intelligent and generously educated. When we read of the heavy drinking
of whiskey, brandy, rum, and heady wine; of the general indolence,
broken chiefly by fox-hunting and horse-racing, among the quality; of
the coarser sport of cock-fighting shared in common by landed gentry and
those of baser condition, and of the eagerness for physical encounter
which seems to have pervaded the whole white population,[103] we wonder
at the greatness of mind and soul which grew from such a social soil.
Yet out of it sprang a group of men who for ability, character, spirit,
and purpose, are not outshone and have no precise counterpart in any
other company of illustrious characters appearing in like space of time
and similar extent of territory. At almost the same point of time,
historically speaking,--within thirty years, to be exact,--and on the
same spot, geographically speaking,--within a radius of a hundred
miles,--George Mason, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson,
John Marshall, and George Washington were born. The life stories of
these men largely make up the history of their country while they lived;
and it was chiefly their words and works, their thought and purposes,
that gave form and direction, on American soil, to those political and
social forces which are still working out the destiny of the American
people.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For instance, the Indians massacred nine families in Frederick
County, just over the Blue Ridge from Fauquier, in June, 1755.
(_Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser_, July 24, 1755.)
[2] Marshall, i, 12-13; Campbell, 469-71. "The Colonial contingents were
not nearly sufficient either in quantity or quality." (Wood, 40.)
[3] Braddock had won promotion solely by gallantry in the famous
Coldstream Guards, the model and pride of the British army, at a time
when a lieutenant-colonelcy in that crack regiment sold for £5000
sterling. (Lowdermilk, 97.)
[4] "The British troops had been looked upon as invincible, and
preparations had been made in Philadelphia for the celebration of
Braddock's anticipated victory." (_Ib._, 186.)
[5] Washington to Robinson, April 20, 1755; _Writings_: Ford, i, 147.
[6] The "wild desert country lying between fort Cumberland and fort
Frederick [now the cities of Cumberland and Frederick in Maryland], the
most common track of the Indians, in making their incursions into
Virginia." (Address in the Maryland House of Delegates, 1757, as quoted
by Lowdermilk, 229-30.) Cumberland was "about 56 miles beyond our
[Maryland] settlements." (_Ib._) Cumberland "is far remote from any of
our inhabitants." (Washington to Dinwiddie, Sept. 23, 1756; _Writings_:
Ford, i, 346.) "Will's Creek was on the very outskirts of civilization.
The country beyond was an unbroken and almost pathless wilderness."
(Lowdermilk, 50.)
[7] It took Braddock three weeks to march from Alexandria to Cumberland.
He was two months and nineteen days on the way from Alexandria to the
place of his defeat. (_Ib._, 138.)
[8] "All America watched his [Braddock's] advance." (Wood, 61.)
[9] For best accounts of Braddock's defeat see Bradley, 75-107;
Lowdermilk, 156-63; and Marshall, i, 7-10.
[10] "Of one hundred and sixty officers, only six escaped." (Lowdermilk,
footnote to 175.)
[11] Braddock had five horses killed under him. (_Ib._, 161.)
[12] "The dastardly behavior of the Regular [British] troops," who
"broke and ran as sheep before hounds." (Washington to Dinwiddie, July
18, 1755; _Writings_: Ford, i, 173-74.)
[13] Washington to John A. Washington, July 18, 1755. (_Ib._, 176.)
[14] "The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers ...
of three companies ... scarce thirty were left alive." (Washington to
Dinwiddie, July 18, 1755; _Writings_: Ford, i, 173-74.)
[15] Lowdermilk, 182-85; and see Washington's _Writings_: Ford, i,
footnote to 175. For account of battle and rout see Washington's letters
to Dinwiddie, _ib._, 173-76; to John A. Washington, July 18, 1755,
_ib._; to Robert Jackson, Aug. 2, 1755, _ib._, 177-78; also see
Campbell, 472-81. For French account see Hart, ii, 365-67; also,
Sargent: _History of Braddock's Expedition_.
[16] Washington to John A. Washington, July 18, 1755; _Writings_: Ford,
i, 175.
[17] "The Defeat of Braddock was totally unlooked for, and it excited
the most painful surprise." (Lowdermilk, 186.)
[18] "After Braddock's defeat, the Colonists jumped to the conclusion
that all regulars were useless." (Wood, 40.)
[19] See Stanard: _Story of Bacon's Rebellion_. Bacon's Rebellion
deserves the careful study of all who would understand the beginnings of
the democratic movement in America. Mrs. Stanard's study is the best
brief account of this popular uprising. See also Wertenbaker: _V. U.
S._, chaps. 5 and 6.
[20] "The news [of Braddock's defeat] gave a far more terrible blow to
the reputation of the regulars than to the British cause [against the
French] itself." (Wood, 61.)
[21] "From that time [Braddock's defeat] forward the Colonists had a
much less exalted opinion of the valor of the royal troops."
(Lowdermilk, 186.) The fact that the colonists themselves had been
negligent and incompetent in resisting the French or even the Indians
did not weaken their newborn faith in their own prowess and their
distrust of British power.
[22] _Autobiography._
[23] Campbell, 494. "It is remarkable," says Campbell, "that as late as
the year 1756, when the colony was a century and a half old, the Blue
Ridge of mountains was virtually the western boundary of Virginia." And
see Marshall, i, 15; also, _New York Review_ (1838), iii, 330. For
frontier settlements, see the admirable map prepared by Marion F.
Lansing and reproduced in Channing, ii.
[24] Humphrey Marshall, i, 344-45. Also Binney, in Dillon, iii, 283.
[25] See _infra_, chap. II.
[26] Humphrey Marshall, i, 344-45.
[27] He was one of a company of militia cavalry the following year,
(Journal, H.B. (1756), 378); and he was commissioned as ensign Aug. 27,
1761. (Crozier: _Virginia Colonial Militia_, 96.) And see _infra_,
chaps, III and IV.
[28] Paxton, 20.
[29] A copy of a letter (MS.) to Thomas Marshall from his sister
Elizabeth Marshall Martin, dated June 15, 1755, referring to the
Braddock expedition, shows that he was at home at this time.
Furthermore, a man of the quality of Thomas Marshall would not have left
his young wife alone in their backwoods cabin at a time so near the
birth of their first child, when there was an overabundance of men eager
to accompany Braddock.
[30] Washington MSS., Lib. Cong.
[31] Simon Kenton, the Indian fighter, was born in the same county in
the same year as John Marshall. (M'Clung: _Sketches of Western
Adventure_, 93.)
[32] Neither the siege of Louisburg nor the capture of Quebec took such
hold on the public imagination as the British disaster on the
Monongahela. Also, the colonists felt, though unjustly, that they were
entitled to as much credit for the two former events as the British.
[33] The idea of unity had already germinated. The year before, Franklin
offered his plan of concerted colonial action to the Albany conference.
(_Writings_: Smyth, i, 387.)
[34] Wood, 38-42.
[35] For these genealogies see Slaughter: _Bristol Parish_, 212; Lee:
_Lee of Virginia_, 406 _et seq._; Randall, i, 6-9; Tucker, i, 26. See
Meade, i, footnote to 138-39, for other descendants of William Randolph
and Mary Isham.
[36] _Va. Mag. Hist. and Biog._, iii, 261; xviii, 86-87.
[37] The curious sameness in the ancestry of Marshall and Jefferson is
found also in the surroundings of their birth. Both were born in log
cabins in the backwoods. Peter Jefferson, father of Thomas, "was the
third or fourth white settler within the space of several miles" of his
cabin home, which he built "in a small clearing in the dense and
primeval forest." (Randall, i, 11.) Here Jefferson was born, April 2,
1743, a little more than twelve years before John Marshall came into the
world, under like conditions and from similar parents.
Peter Jefferson was, however, remotely connected by descent, on his
mother's side, with men who had been burgesses. His maternal
grandfather, Peter Field, was a burgess, and his maternal
great-grandfather, Henry Soane, was Speaker of the House of Burgesses.
But both Peter Jefferson and Thomas Marshall were "of the people" as
distinguished from the gentry.
[38] Morse, 3; and Story, in Dillon, iii, 330.
[39] Randall, i, 7. Peter Jefferson "purchased" four hundred acres of
land from his "bosom friend," William Randolph, the consideration as set
forth in the deed being, "Henry Weatherbourne's biggest bowl of arrack
punch"! (_Ib._)
[40] Peter Jefferson was County Lieutenant of Albemarle. (_Va. Mag,
Hist. and Biog._, xxiii, 173-75.) Thomas Marshall was Sheriff of
Fauquier.
[41] Randall, i, 12-13; and see _infra_, chap. II.
[42] Tucker, i, 26.
[43] Records of Westmoreland County, Deeds and Wills, viii, I, 276.
[44] _Ib._ Seventy years later La Rochefoucauld found land adjoining
Norfolk heavily covered with valuable timber, close to the water and
convenient for shipment, worth only from six to seven dollars an acre.
(La Rochefoucauld, iii, 25.) Virginia sold excellent public land for two
cents an acre three quarters of a century after this deed to John
Marshall "of the forest." (Ambler, 44; and see Turner, Wis. Hist. Soc,
1908, 201.) This same land which William Marshall deeded to John
Marshall nearly two hundred years ago is now valued at only from ten to
twenty dollars an acre. (Letter of Albert Stuart, Deputy Clerk of
Westmoreland County, to author, Aug. 26, 1913.) In 1730 it was probably
worth one dollar per acre.
[45] A term generally used by the richer people in referring to those of
poorer condition who lived in the woods, especially those whose abodes
were some distance from the river. (Statement of W. G. Stanard,
Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society and Dr. H. J. Eckenrode of
Richmond College, and formerly Archivist of the Virginia State Library.)
There were, however, Virginia estates called "The Forest." For example,
Jefferson's father-in-law, John Wayles, a wealthy man, lived in "The
Forest."
[46] Will of John Marshall "of the forest," made April 1, 1752, probated
May 26, 1752, and recorded June 22, 1752; Records of Westmoreland
County, Deeds and Wills, xi, 419 _et seq._ (Appendix II.)
[47] _Ib._, 421.
[48] _Autobiography_. Marshall gives the ancestry of his wife more fully
and specifically. See _infra_, chap. V.
[49] Will of Thomas Marshall, "carpenter," probated May 31, 1704;
Records of Westmoreland County, Deeds and Wills, iii, 232 _et seq._
(Appendix I.)
[50] Most curiously, precisely this is true of Thomas Jefferson's
paternal ancestry.
[51] There is a family tradition that the first of this particular
Marshall family in America was a Royalist Irish captain who fought under
Charles I and came to America when Cromwell prevailed. This may or may
not be true. Certainly no proof of it has been discovered. The late
Wilson Miles Cary, whose authority is unquestioned in genealogical
problems upon which he passed judgment, decided that "the Marshall
family begins absolutely with Thomas Marshall, 'Carpenter.'" (The Cary
Papers, MSS., Va. Hist. Soc. The _Virginia Magazine of History and
Biography_ is soon to publish these valuable genealogical papers.)
Within comparatively recent years, this family tradition has been
ambitiously elaborated. It includes among John Marshall's ancestors
William le Mareschal, who came to England with the Conqueror; the
celebrated Richard de Clare, known as "Strongbow"; an Irish king,
Dermont; Sir William Marshall, regent of the kingdom of England and
restorer of Magna Charta; a Captain John Marshall, who distinguished
himself at the siege of Calais in 1558; and finally, the Irish captain
who fought Cromwell and fled to Virginia as above mentioned. (Paxton, 7
_et seq._)
Senator Humphrey Marshall rejected this story as "a myth supported by
vanity." (_Ib._) Colonel Cary declares that "there is no evidence
whatever in support of it." (Cary Papers, MSS.) Other painstaking
genealogists have reached the same conclusion. (See, for instance,
General Thomas M. Anderson's analysis of the subject in _Va. Mag. Hist.
and Biog._, xii, 328 _et seq._)
Marshall himself, of course, does not notice this legend in his
_Autobiography_; indeed, it is almost certain that he never heard of it.
In constructing this picturesque genealogical theory, the kinship of
persons separated by centuries is assumed largely because of a
similarity of names. This would not seem to be entirely convincing.
There were many Marshalls in Virginia no more related to one another
than the various unrelated families by the name of Smith. Indeed,
_maréchal_ is the French word for a "shoeing smith."
For example, there lived in Westmoreland County, at the same time with
John Marshall "of the forest," another John Marshall, who died intestate
and the inventory of whose effects was recorded March 26, 1751, a year
before John Marshall "of the forest" died. These two John Marshalls do
not seem to have been kinsmen.
The only prominent person in Virginia named Marshall in 1723-34 was a
certain Thomas Marshall who was a member of the colony's House of
Burgesses during this period; but he was from Northampton County.
(Journal, H.B. (1712-23), xi; _ib._ (1727-40), viii, and 174.) He does
not appear to have been related in any way to John "of the forest."
There were numerous Marshalls who were officers in the Revolutionary War
from widely separated colonies, apparently unconnected by blood or
marriage. For instance, there were Abraham, David, and Benjamin Marshall
from Pennsylvania; Christopher Marshall from Massachusetts; Dixon
Marshall from North Carolina; Elihu Marshall from New York, etc.
(Heitman, 285.)
At the same time that John Marshall, the subject of this work, was
captain in a Virginia regiment, two other John Marshalls were captains
in Pennsylvania regiments. When Thomas Marshall of Virginia was an
officer in Washington's army, there were four other Thomas Marshalls,
two from Massachusetts, one from South Carolina, and one from Virginia,
all Revolutionary officers. (_Ib._)
When Stony Point was taken by Wayne, among the British prisoners
captured was Lieutenant John Marshall of the 17th Regiment of British
foot (see Dawson, 86); and Captain John Marshall of Virginia was one of
the attacking force. (See _infra_, chap. IV.)
In 1792, John Marshall of King and Queen County, a boatswain, was a
Virginia pensioner. (_Va. Hist. Prs._, v, 544.) He was not related to
John Marshall, who had become the leading Richmond lawyer of that time.
While Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury he received several letters
from John Marshall, an Englishman, who was in this country and who wrote
Hamilton concerning the subject of establishing manufactories. (Hamilton
MSS., Lib. Cong.)
Illustrations like these might be continued for many pages. They merely
show the danger of inferring relationship because of the similarity of
names, especially one so general as that of Marshall.
[52] The Cary Papers, _supra_. Here again the Marshall legend riots
fantastically. This time it makes the pirate Blackbeard the first
husband of Marshall's paternal grandmother; and with this freebooter she
is said to have had thrilling and melancholy experiences. It deserves
mention only as showing the absurdity of such myths. Blackbeard was one
Edward Teach, whose career is well authenticated (Wise, 186.) Colonel
Cary put a final quietus on this particular tale, as he did on so many
other genealogical fictions.
[53] See Douglas: _Peerage of Scotland_ (1764), 448. Also Burke:
_Peerage_ (1903), 895; and _ib._ (1876). This peerage is now extinct.
See Burke: _Extinct Peerages_.
[54] For appreciation of this extraordinary man see Carlyle's _Frederick
the Great_.
[55] Paxton, 30.
[56] From data furnished by Justice James Keith, President of the Court
of Appeals of Virginia.
[57] Paxton, 30; and see Meade, ii, 216.
[58] Data furnished by Thomas Marshall Smith of Baltimore, Md.
[59] With this lady the tradition deals most unkindly and in highly
colored pictures. An elopement, the deadly revenge of outraged brothers,
a broken heart and resulting insanity overcome by gentle treatment, only
to be reinduced in old age by a fraudulent Enoch Arden letter apparently
written by the lost love of her youth--such are some of the incidents
with which this story clothes Marshall's maternal grandmother. (Paxton,
25-26.)
[60] _Autobiography._
[61] In general, Virginia women at this time had very little education
(Burnaby, 57.) Sometimes the daughters of prominent and wealthy families
could not read or write. (Bruce: _Inst._, i, 454-55.) Even forty years
after John Marshall was born, there was but one girls' school in
Virginia. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 227.) In 1789, there were very few
schools of any kind in Virginia, it appears. (Journal, H.B. (Dec. 14,
1789), 130; and see _infra_, chap. VI.)
[62] Paxton, 30. Marischal College, Aberdeen, was founded by George
Keith, Fifth Earl Marischal (1593).
[63] See _infra_, chap. II. When Leeds Parish was organized, we find
Thomas Marshall its leading vestryman. He was always a stanch churchman.
[64] Jones, 35; Burnaby,58. But see Maxwell in _William and Mary College
Quarterly_, xix, 73-103; and see Bruce: _Econ._, i, 425, 427, 585, 587.
[65] "Though tobacco exhausts the land to a prodigious degree, the
proprietors take no pains to restore its vigor; they take what the soil
will give and abandon it when it gives no longer. They like better to
clear new lands than to regenerate the old." (De Warville, 439; and see
Fithian, 140.)
The land produced only "four or five bushels of wheat per acre or from
eight to ten of Indian corn. These fields are never manured, hardly even
are they ploughed; and it seldom happens that their owners for two
successive years exact from them these scanty crops.... The country ...
everywhere exhibits the features of laziness, of ignorance, and
consequently of poverty." (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 106-07, describing
land between Richmond and Petersburg, in 1797; and see Schoepf, ii, 32,
48; and Weld, i, 138, 151.)
[66] Burnaby, 45, 59. The estate of Richard Randolph of Curels, in 1742
embraced "not less than forty thousand acres of the choicest lands."
(Garland, i, 7.) The mother of George Mason bought ten thousand acres in
Loudoun County for an insignificant sum. (Rowland, i, 51.) The Carter
plantation in 1774 comprised sixty thousand acres and Carter owned six
hundred negroes. (Fithian, 128.) Compare with the two hundred acres and
few slaves of John Marshall "of the forest," _supra_.
Half a century later the very best lands in Virginia with valuable mines
upon them sold for only eighteen dollars an acre. (La Rochefoucauld,
iii, 124.) For careful account of the extent of great holdings in the
seventeenth century see Wertenbaker: _P. and P._, 34-35, 97-99.
Jefferson in 1790 owned two hundred slaves and ten thousand acres of
very rich land on the James River. (Jefferson to Van Staphorst, Feb. 28,
1790; _Works_: Ford, vi, 33.) Washington owned enormous quantities of
land, and large numbers of slaves. His Virginia holdings alone amounted
to thirty-five thousand acres. (Beard: _Econ. I. C._, 144.)
[67] Burnaby, 54.
[68] In the older counties the slaves outnumbered the whites; for
instance, in 1790 Westmoreland County had 3183 whites, 4425 blacks, and
114 designated as "all others." In 1782 in the same county 410
slave-owners possessed 4536 slaves and 1889 horses. (_Va. Mag. Hist. and
Biog._, x, 229-36.)
[69] Ambler, 11. The slaves of some planters were valued at more than
thirty thousand pounds sterling. (Fithian, 286; and Schoepf, ii, 38;
also, Weld, i, 148.)
[70] Robert Carter was a fine example of this rare type. (See Fithian,
279-80.)
[71] Burnaby, 53-54 and 59. "The Virginians ... are an indolent haughty
people whose thoughts and designs are directed solely towards p[l]aying
the lord, owning great tracts of land and numerous troops of slaves. Any
man whatever, if he can afford so much as 2-3 [two or three] negroes,
becomes ashamed of work, and goes about in idleness, supported by his
slaves." (Schoepf, ii, 40.)
[72] "Notes on Virginia"; _Works_: Ford, iv, 82-83. See La
Rochefoucauld, iii, p. 161, on Jefferson's slaves.
[73] Jefferson to Chastellux, Sept. 2, 1785; _Thomas Jefferson
Correspondence_, Bixby Collection: Ford, 12; and see Jefferson's
comparison of the sections of the country, _ib._ and _infra_, chap. VI.
[74] "Many of the wealthier class were to be seen seeking relief from
the vacuity of idleness, not merely in the allowable pleasures of the
chase and the turf, but in the debasing ones of cock-fighting, gaming,
and drinking." (Tucker, i, 18; and see La Rochefoucauld, iii, 77; Weld,
i, 191; also _infra_, chap. VII, and references there given.)
[75] Jones, 48, 49, and 52; Chastellux, 222-24; also, translator's note
to _ib._, 292-93. The following order from the Records of the Court of
Rappahannock County, Jan. 2, 1688 (_sic_), p. 141, is illustrative:--
"It having pleased Almighty God to bless his Royall Mahst. with the
birth of a son & his subjects with a Prince of Wales, and for as much as
his Excellency hath sett apart the 16th. day of this Inst. Janr'y. for
solemnizing the same. To the end therefore that it may be don with all
the expressions of joy this County is capable of, this Court have
ordered that Capt. Geo. Taylor do provide & bring to the North Side
Courthouse for this county as much Rum or other strong Liquor with sugar
proportionable as shall amount to six thousand five hundred pounds of
Tobb. to be distributed amongst the Troops of horse, Compa. of foot and
other persons that shall be present at the Sd. Solemnitie. And that the
said sum be allowed him at the next laying of the Levey. As also that
Capt. Samll. Blomfield provide & bring to the South side Courthouse for
this county as much Rum or other strong Liquor Wth. sugar proportionable
as shall amount to three thousand five hundred pounds of Tobb. to be
distributed as above att the South side Courthouse, and the Sd. sum to
be allowed him at the next laying of the Levey."
And see Bruce: _Econ._, ii, 210-31; also Wise, 320, 327-29. Although
Bruce and Wise deal with a much earlier period, drinking seems to have
increased in the interval. (See Fithian, 105-14, 123.)
[76] As in Massachusetts, for instance. "In most country towns ... you
will find almost every other house with a sign of entertainment before
it.... If you sit the evening, you will find the house full of people,
drinking drams, flip, toddy, carousing, swearing." (John Adams's
_Diary_, describing a New England county, in 1761; _Works_: Adams, ii,
125-26. The Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, now in process of
publication by the Essex Institute, contain many cases that confirm the
observation of Adams.)
[77] Meade, i, 52-54; and see Schoepf, ii, 62-63.
[78] Wise, 317-19; Bruce: _Inst._, i, 308-15.
[79] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 317-22; and see especially, _Va. Mag. Hist. and
Biog._, ii, 196 _et seq._
[80] _Ib._, 323-30; also Fithian, 50 _et seq._
[81] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 331-42.
[82] _Ib._, 452-53.
[83] _Ib._, 456-57. Bruce shows that two thirds of the women who joined
in deeds could not write. This, however, was in the richer section of
the colony at a much earlier period. Just before the Revolution Virginia
girls, even in wealthy families, "were simply taught to read and write
at 25/ [shillings] and a load of wood per year--A boarding school was
no where in Virginia to be found." (Mrs. Carrington to her sister Nancy;
MS.) Part of this letter appears in the _Atlantic Monthly_ series cited
hereafter (see chap. V); but the teacher's pay is incorrectly printed as
"pounds" instead of "shillings." (_Atlantic Monthly_, lxxxiv, 544-45.)
[84] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 402-42; and see Wise, 313-15. Professor Tucker
says that "literature was neglected, or cultivated, by the small number
who had been educated in England, rather as an accomplishment and a mark
of distinction than for the substantial benefits it confers." (Tucker,
i, 18.)
[85] Fithian, 177.
[86] See catalogue in _W. and M. C. Q._, x and xi.
[87] See catalogue in Appendix A to Byrd's _Writings_: Bassett.
[88] See catalogue of John Adams's Library, in the Boston Public
Library.
[89] Ambler, 9; and see Wise, 68-70.
[90] Trustworthy data on this subject is given in the volumes of the
_Va. Mag. Hist. and Biog._; see also _W. and M. C. Q._
[91] Wertenbaker: _P. and P._, 14-20. But see William G. Stanard's
exhaustive review of Mr. Wertenbaker's book in _Va. Mag. Hist. and
Biog._, xviii, 339-48.
[92] "One hundred young maids for wives, as the former ninety sent. One
hundred boys more for apprentices likewise to the public tenants. One
hundred servants to be disposed among the old planters which they
exclusively desire and will pay the company their charges." (_Virginia
Company Records_, i, 66; and see Fithian, 111.)
[93] For the understanding in England at that period of the origin of
this class of Virginia colonists see Defoe: _Moll Flanders_, 65 _et
seq._ On transported convicts see _Amer. Hist. Rev._, ii. 12 _et seq._
For summary of the matter see Channing, i, 210-14, 226-27.
[94] Fithian to Greene, Dec. 1, 1773; Fithian, 280.
[95] Fithian to Peck, Aug. 12, 1774; Fithian, 286-88; and see Professor
Tucker's searching analysis in Tucker, i, 17-22; also see Lee, in Ford:
_P. on C._, 296-97. As to a genuinely aristocratic _group_, the New York
patroons were, perhaps, the most distinct in the country.
[96] Wertenbaker: _P. and P._, 14-20; also _Va. Mag. Hist. and Biog._,
xviii, 339-48.
[97] For accounts of brutal physical combats, see Anburey, ii, 310 _et
seq._ And for dueling, though at an earlier period, see Wise, 329-31.
The practice of dueling rapidly declined; but fighting of a violent and
often repulsive character persisted, as we shall see, far into the
nineteenth century. Also, see La Rochefoucauld, Chastellux, and other
travelers, _infra_, chap. VII.
[98] Schoepf, i, 261; and see references, _infra_, chap. VII.
[99] After Braddock's defeat the Indians "extended their raids ...
pillaging and murdering in the most ruthless manner.... The whole
country from New York to the heart of Virginia became the theatre of
inhuman barbarities and heartless destruction." (Lowdermilk, 186.)
[100] Although the rifle did not come into general use until the
Revolution, the firearms of this period have been so universally
referred to as "rifles" that I have, for convenience, adopted this
inaccurate term in the first two chapters.
[101] "Their actions are regulated by the wildness of the neighbourhood.
The deer often come to eat their grain, the wolves to destroy their
sheep, the bears to kill their hogs, the foxes to catch their poultry.
This surrounding hostility immediately puts the gun into their
hands,... and thus by defending their property, they soon become
professed hunters; ... once hunters, farewell to the plough. The chase
renders them ferocious, gloomy, and unsociable; a hunter wants no
neighbour, he rather hates them.... The manners of the Indian natives
are respectable, compared with this European medley. Their wives and
children live in sloth and inactivity.... You cannot imagine what an
effect on manners the great distance they live from each other has....
Eating of wild meat ... tends to alter their temper.... I have seen it."
(Crèvecoeur, 66-68.) Crèvecoeur was himself a frontier farmer.
(_Writings_: Sparks, ix, footnote to 259.)
[102] "Many families carry with them all their decency of conduct,
purity of morals, and respect of religion; but these are scarce."
(Crèvecoeur, 70.) Crèvecoeur says his family was one of these.
[103] This bellicose trait persisted for many years and is noted by all
contemporary observers.