A FRONTIER EDUCATION
"Come to me," quoth the pine tree,
"I am the giver of honor." (Emerson.)
I do not think the greatest things have been done for the world by
its bookmen. Education is not the chips of arithmetic and grammar.
(Wendell Phillips.)
John Marshall was never out of the simple, crude environment of the near
frontier for longer than one brief space of a few months until his
twentieth year, when, as lieutenant of the famous Culpeper Minute Men,
he marched away to battle. The life he had led during this period
strengthened that powerful physical equipment which no strain of his
later years seemed to impair; and helped to establish that extraordinary
nervous equilibrium which no excitement or contest ever was able to
unbalance.[104] This foundation part of his life was even more
influential on the forming mind and spiritual outlook of the growing
youth.
Thomas Marshall left the little farm of poor land in Westmoreland County
not long after the death of his father, John Marshall "of the forest."
This ancestral "estate" had no attractions for the enterprising young
man. Indeed, there is reason for thinking that he abandoned it.[105] He
lifted his first rooftree in what then were still the wilds of Prince
William County.[106] There we find him with his young wife, and there in
the red year of British disaster his eldest son was born. The cabin has
long since disappeared, and only a rude monument of native stone,
erected by college students in recent years, now marks the supposed site
of this historic birthplace.
The spot is a placid, slumberous countryside. A small stream runs hard
by. In the near distance still stands one of the original cabins of
Spotswood's Germans.[107] But the soil is not generous. When Thomas
Marshall settled there the little watercourse at the foot of the gentle
slope on which his cabin stood doubtless ran bank-full; for in 1754 the
forests remained thick and unviolated about his cabin,[108] and fed the
waters from the heavy rains in restrained and steady flow to creek and
river channels. Amidst these surroundings four children of Thomas
Marshall and Mary Keith were born.[109]
The sturdy young pioneer was not content to remain permanently at
Germantown. A few years later found him building another home about
thirty miles farther westward, in a valley in the Blue Ridge
Mountains.[110] Here the elder son spent the critical space of life from
childhood to his eighteenth year. This little building still stands,
occupied by negroes employed on the estate of which it forms a part. The
view from it even now is attractive; and in the days of John Marshall's
youth must have been very beautiful.
The house is placed on a slight rise of ground on the eastern edge of
the valley. Near by, to the south and closer still to the west, two
rapid mountain streams sing their quieting, restful song. On all sides
the Blue Ridge lifts the modest heights of its purple hills. This valley
at that time was called "The Hollow," and justly so; for it is but a cup
in the lazy and unambitious mountains. When the eldest son first saw
this frontier home, great trees thickly covered mountain, hill, and
glade, and surrounded the meadow, which the Marshall dwelling
overlooked, with a wall of inviting green.[111]
Two days by the very lowest reckoning it must have taken Thomas Marshall
to remove his family to this new abode. It is more likely that three or
four days were consumed in the toilsome task. The very careful maps of
the British survey at that time show only three roads in all immense
Prince William County.[112] On one of these the Marshalls might have
made their way northward, and on another, which it probably joined, they
could have traveled westward. But these trails were primitive and
extremely difficult for any kind of vehicle.[113]
Some time before 1765, then, rational imagination can picture a strong,
rude wagon drawn by two horses crawling along the stumpy,
rock-roughened, and mud-mired road through the dense woods that led in
the direction of "The Hollow." In the wagon sat a young woman.[114] By
her side a sturdy, red-cheeked boy looked out with alert but quiet
interest showing from his brilliant black eyes; and three other children
cried their delight or vexation as the hours wore on. In this wagon,
too, were piled the little family's household goods; nor did this make a
heavy load, for all the Lares and Penates of a frontier settler's family
in 1760 would not fill a single room of a moderately furnished household
in the present day.
[Illustration: _"The Hollow," Markham, Virginia_
_John Marshall's boyhood home._]
By the side of the wagon strode a young man dressed in the costume of
the frontier. Tall, broad-shouldered, lithe-hipped, erect, he was a very
oak of a man. His splendid head was carried with a peculiar dignity; and
the grave but kindly command that shone from his face, together with the
brooding thoughtfulness and fearless light of his striking eyes, would
have singled him out in any assemblage as a man to be respected and
trusted. A negro drove the team, and a negro girl walked behind.[115]
So went the Marshalls to their Blue Ridge home. It was a commodious one
for those days. Two rooms downstairs, one fifteen feet by sixteen, the
other twelve by fourteen, and above two half-story lofts of the same
dimensions, constituted this domestic castle. At one end of the larger
downstairs room is a broad and deep stone fireplace, and from this rises
a big chimney of the same material, supporting the house on the
outside.[116]
Thomas and Mary Marshall's pride and aspiration, as well as their social
importance among the settlers, are strongly shown by this frontier
dwelling. Unlike those of most of the other backwoodsmen, it was not a
log cabin, but a frame house built of whip-sawed uprights and
boards.[117] It was perhaps easier to construct a one and a half story
house with such materials; for to lift heavy timbers to such a height
required great effort.[118] But Thomas Marshall's social, religious, and
political status[119] in the newly organized County of Fauquier were the
leading influences that induced him to build a house which, for the
time and place, was so pretentious. A small stone "meat house," a
one-room log cabin for his two negroes, and a log stable, completed the
establishment.
In such an abode, and amidst such surroundings, the fast-growing
family[120] of Thomas Marshall lived for more than twelve years. At
first neighbors were few and distant. The nearest settlements were at
Warrenton, some twenty-three miles to the eastward, and Winchester, a
little farther over the mountains to the west.[121] But, with the horror
of Braddock's defeat subdued by the widespread and decisive counter
victories, settlers began to come into the country on both sides of the
Blue Ridge. These were comparatively small farmers, who, later on,
became raisers of wheat, corn, and other cereals, rather than tobacco.
Not until John Marshall had passed his early boyhood, however, did these
settlers become sufficiently numerous to form even a scattered
community, and his early years were enlivened with no child
companionship except that of his younger brothers and sisters. For the
most part his days were spent, rifle in hand, in the surrounding
mountains, and by the pleasant waters that flowed through the valley of
his forest home. He helped his mother, of course, with her many labors,
did the innumerable chores which the day's work required, and looked
after the younger children, as the eldest child always must do. To his
brothers and sisters as well as to his parents, he was devoted with a
tenderness peculiar to his uncommonly affectionate nature and they, in
turn, "fairly idolized" him.[122]
There were few of those minor conveniences which we to-day consider the
most indispensable of the simplest necessities. John Marshall's mother,
like most other women of that region and period, seldom had such things
as pins; in place of them use was made of thorns plucked from the bushes
in the woods.[123] The fare, naturally, was simple and primitive. Game
from the forest and fish from the stream were the principal articles of
diet. Bear meat was plentiful.[124] Even at that early period, salt pork
and salt fish probably formed a part of the family's food, though not
to the extent to which such cured provisions were used by those of the
back country in later years, when these articles became the staple of
the border.[125]
Corn meal was the basis of the family's bread supply. Even this was not
always at hand, and corn meal mush was welcomed with a shout by the
clamorous brood with which the little cabin soon fairly swarmed. It
could not have been possible for the Marshall family in their house on
Goose Creek to have the luxury of bread made from wheat flour. The
clothing of the family was mostly homespun. "Store goods," whether food,
fabric, or utensil, could be got to Thomas Marshall's backwoods dwelling
only with great difficulty and at prohibitive expense.[126]
But young John Marshall did not know that he was missing anything. On
the contrary, he was conscious of a certain wealth not found in cities
or among the currents of motion. For ever his eye looked out upon noble
yet quieting, poetic yet placid, surroundings. Always he could have the
inspiring views from the neighboring heights, the majestic stillness of
the woods, the soothing music of meadow and stream. So uplifted was the
boy by the glory of the mountains at daybreak that he always rose while
the eastern sky was yet gray.[127] He was thrilled by the splendor of
sunset and never tired of watching it until night fell upon the vast and
somber forests. For the boy was charged with poetic enthusiasm, it
appears, and the reading of poetry became his chief delight in youth and
continued to be his solace and comfort throughout his long life;[128]
indeed, Marshall liked to make verses himself, and never outgrew the
habit.
There was in him a rich vein of romance; and, later on, this manifested
itself by his passion for the great creations of fiction. Throughout his
days he would turn to the works of favorite novelists for relaxation and
renewal.[129]
The mental and spiritual effects of his surroundings on the forming mind
and unfolding soul of this young American must have been as lasting and
profound as were the physical effects on his body.[130] His environment
and his normal, wholesome daily activities could not have failed to do
its work in building the character of the growing boy. These and his
sound, steady, and uncommonly strong parentage must, perforce, have
helped to give him that courage for action, that balanced vision for
judgment, and that serene outlook on life and its problems, which were
so notable and distinguished in his mature and rugged manhood.
Lucky for John Marshall and this country that he was not city born and
bred; lucky that not even the small social activities of a country town
drained away a single ohm of his nervous energy or obscured with lesser
pictures the large panorama which accustomed his developing intelligence
to look upon big and simple things in a big and simple way.
There were then no public schools in that frontier[131] region, and
young Marshall went untaught save for the instruction his parents gave
him. For this task his father was unusually well equipped, though not by
any formal schooling. All accounts agree that Thomas Marshall, while not
a man of any learning, had contrived to acquire a useful though limited
education, which went much further with a man of his well-ordered mind
and determined will than a university training could go with a man of
looser fiber and cast in smaller mould. The father was careful,
painstaking, and persistent in imparting to his children and
particularly to John all the education he himself could acquire.
Between Thomas Marshall and his eldest son a mutual sympathy, respect,
and admiration existed, as uncommon as it was wholesome and beneficial.
"My father," often said John Marshall, "was a far abler man than any of
his sons."[132] In "his private and familiar conversations with me,"
says Justice Story, "when there was no other listener ... he never named
his father ... without dwelling on his character with a fond and winning
enthusiasm ... he broke out with a spontaneous eloquence ... upon his
virtues and talents."[133] Justice Story wrote a sketch of Marshall for
the "National Portrait Gallery," in which Thomas Marshall is highly
praised. In acknowledging the receipt of the magazine, Marshall wrote:
"I am particularly gratified by the terms in which you speak of my
father. If any contemporary, who knew him in the prime of manhood,
survived, he would confirm all you say."[134]
So whether at home with his mother or on surveying trips with his
father, the boy continually was under the influence and direction of
hardy, clear-minded, unusual parents. Their lofty and simple ideals,
their rational thinking, their unbending uprightness, their religious
convictions--these were the intellectual companions of John Marshall's
childhood and youth. While too much credit has not been given Thomas
Marshall for the training of the eldest son, far too little has been
bestowed on Mary Randolph Keith, who was, in all things, the equal of
her husband.
Although, as we have seen, many books were brought into eastern Virginia
by the rich planters, it was difficult for the dwellers on the frontier
to secure any reading material. Most books had to be imported, were
very expensive, and, in the back country, there were no local sources of
supply where they could be purchased. Also, the frontier settlers had
neither the leisure nor, it appears, the desire for reading[135] that
distinguished the wealthy landlords of the older parts of the
colony.[136] Thomas Marshall, however, was an exception to his class in
his eagerness for the knowledge to be gathered from books and in his
determination that his children should have those advantages which
reading gives.
So, while his small house in "The Hollow" of the Blue Ridge probably
contained not many more books than children, yet such volumes as were on
that frontier bookshelf were absorbed and made the intellectual
possession of the reader. The Bible was there, of course; and probably
Shakespeare also.[137] The only book which positively is known to have
been a literary companion of John Marshall was a volume of Pope's poems.
He told Justice Story that, by the time he was twelve years old (1767),
he had copied every word of the "Essay on Man" and other of Pope's moral
essays, and had committed to memory "many of the most interesting
passages."[138] This would seem to prove that not many other attractive
books were at the boyhood hands of so eager a reader of poetry and
fiction as Marshall always was. It was quite natural that this volume
should be in that primitive household; for, at that time, Pope was more
widely read, admired, and quoted than any other writer either of poetry
or prose.[139]
For those who believe that early impressions are important, and who wish
to trace John Marshall's mental development back to its sources, it is
well to spend a moment on that curious work which Pope named his "Essay
on Man." The natural bent of the youth's mind was distinctively logical
and orderly, and Pope's metred syllogisms could not but have appealed to
it powerfully. The soul of Pope's "Essay" is the wisdom of and necessity
for order; and it is plain that the boy absorbed this vital message and
made it his own. Certain it is that even as a beardless young soldier,
offering his life for his country's independence, he already had grasped
the master truth that order is a necessary condition of liberty and
justice.
It seems probable, however, that other books were brought to this
mountain fireside. There was a limited store within his reach from which
Thomas Marshall could draw. With his employer and friend, George
Washington,[140] he was often a visitor at the wilderness home of Lord
Fairfax just over the Blue Ridge. Washington availed himself of the
Fairfax Library,[141] and it seems reasonable that Thomas Marshall did
the same. It is likely that he carried to his Blue Ridge dwelling an
occasional Fairfax volume carefully selected for its usefulness in
developing his own as well as his children's minds.
This contact with the self-expatriated nobleman had more important
results, however, than access to his books. Thomas Marshall's life was
profoundly influenced by his early and intimate companionship with the
well-mannered though impetuous and headstrong young Washington, who
engaged him as assistant surveyor of the Fairfax estate.[142] From youth
to manhood, both had close association with Lord Fairfax, who gave
Washington his first employment and secured for him the appointment by
the colonial authorities as public surveyor.[143] Washington was related
by marriage to the proprietor of the Northern Neck, his brother Lawrence
having married the daughter of William Fairfax. When their father died,
Lawrence Washington took the place of parent to his younger
brother;[144] and in his house the great landowner met George
Washington, of whom he became very fond. For more than three years the
youthful surveyor passed most of his time in the Blue Ridge part of the
British nobleman's vast holdings,[145] and in frequent and intimate
contact with his employer. Thus Thomas Marshall, as Washington's
associate and helper, came under the guidance and example of Lord
Fairfax.
The romantic story of this strange man deserves to be told at length,
but only a résumé is possible here. This summary, however, must be given
for its bearing on the characters of George Washington and Thomas
Marshall, and, through them, its formative influence on John
Marshall.[146]
Lord Fairfax inherited his enormous Virginia estate from his mother, the
daughter of Lord Culpeper, the final grantee of that kingly domain. This
profligate grant of a careless and dissolute monarch embraced some five
million acres between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers back to a
straight line connecting the sources of these streams. While the young
heir of the ancient Fairfax title was in Oxford, his father having died,
his mother and grandmother, the dowager Ladies Fairfax and Culpeper,
forced him to cut off the entail of the extensive Fairfax estates in
England in order to save the heavily mortgaged Culpeper estates in the
same country; and as compensation for this sacrifice, the noble Oxford
student was promised the inheritance of this wild Virginia forest
principality.
Nor did the youthful baron's misfortunes end there. The lady of his
heart had promised to become his bride, the wedding day was set, the
preparations made. But before that hour of joy arrived, this fickle
daughter of ambition received an offer to become a duchess instead of a
mere baroness, and, throwing over young Fairfax without delay, she
embraced the more exalted station offered her.
These repeated blows of adversity embittered the youthful head of the
illustrious house of Fairfax against mother and grandmother, and, for
the time being, all but against England itself. So, after some years of
management of his Virginia estate by his cousin, William, who was in
Government employ in America, Lord Fairfax himself left England forever,
came to Virginia, took personal charge of his inherited holdings, and
finally established himself at its very outskirts on the savage
frontier. In the Shenandoah Valley, near Winchester, he built a small
house of native stone and called it Greenway Court,[147] after the
English fashion; but it never was anything more than a hunting
lodge.[148]
From this establishment he personally managed his vast estates, parting
with his lands to settlers on easy terms. His tenants generally were
treated with liberality and consideration. If any land that was leased
or sold did not turn out as was expected by the purchaser or lessee,
another and better tract would be given in its place. If money was
needed for improvements, Lord Fairfax advanced it. His excess revenues
were given to the poor. So that the Northern Neck under Lord Fairfax's
administration became the best settled, best cultivated, and best
governed of all the upper regions of the colony.[149]
Through this exile of circumstance, Fate wove another curious thread in
the destiny of John Marshall. Lord Fairfax was the head of that ancient
house whose devotion to liberty had been proved on many a battlefield.
The second Lord Fairfax commanded the Parliamentary forces at Marston
Moor. The third Lord Fairfax was the general of Cromwell's army and the
hero of Naseby. So the proprietor of the Northern Neck, who was the
sixth Lord Fairfax, came of blood that had been poured out for human
rights. He had, as an inheritance of his house, that love of liberty for
which his ancestors had fought.[150]
But much as he hated oppression, Lord Fairfax was equally hostile to
disorder and upheaval; and his forbears had opposed these even to the
point of helping restore Charles II to the throne. Thus the Virginia
baron's talk and teaching were of liberty with order, independence with
respect for law.[151]
He loved literature and was himself no mean writer, his contributions
while he was in the University having been accepted by the
"Spectator."[152] His example instructed his companions in manners, too,
and schooled them in the speech and deportment of gentlemen. All who met
George Washington in his mature years were impressed by his correct if
restricted language, his courtly conduct, and his dignified if rigid
bearing. Much of this was due to his noble patron.[153]
Thomas Marshall was affected in the same way and by the same cause.
Pioneer and backwoodsman though he was, and, as we shall see, true to
his class and section, he yet acquired more balanced ideas of liberty,
better manners, and finer if not higher views of life than the crude,
rough individualists who inhabited the back country. As was the case
with Washington, this intellectual and moral tendency in Thomas
Marshall's development was due, in large measure, to the influence of
Lord Fairfax. While it cannot be said that George Washington imitated
the wilderness nobleman, yet Fairfax undoubtedly afforded his protégé a
certain standard of living, thinking, and acting; and Thomas Marshall
followed the example set by his fellow surveyor.[154] Thus came into the
Marshall household a different atmosphere from that which pervaded the
cabins of the Blue Ridge.
All this, however, did not make for his unpopularity among Thomas
Marshall's distant, scattered, and humbly placed neighbors. On the
contrary, it seems to have increased the consideration and respect which
his native qualities had won for him from the pioneers. Certainly Thomas
Marshall was the foremost man in Fauquier County when it was established
in 1759. He was almost immediately elected to represent the county in
the Virginia House of Burgesses;[155] and, six years later, he was
appointed Sheriff by Governor Fauquier, for whom the county was
named.[156] The shrievalty was, at that time, the most powerful local
office in Virginia; and the fees and perquisites of the place made it
the most lucrative.[157]
By 1765 Thomas Marshall felt himself sufficiently established to acquire
the land where he had lived since his removal from Germantown. In the
autumn of that year he leased from Thomas Ludwell Lee and Colonel
Richard Henry Lee the three hundred and thirty acres on Goose Creek
"whereon the said Thomas Marshall now lives." The lease was "for and
during the natural lives of ... Thomas Marshall, Mary Marshall his wife,
and John Marshall his son and ... the longest liver of them." The
consideration was "five shillings current money in hand paid" and a
"yearly rent of five pounds current money, and the quit rents and Land
Tax."[158]
In 1769 Leeds Parish, embracing Fauquier County, was established.[159]
Of this parish Thomas Marshall became the principal vestryman.[160] This
office supplemented, in dignity and consequence, that of sheriff; the
one was religious and denoted high social status, the other was civil
and evidenced political importance.[161] The occupancy of both marked
Thomas Marshall as the chief figure in the local government and in the
social and political life of Fauquier County, although the holding of
the superior office of burgess left no doubt as to his leadership. The
vestries had immense influence in the civil affairs of the parish and
the absolute management of the practical business of the established
(Episcopal) church.[162] Among the duties and privileges of the vestry
was that of selecting and employing the clergyman.[163]
The vestry of Leeds Parish, with Thomas Marshall at its head, chose for
its minister a young Scotchman, James Thompson, who had arrived in
Virginia a year or two earlier. He lived at first with the Marshall
family.[164] Thus it came about that John Marshall received the first of
his three short periods of formal schooling; for during his trial year
the young[165] Scotch deacon returned Thomas Marshall's hospitality by
giving the elder children such instruction as occasion offered,[166] as
was the custom of parsons, who always were teachers as well as
preachers. We can imagine the embryo clergyman instructing the eldest
son under the shade of the friendly trees in pleasant weather or before
the blazing logs in the great fireplace when winter came. While living
with the Marshall family, he doubtless slept with the children in the
half-loft[167] of that frontier dwelling.
There was nothing unusual about this; indeed, circumstances made it the
common and unavoidable custom. Washington tells us that in his surveying
trips, he frequently slept on the floor in the room of a settler's cabin
where the fireplace was and where husband, wife, children, and visitors
stretched themselves for nightly rest; and he remarks that the person
was lucky who got the spot nearest the fireplace.[168]
At the end of a year the embryo Scottish clergyman's character, ability,
and services having met the approval of Thomas Marshall and his fellow
vestrymen, Thompson returned to England for orders.[169] So ended John
Marshall's first instruction from a trained teacher. His pious tutor
returned the next year, at once married a young woman of the Virginia
frontier, and settled on the glebe near Salem, where he varied his
ministerial duties by teaching such children of his parishioners as
could get to him. It may be that John Marshall was among them.[170]
In the light they throw upon the Marshall family, the political opinions
of Mr. Thompson are as important as was his teaching. True to the
impulses of youth, he was a man of the people, ardently championed their
cause, and was fervently against British misrule, as was his principal
vestryman. Five years later we find him preaching a sermon on the
subject so strong that a part of it has been preserved.[171]
Thus the years of John Marshall's life sped on until his eighteenth
birthday. By this time Thomas Marshall's rapidly growing prosperity
enabled him to buy a larger farm in a more favorable locality. In
January, 1773, he purchased from Thomas Turner seventeen hundred acres
adjacent to North Cobler Mountain, a short distance to the east of his
first location in "The Hollow."[172] For this plantation he paid "nine
hundred and twelve pounds ten shillings current money of Virginia." Here
he established himself for the third time and remained for ten years.
On an elevation overlooking valley, stream, and grove, with the Blue
Ridge as a near background, he built a frame house thirty-three by
thirty feet, the attic or loft under the roof serving as a second
story.[173] The house had seven rooms, four below and three above. One
of the upper rooms is, comparatively, very large, being twenty-one by
fifteen feet; and, according to tradition, this was used as a
school-room for the Marshall children. Indeed, the structure was, for
that section and period, a pretentious dwelling. This is the famous Oak
Hill.[174] The house still stands as a modest wing to the large and
attractive building erected by John Marshall's eldest son, Thomas, many
years later.
[Illustration: OAK HILL
From a water-color. The original house, built by Thomas Marshall in
1773, is shown at the right, in the rear of the main building.]
A book was placed in the hands of John Marshall, at this time, that
influenced his mind even more than his reading of Pope's poetry when a
small boy. Blackstone's "Commentaries" was published in America in 1772
and one of the original subscribers was "Captain Thomas Marshall, Clerk
of Dunmore County, Virginia."[175] The youthful backwoodsman read
Blackstone with delight; for this legal classic is the poetry of law,
just as Pope is logic in poetry. Also, Thomas Marshall saw to it that
his son read Blackstone as carefully as circumstances permitted. He had
bought the book for John's use as much as or more than for his own
information. Marshall's parents, with a sharp eye on the calling that
then brought greatest honor and profit, had determined that their eldest
son should be a lawyer. "From my infancy," says Marshall, "I was
destined for the bar."[176] He did not, we believe, give his attention
exclusively to Blackstone. Indeed, it appears certain that his legal
reading at this period was fragmentary and interrupted, for his time was
taken up and his mind largely absorbed by military exercises and study.
He was intent on mastering the art of war against the day when the call
of patriotism should come to him to be a soldier.[177] So the law book
was pushed aside by the manual of arms.
About this time John Marshall was given his second fragment of formal
teaching. He was sent to the school of the Reverend Archibald Campbell
in Westmoreland County.[178] This embryo "academy" was a primitive
affair, but its solitary instructor was a sound classical scholar
equipped with all the learning which the Scottish universities could
give. He was a man of unusual ability, which, it appears, was the common
possession of his family. He was the uncle of the British poet
Campbell.[179]
The sons of this colonial parson school-teacher from Scotland became men
of note and influence, one of them among the most distinguished lawyers
of Virginia.[180] Indeed, it was chiefly in order to teach his two boys
that Mr. Campbell opened his little school in Westmoreland.[181] So,
while John Marshall attended the "academy" for only a few months, that
brief period under such a teacher was worth much in methods of thought
and study.
The third scanty fragment of John Marshall's education by professional
instructors comes seven years later, at a time and under circumstances
which make it necessary to defer a description of it.
During all these years, however, young Marshall was getting another kind
of education more real and more influential on his later life than any
regular schooling could have given him. Thomas Marshall served in the
House of Burgesses at Williamsburg[182] from 1761 until October, 1767,
when he became Sheriff of Fauquier County.[183] In 1769 he was again
chosen Burgess,[184] and reëlected until 1773, when he was appointed
Clerk of Dunmore County.[185] In 1775 he once more appears as Burgess
for Fauquier County.[186] Throughout this period, George Washington also
served as Burgess from Westmoreland County. Thomas Marshall was a member
of the standing committees on Trade, Religion, Propositions and
Grievances, and on several special committees and commissions.[187]
The situations, needs, and interests of the upland counties above the
line of the falls of the rivers, so different from those on the
tidewater, had made the political oligarchy of the lower counties more
distinct and conspicuous than ever. This dominant political force was
aristocratic and selfish. It was generally hostile to the opinions of
the smaller pioneer landowners of the back country and it did not
provide adequately for their necessities. Their petitions for roads,
bridges, and other indispensable requisites of social and industrial
life usually were denied; and their rapidly growing democratic spirit
was scorned with haughty disfavor and contempt.[188]
In the House of Burgesses, one could tell by his apparel and deportment,
no less than by his sentiments, a member from the mountains, and indeed
from anywhere above the fall line of the rivers; and, by the same
tokens, one from the great plantations below. The latter came
fashionably attired, according to the latest English mode, with the silk
knee breeches and stockings, colored coat, ornamented waistcoat, linen
and lace, buckled shoes, garters, and all details of polite adornment
that the London fashion of the time dictated. The upland men were
plainly clad; and those from the border appeared in their native
homespun, with buckskin shirts, coonskin caps, and the queue of their
unpowdered hair tied in a bag or sack of some thin material. To this
upland class of Burgesses, Thomas Marshall belonged.
He had been a member of the House for four years when the difference
between the two Virginia sections and classes suddenly crystallized. The
upper counties found a leader and fought and overcame the hitherto
invincible power of the tidewater aristocracy, which, until then, had
held the Government of Virginia in its lordly hand.
This explosion came in 1765, when John Marshall was ten years old. For
nearly a quarter of a century the combination of the great planter
interests of eastern Virginia had kept John Robinson Speaker of the
House and Treasurer of the Colony.[189] He was an ideal representative
of his class--rich, generous, kindly, and ever ready to oblige his
fellow members of the ruling faction.[190] To these he had lent large
sums of money from the public treasury and, at last, finding himself
lost unless he could find a way out of the financial quagmire in which
he was sinking, Robinson, with his fellow aristocrats, devised a scheme
for establishing a loan office, equipping it with a million and a
quarter of dollars borrowed on the faith of the colony, to be lent to
individuals on personal security.[191] A bill to this effect was
presented and the tidewater machine was oiled and set in motion to put
it through.
As yet, Robinson's predicament was known only to himself and those upon
whom he had bestowed the proceeds of the people's taxes; and no
opposition was expected to the proposed resolution which would extricate
the embarrassed Treasurer. But Patrick Henry, a young member from
Hanover County, who had just been elected to the House of Burgesses and
who had displayed in the famous Parsons case a courage and eloquence
which had given him a reputation throughout the colony,[192] opposed, on
principle, the proposed loan-office law. In a speech of startling power
he attacked the bill and carried with him every member from the up
counties. The bill was lost.[193] It was the first defeat ever
experienced by the combination that had governed Virginia so long that
they felt that it was their inalienable right to do so. One of the votes
that struck this blow was cast by Thomas Marshall.[194] Robinson died
the next year; his defalcation was discovered and the real purpose of
the bill was thus revealed.[195]
Quick on the heels of this victory for popular rights and honest
government trod another event of vital influence on American history.
The British Parliament, the year before, had passed resolutions
declaring the right of Parliament to tax the colonies without
representation, and, indeed, to enact any law it pleased for the
government and administration of British dominions wherever
situated.[196] The colonies protested, Virginia among them; but when
finally Parliament enacted the Stamp Act, although the colonies were in
sullen anger, they yet prepared to submit.[197] The more eminent men
among the Virginia Burgesses were willing to remonstrate once more, but
had not the heart to go further.[198] It was no part of the plan or
feeling of the aristocracy to affront the Royal Government openly. At
this moment, Patrick Henry suddenly offered his historic resolutions,
the last one a bold denial of Parliament's right to pass the Stamp Act,
and a savage defiance of the British Government.[199]
Cautious members of the tidewater organization were aghast. They did not
like the Stamp Act themselves, but they thought that this was going too
far. The logical end of it would be armed conflict, they said; or at the
very least, a temporary suspension of profitable commerce with England.
Their material interests were involved; and while they hazarded these
and life itself most nobly when the test of war finally came, ten years
later, they were not minded to risk either business or comfort until
forced to do so.[200]
But a far stronger influence with them was their hatred of Henry and
their fear of the growing power of the up country. They were smarting
from the defeat[201] of the loan-office bill. They did not relish the
idea of following the audacious Henry and his democratic supporters
from the hills. They resented the leadership which the "new men" were
assuming. To the aristocratic machine it was offensive to have any
movement originate outside itself.[202]
The up-country members to a man rallied about Patrick Henry and fought
beneath the standard of principle which he had raised. The line that
marked the division between these contending forces in the Virginia
House of Burgesses was practically identical with that which separated
them in the loan-office struggle which had just taken place. The same
men who had supported Robinson were now against any measure which might
too radically assert the rights of the colonies and offend both the
throne and Westminster Hall. And as in the Robinson case so in the fight
over Henry's Stamp Act Resolutions, the Burgesses who represented the
frontier settlers and small landowners and who stood for their
democratic views, formed a compact and militant force to strike for
popular government as they already had struck, and successfully, for
honest administration.[203]
Henry's fifth resolution was the first written American assertion of
independence, the virile seed out of which the declaration at
Philadelphia ten years later directly grew. It was over this resolution
that Thomas Jefferson said, "the debate was most bloody";[204] and it
was in this particular part of the debate that Patrick Henry made his
immortal speech, ending with the famous words, "Tarquin and Cæsar had
each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third--"
And as the cries of "Treason! Treason! Treason!" rang from every part of
the hall, Henry, stretching himself to the utmost of his stature,
thundered, "--_may profit by their example_. If _this_ be treason, make
the most of it."[205]
Henry and the stout-hearted men of the hills won the day, but only by a
single vote. Peyton Randolph, the foremost member of the tidewater
aristocracy and Royal Attorney-General, exclaimed, "By God, I would have
given one[206] hundred guineas for a single vote!"[207] Thomas Marshall
again fought by Henry's side and voted for his patriotic defiance of
British injustice.[208]
[Illustration: _Oak Hill_]
This victory of the poorer section of the Old Dominion was, in Virginia,
the real beginning of the active period of the Revolution. It was
more--it was the ending of the hitherto unquestioned supremacy of
the tidewater aristocracy.[209] It marked the effective entrance of the
common man into Virginia's politics and government.
When Thomas Marshall returned to his Blue Ridge home, he described, of
course, the scenes he had witnessed and taken part in. The heart of his
son thrilled, we may be sure, as he listened to his father reciting
Patrick Henry's words of fire and portraying the manner, appearance, and
conduct of that master orator of liberty. So it was that John Marshall,
even when a boy, came into direct and living touch with the outside
world and learned at first hand of the dramatic movement and the mighty
forces that were about to quarry the materials for a nation.
Finally the epic year of 1775 arrived,--the year of the Boston riots,
Paul Revere's ride, Lexington and Concord,--above all, the year of the
Virginia Resolutions for Arming and Defense. Here we find Thomas
Marshall a member of the Virginia Convention,[210] when once more the
radicals of the up country met and defeated the aristocratic
conservatives of the older counties. The latter counseled prudence. They
argued weightily that the colony was not prepared for war with the Royal
Power across the sea. They urged patience and the working-out of the
problem by processes of conciliation and moderate devices, as those made
timid by their own interests always do.[211] Selfish love of ease made
them forget, for the moment, the lesson of Braddock's defeat. They held
up the overwhelming might of Great Britain and the impotence of the
King's subjects in his western dominions; and they were about to
prevail.
But again Patrick Henry became the voice of America. He offered the
Resolutions for Arming and Defense and carried them with that amazing
speech ending with, "Give me liberty or give me death,"[212] which
always will remain the classic of American liberty. Thomas Marshall, who
sat beneath its spell, declared that it was "one of the most bold,
animated, and vehement pieces of eloquence that had ever been
delivered."[213] Once more he promptly took his stand under Henry's
banner and supported the heroic resolutions with his vote and
influence.[214] So did George Washington, as both had done ten years
before in the battle over Henry's Stamp Act Resolutions in the House of
Burgesses in 1765.[215]
Not from newspapers, then, nor from second-hand rumor did John Marshall,
now nineteen years old, learn of the epochal acts of that convention.
He heard of them from his father's lips. Henry's inspired speech, which
still burns across a century with undiminished power, came to John
Marshall from one who had listened to it, as the family clustered around
the fireside of their Oak Hill home. The effect on John Marshall's mind
and spirit was heroic and profound, as his immediate action and his
conduct for several years demonstrate.
We may be sure that the father was not deceived as to the meaning of it
all; nor did he permit his family to be carried off the solid ground of
reality by any emotional excitement. Thomas Marshall was no fanatic, no
fancy-swayed enthusiast resolving highly in wrought-up moments and
retracting humbly in more sober hours. He was a man who looked before he
leaped; he counted the costs; he made up his mind with knowledge of the
facts. When Thomas Marshall decided to act, no unforeseen circumstance
could make him hesitate, no unexpected obstacle could swerve him from
his course; for he had considered carefully and well; and his son was of
like mettle.
So when Thomas Marshall came back to his Fauquier County home from the
fateful convention of 1775 at Richmond, he knew just what the whole
thing meant; and, so knowing, he gravely welcomed the outcome. He knew
that it meant war; and he knew also what war meant. Already he had been
a Virginia ranger and officer, had seen fighting, had witnessed wounds
and death.[216] The same decision that made him cast his vote for
Henry's resolutions also caused Thomas Marshall to draw his sword from
its scabbard. It inspired him to do more; for the father took down the
rifle from its deerhorn bracket and the hunting-knife from its hook, and
placed them in the hands of his first-born. And so we find father and
son ready for the field and prepared to make the ultimate argument of
willingness to lay down their lives for the cause they believed in.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] Story, in Dillon, iii, 334.
[105] The records of Westmoreland County do not show what disposition
Thomas Marshall made of the one hundred acres given him by his mother.
(Letter of Albert Stuart, Deputy Clerk of Westmoreland County, Virginia,
to the author, Aug. 26, 1913.) He probably abandoned it just as John
Washington and Thomas Pope abandoned one thousand acres of the same
land. (_Supra._)
[106] Westmoreland County is on the Potomac River near its entrance into
Chesapeake Bay. Prince William is about thirty miles farther up the
river. Marshall was born about one hundred miles by wagon road from
Appomattox Creek, northwest toward the Blue Ridge and in the wilderness.
[107] Campbell, 404-05.
[108] More than forty years later the country around the Blue Ridge was
still a dense forest. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 173.) And the road even
from Richmond to Petersburg, an hundred miles east and south of the
Marshall cabin, as late as 1797 ran through "an almost uninterrupted
succession of woods." (_Ib._, 106; and see _infra_, chap. VII.)
[109] John, 1755; Elizabeth, 1756; Mary, 1757; Thomas, 1761.
[110] Binney, in Dillon, iii, 284.
[111] The ancient trunks of one or two of these trees still stand close
to the house.
[112] British map of 1755; Virginia State Library.
[113] See La Rochefoucauld, iii, 707. These "roads" were scarcely more
than mere tracks through the forests. See chap. VII, infra, for
description of roads at the period between the close of the Revolution
and the beginning of our National Government under the Constitution.
Even in the oldest and best settled colonies the roads were very bad.
Chalkley's _Augusta County (Va.) Records_ show many orders regarding
roads; but, considering the general state of highways, (see _infra_,
chap. VII) these probably concerned very primitive efforts. When Thomas
Marshall removed his family to the Blue Ridge, the journey must have
been strenuous even for that hardship-seasoned man.
[114] She was born in 1737. (Paxton, 19.)
[115] At this time, Thomas Marshall had at least two slaves, inherited
from his father. (Will of John Marshall "of the forest," Appendix I.) As
late as 1797 (nearly forty years after Thomas Marshall went to "The
Hollow"), La Rochefoucauld found that even on the "poorer" plantations
about the Blue Ridge the "planters, however wretched their condition,
have all of them one or two negroes." (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 135.)
[116] Personal inspection.
[117] Mill-sawed weather-boarding, held by cut nails, now covers the
sides of the house, the original broad whip-sawed boards, fastened by
wrought nails, having long since decayed.
[118] Practically all log cabins, at that time, had only one story.
[119] See _infra_.
[120] Six more children were born while the Marshalls remained in "The
Hollow": James M., 1764; Judith, 1766; William and Charles, 1767; Lucy,
1768; and Alexander, 1770.
[121] Nearly twenty years later, "Winchester was rude, wild, as nature
had made it," but "it was less so than its inhabitants." (Mrs.
Carrington to her sister Nancy, describing Winchester in 1777, from
personal observation; MS.)
[122] See Mrs. Carrington to her sister Nancy, _infra_, chap. V.
[123] John Marshall, when at the height of his career, liked to talk of
these times. "He ever recurred with fondness to that primitive mode of
life, when he partook with a keen relish of balm tea and mush; and when
the females used thorns for pins." (Howe, 263, and see _Hist. Mag._,
iii, 166.)
Most of the settlers on the frontier and near frontier did not use forks
or tablecloths. Washington found this condition in the house of a
Justice of the Peace. "When we came to supper there was neither a Cloth
upon ye Table nor a knife to eat with; but as good luck would have it,
we had knives of our [own]." (_Writings_: Ford, i, 4.)
Chastellux testifies that, thirty years later, the frontier settlers
were forced to make almost everything they used. Thus, as population
increased, necessity developed men of many trades and the little
communities became self-supporting. (Chastellux, 226-27.)
[124] More than a generation after Thomas Marshall moved to "The Hollow"
in the Blue Ridge large quantities of bear and beaver skins were brought
from the Valley into Staunton, not many miles away, just over the Ridge.
(La Rochefoucauld, iii, 179-80.) The product of the Blue Ridge itself
was sent to Fredericksburg and Alexandria. (See Crèvecoeur, 63-65.)
Thirty years earlier (1733) Colonel Byrd records that "Bears, Wolves,
and Panthers" roamed about the site of Richmond; that deer were
plentiful and rattlesnakes considered a delicacy. (Byrd's _Writings_:
Bassett, 293, 318-19.)
[125] See _infra_, chap. VII.
[126] Even forty years later, all "store" merchandise could be had in
this region only by hauling it from Richmond, Fredericksburg, or
Alexandria. Transportation from the latter place to Winchester cost two
dollars and a half per hundredweight. In 1797, "store" goods of all
kinds cost, in the Blue Ridge, thirty per cent more than in
Philadelphia. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 203.) From Philadelphia the cost
was four to five dollars per hundredweight. While there appear to have
been country stores at Staunton and Winchester, over the mountains
(Chalkley's _Augusta County (Va.) Records_), the cost of freight to
those places was prohibitive of anything but the most absolute
necessities even ten years after the Constitution was adopted.
[127] _Hist. Mag._, iii, 166; Howe, 263; also, Story, in Dillon, iii,
334.
[128] Story, in Dillon, iii, 331-32.
[129] _Ib._
[130] See Binney, in Dillon, iii, 285.
[131] "Fauquier was then a frontier county ... far in advance of the
ordinary reach of compact population." (Story, in Dillon, iii, 331; also
see _New York Review_ (1838), iii, 333.) Even a generation later (1797),
La Rochefoucauld, writing from personal investigation, says (iii,
227-28): "There is no state so entirely destitute of all means of public
education as Virginia."
[132] See Binney, in Dillon, iii, 285.
[133] Story, in Dillon, iii, 330.
[134] Marshall to Story, July 31, 1833; Story, ii, 150.
[135] See _infra_, chaps. VII and VIII.
[136] "A taste for reading is more prevalent [in Virginia] among the
gentlemen of the first class than in any other part of America; but the
common people are, perhaps, more ignorant than elsewhere." (La
Rochefoucauld, iii, 232.) Other earlier and later travelers confirm this
statement of this careful French observer.
[137] Story thinks that Thomas Marshall, at this time, owned Milton,
Shakespeare, and Dryden. (Dillon, iii, 331.) This is possible. Twenty
years later, Chastellux found Milton, Addison, and Richardson in the
parlor of a New Jersey inn; but this was in the comparatively thickly
settled country adjacent to Philadelphia. (Chastellux, 159.)
[138] Story, in Dillon, iii, 331, and Binney, in _ib._, 283; _Hist.
Mag._, iii, 166.
[139] Lang: _History of English Literature_, 384; and see Gosse:
_History of Eighteenth Century Literature_, 131; also, Traill: _Social
England_, V, 72; Stephen: _Alexander Pope_, 62; and see Cabot to
Hamilton, Nov. 29, 1800; _Cabot_: Lodge, 299.
[140] Binney, in Dillon, iii, 283-84; Washington's _Diary_; MS., Lib.
Cong.
[141] Irving, i, 45; and Lodge: _Washington_, i, 59. Many years later
when he became rich, Washington acquired a good library, part of which
is now in the Boston Athenæum. But as a young and moneyless surveyor he
had no books of his own and his "book" education was limited and
shallow.
[142] Binney, in Dillion, iii, 281-84.
[143] Irving, i, 37, 45; and Sparks, 10.
[144] Irving, i, 27.
[145] Irving, i, 46.
[146] As will appear, the Fairfax estate is closely interwoven into John
Marshall's career. (See vol. II of this work.)
[147] For description of Greenway Court see Pecquet du Bellet, ii, 175.
[148] Washington's _Writings_: Ford, i, footnote to 329.
[149] For a clear but laudatory account of Lord Fairfax see Appendix No.
4 to Burnaby, 197-213. But Fairfax could be hard enough on those who
opposed him, as witness his treatment of Joist Hite. (See _infra_, chap.
V.)
[150] When the Revolution came, however, Fairfax was heartily British.
The objection which the colony made to the title to his estate doubtless
influenced him.
[151] Fairfax was a fair example of the moderate, as distinguished from
the radical or the reactionary. He was against both irresponsible
autocracy and unrestrained democracy. In short, he was what would now be
termed a liberal conservative (although, of course, such a phrase,
descriptive of that demarcation, did not then exist). Much attention
should be given to this unique man in tracing to their ultimate sources
the origins of John Marshall's economic, political, and social
convictions.
[152] Sparks, 11; and Irving, i, 33.
[153] For Fairfax's influence on Washington see Irving, i, 45; and in
general, for fair secondary accounts of Fairfax, see _ib._, 31-46; and
Sparks, 10-11.
[154] Senator Humphrey Marshall says that Thomas Marshall "emulated"
Washington. (Humphrey Marshall, i, 345.)
[155] See _infra_.
[156] Bond of Thomas Marshall as Sheriff, Oct. 26, 1767; Records of
Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, iii, 70. Approval of bond by County
Court; Minute Book (from 1764 to 1768), 322. Marshall's bond was "to his
Majesty, George III," to secure payment to the British revenue officers
of all money collected by Marshall for the Crown. (Records of Fauquier
County (Va.), Deed Book, iii, 71.)
[157] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 597, 600; also, ii, 408, 570-74.
[158] Records of Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, ii, 42. There is a
curious record of a lease from Lord Fairfax in 1768 to John Marshall for
his life and "the natural lives of Mary his wife and Thomas Marshall his
son and every of them longest living." (Records of Fauquier County
(Va.), Deed Book, iii, 230.) John Marshall was then only thirteen years
old. The lease probably was to Thomas Marshall, the clerk of Lord
Fairfax having confused the names of father and son.
[159] Meade, ii, 218.
[160] In 1773 three deeds for an aggregate of two hundred and twenty
acres "for a glebe" were recorded in Fauquier County to "Thos. Marshall
& Others, Gentlemen, & Vestrymen of Leeds Parish." (Records of Fauquier
County (Va.), Deed Book, V, 401, 403, 422.)
[161] The vestrymen were "the foremost men ... in the parish ... whether
from the point of view of intelligence, wealth or social position."
(Bruce: _Inst._, i, 62; and see Meade, i, 191.)
[162] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 62-93; and see Eckenrode: _S.C. & S._, 13.
[163] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 131 _et seq._
[164] Meade, ii, 219. Bishop Meade here makes a slight error. He says
that Mr. Thompson "lived at first in the family of Colonel Thomas
Marshall, of Oak Hill." Thomas Marshall did not become a colonel until
ten years afterward. (Heitman, 285.) And he did not move to Oak Hill
until 1773, six years later. (Paxton, 20.)
[165] James Thompson was born in 1739. (Meade, ii, 219.)
[166] _Ib._
[167] Forty years later La Rochefoucauld found that the whole family and
all visitors slept in the same room of the cabins of the back country.
(La Rochefoucauld, iv, 595-96.)
[168] "I have not sleep'd above three nights or four in a bed, but,
after walking ... all the day, I lay down before the fire upon a little
hay, straw, fodder or bearskin ... with man, wife, and children, like a
parcel of dogs and cats; and happy is he, who gets the berth nearest the
fire." (Washington to a friend, in 1748; _Writings_: Ford, i, 7.)
Here is another of Washington's descriptions of frontier comforts: "I
not being so good a woodsman as ye rest of my company, striped myself
very orderly and went into ye Bed, as they calld it, when to my
surprize, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together
without sheets or any thing else, but only one thread bear [_sic_]
blanket with double its weight of vermin such as Lice, Fleas, &c."
(Washington's _Diary_, March 15, 1747; _ib._, 2.) And see La
Rochefoucauld, iii, 175, for description of homes of farmers in the
Valley forty years later--miserable log huts "which swarmed with
children." Thomas Marshall's little house was much better than, and the
manners of the family were far superior to, those described by
Washington and La Rochefoucauld.
[169] Meade, ii, 219.
[170] _Ib._ Bishop Meade says that Thomas Marshall's sons were sent to
Mr. Thompson again; but Marshall himself told Justice Story that the
Scotch parson taught him when the clergyman lived at his father's house.
[171] Meade, ii, 219. This extract of Mr. Thompson's sermon was
treasonable from the Tory point of view. See _infra_, chap. III.
[172] Records of Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, V, 282. This purchase
made Thomas Marshall the owner of about two thousand acres of the best
land in Fauquier County. He had sold his Goose Creek holding in "The
Hollow."
[173] The local legend, current to the present day, is that this house
had the first glass windows in that region, and that the bricks in the
chimney were imported from England. The importation of brick, however,
is doubtful. Very little brick was brought to Virginia from England.
[174] Five more children of Thomas and Mary Marshall were born in this
house: Louis, 1773; Susan, 1775; Charlotte, 1777; Jane, 1779; and Nancy,
1781. (Paxton.)
[175] This volume is now in the possession of Judge J. K. M. Norton, of
Alexandria, Va. On several leaves are printed the names of the
subscribers. Among them are Pelatiah Webster, James Wilson, Nathanael
Greene, John Adams, and others.
[176] _Autobiography._
[177] Binney, in Dillon, iii, 286.
[178] Story and Binney say that Marshall's first schooling was at
Campbell's "academy" and his second and private instruction under Mr.
Thompson. The reverse seems to have been the case.
[179] Meade, ii, 159, and footnote to 160.
[180] _Ib._, 161.
[181] _Ib._
[182] Journal, H.B. (1761-65), 3. Thomas Marshall was seldom out of
office. Burgess, Sheriff, Vestryman, Clerk, were the promising
beginnings of his crowded office-holding career. He became Surveyor of
Fayette County, Kentucky, upon his removal to that district, and
afterwards Collector of Revenue for the District of Ohio. (Humphrey
Marshall, i, 120; and see ii, chap. V, of this work. Thomas Marshall to
Adams, April 28, 1797; MS.) In holding offices, John Marshall followed
in his father's footsteps.
[183] Journal, H.B. (1766-69), 147 and 257.
[184] His election was contested in the House, but decided in Marshall's
favor. (_Ib._ (1761-69), 272, 290, 291.)
[185] _Ib._, (1773-76), 9. County Clerks were then appointed by the
Secretary of State. In some respects the Clerk of the County Court had
greater advantages than the Sheriff. (See Bruce: _Inst._, i, 588 _et
seq._) Dunmore County is now Shenandoah County. The Revolution changed
the name. When Thomas Marshall was appointed Clerk, the House of
Burgesses asked the Governor to issue a writ for a new election in
Fauquier County to fill Marshall's place as Burgess. (_Ib._ (1773-76),
9.)
[186] _Ib._ (1766-69), 163.
[187] _Ib._, 16, 71, 257; (1770-72), 17, 62, 123, 147, 204, 234, 251,
257, 274, 292; (1773-76), 217, 240.
[188] Ambler, Introduction.
[189] Ambler, 17-18.
[190] Henry, i, 71.
[191] _Ib._, 76-77.
[192] Henry, i, 39-48.
[193] Wirt, 71 _et seq._ It passed the House (Journal, H.B. (1761-65),
350); but was disapproved by the Council. (_Ib._, 356; and see Henry, i,
78.)
[194] The "ayes" and "noes" were not recorded in the Journals of the
House; but Jefferson says, in his description of the event, which he
personally witnessed, that Henry "carried with him all the members of
the upper counties and left a minority composed merely of the
aristocracy." (Wirt, 71.) "The members, who, like himself [Henry],
represented the yeomanry of the colony, were filled with admiration and
delight." (Henry, i, 78.)
[195] Wirt, 71. The incident, it appears, was considered closed with the
defeat of the loan-office bill. Robinson having died, nothing further
was done in the matter. For excellent condensed account see Eckenrode:
_R. V._, 16-17.
[196] Declaratory Resolutions.
[197] For the incredible submission and indifference of the colonies
before Patrick Henry's speech, see Henry, i, 63-67. The authorities
given in those pages are conclusive.
[198] _Ib._, 67.
[199] _Ib._, 80-81.
[200] _Ib._, 82-86.
[201] Wirt, 74-76.
[202] Eckenrode: _R. V._, 5-6.
[203] "The members from the upper counties invariably supported Mr.
Henry in his revolutionary measures." (Jefferson's statement to Daniel
Webster, quoted in Henry, i, 87.)
[204] Henry, i, 86.
[205] Henry, i, 86, and authorities there cited in the footnote.
[206] Misquoted in Wirt (79) as "500 guineas."
[207] Jefferson to Wirt, Aug. 14, 1814; _Works_: Ford, xi, 404.
[208] It is most unfortunate that the "ayes" and "noes" were not kept in
the House of Burgesses. In the absence of such a record, Jefferson's
repeated testimony that the up-country members voted and worked with
Henry must be taken as conclusive of Thomas Marshall's vote. For not
only was Marshall Burgess from a frontier county, but Jefferson, at the
time he wrote to Wirt in 1814 (and gave the same account to others
later), had become very bitter against the Marshalls and constantly
attacked John Marshall whom he hated virulently. If Thomas Marshall had
voted out of his class and against Henry, so remarkable a circumstance
would surely have been mentioned by Jefferson, who never overlooked any
circumstance unfavorable to an enemy. Far more positive evidence,
however, is the fact that Washington, who was a Burgess, voted with
Henry, as his letter to Francis Dandridge, Sept. 20, 1765, shows.
(_Writings_: Ford, ii, 209.) And Thomas Marshall always acted with
Washington.
[209] "By these resolutions, Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands of
those who had heretofore guided the proceedings of the House."
(Jefferson to Wirt, Aug. 14, 1814; _Works_: Ford, xi, 406.)
[210] _Proceedings_, Va. Conv., 1775, March 20, 3; July 17, 3, 5, 7.
[211] Henry, i, 255-61; Wirt, 117-19. Except Henry's speech itself,
Wirt's summary of the arguments of the conservatives is much the best
account of the opposition to Henry's fateful resolutions.
[212] Wirt, 142; Henry, i, 261-66.
[213] _Ib._, 271; and Wirt, 143.
[214] In the absence of the positive proof afforded by a record of the
"ayes" and "noes," Jefferson's testimony, Washington's vote, Thomas
Marshall's tribute to Henry, and above all, the sentiment of the
frontier county he represented, are conclusive testimony as to Thomas
Marshall's stand in this all-important legislative battle which was the
precursor of the iron conflict soon to come in which he bore so heroic a
part. (See Humphrey Marshall, i, 344.)
[215] Washington was appointed a member of the committee provided for in
Henry's second resolution. (Henry, i, 271.)
[216] Thomas Marshall had been ensign, lieutenant, and captain in the
militia, had taken part in the Indian wars, and was a trained soldier.
(Crozier: _Virginia Colonial Militia_, 96.)