THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL
Standard Library Edition
IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOLUME II
[Illustration: JOHN MARSHALL AS CHIEF JUSTICE
From the portrait by Jarvis]
THE LIFE
OF
JOHN MARSHALL
BY
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
VOLUME II
POLITICIAN, DIPLOMATIST
STATESMAN
1789-1801
[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
CONTENTS
I. INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ON AMERICA 1
The effort of the French King to injure Great Britain by
assisting the revolt of the colonists hastens the upheaval in
France--The French Revolution and American Government under the
Constitution begins at the same time--The vital influence of
the French convulsion on Americans--Impossible to understand
American history without considering this fact--All Americans,
at first, favor the French upheaval which they think a reform
movement--Marshall's statement--American newspapers--Gouverneur
Morris's description of the French people--Lafayette's
infatuated reports--Marshall gets black and one-sided accounts
through personal channels--The effect upon him--The fall of the
Bastille--Lafayette sends Washington the key of the prison--
The reign of blood in Paris applauded in America--American
conservatives begin to doubt the wisdom of the French
Revolution--Burke writes his "Reflections"--Paine answers with
his "Rights of Man"--The younger Adams replies in the
"Publicola" essays--He connects Jefferson with Paine's
doctrines--"Publicola" is viciously assailed in the press--
Jefferson writes Paine--The insurrection of the blacks in
St. Domingo--Marshall's account--Jefferson writes his daughter:
"I wish we could distribute the white exiles among the
Indians"--Marshall's statement of effect of the French
Revolution in America--Jefferson writes to Short:
"I would rather see half the earth desolated"--Louis XVI
guillotined--Genêt arrives in America--The people greet him
frantically--His outrageous conduct--The Republican newspapers
suppress the news of or defend the atrocities of the
revolutionists--The people of Philadelphia guillotine Louis XVI
in effigy--Marie Antoinette is beheaded--American rejoicing at
her execution--Absurd exaggeration by both radicals and
conservatives in America--The French expel Lafayette--Washington
sends Marshall's brother to secure his release from the
Allies--He fails--Effect upon Marshall--Ridiculous conduct of
the people in America--All titles are denounced: "Honorable,"
"Reverend," even "Sir" or "Mr." considered "aristocratic"--The
"democratic societies" appear--Washington denounces them--Their
activities--Marshall's account of their decline--The influence
on America of the French Revolution summarized--Marshall and
Jefferson.
II. A VIRGINIA NATIONALIST 45
The National Government under the Constitution begins--Popular
antagonism to it is widespread--Virginia leads this general
hostility--Madison has fears--Jefferson returns from France--
He is neutral at first--Madison is humiliatingly defeated for
Senator of the United States because of his Nationalism--The
Legislature of Virginia passes ominous Anti-Nationalist
resolutions--The Republicans attack everything done or
omitted by Washington's Administration--Virginia leads the
opposition--Washington appoints Marshall to be United States
District Attorney--Marshall declines the office--He seeks and
secures election to the Legislature--Is given his old committees
in the House of Delegates--Is active in the general business of
the House--The amendments to the Constitution laid before the
House of Delegates--They are intended only to quiet opposition
to the National Government--Hamilton presents his financial
plan--"The First Report on the Public Credit"--It is furiously
assailed--Hamilton and Jefferson make the famous
Assumption-Capitol "deal"--Jefferson's letters--The Virginia
Legislature strikes Assumption--Virginia writes the Magna
Charta of State Rights--Marshall desperately resists these
Anti-Nationalist resolutions and is badly beaten--Jefferson
finally agrees to the attitude of Virginia--He therefore opposes
the act to charter the Bank of the United States--He and
Hamilton give contrary opinions--The contest over "implied
powers" begins--Political parties appear, divided by Nationalism
and localism--Political parties not contemplated by the
Constitution--The word "party" a term of reproach to our early
statesmen.
III. LEADING THE VIRGINIA FEDERALISTS 77
Marshall, in Richmond, is aggressive for the unpopular measures
of Washington's Administration--danger of such conduct in
Virginia--Jefferson takes Madison on their celebrated northern
tour--Madison is completely changed--Jefferson fears Marshall--
Wishes to get rid of him: "Make Marshall a judge"--Jefferson's
unwarranted suspicions--He savagely assails the Administration
of which he is a member--He comes to blows with Hamilton--The
Republican Party grows--The causes for its increased strength--
Pennsylvania resists the tax on whiskey--The Whiskey Rebellion--
Washington denounces and Jefferson defends it--Militia ordered
to suppress it--Marshall, as brigadier-general of militia,
prepares to take the field--War breaks out between England and
France--Washington proclaims American Neutrality--Outburst
of popular wrath against him--Jefferson resigns from the
Cabinet--Marshall supports Washington--At the head of the
military forces he suppresses the riot at Smithfield and
takes a French privateer--The Republicans in Richmond attack
Marshall savagely--Marshall answers his assailants--They make
insinuations against his character: the Fairfax purchase, the
story of Marshall's heavy drinking--The Republicans win on their
opposition to Neutrality--Great Britain becomes more hostile
than ever--Washington resolves to try for a treaty in order
to prevent war--Jay negotiates the famous compact bearing his
name--Terrific popular resentment follows: Washington abused,
Hamilton stoned, Jay burned in effigy, many of Washington's
friends desert him--Toast drank in Virginia "to the speedy death
of General Washington"--Jefferson assails the treaty--Hamilton
writes "Camillus"--Marshall stands by Washington--Jefferson
names him as the leading Federalist in Virginia.
IV. WASHINGTON'S DEFENDER 122
Marshall becomes the chief defender of Washington in
Virginia--The President urges him to accept the office of
Attorney-General--He declines--Washington depends upon
Marshall's judgment in Virginia politics--Vicious opposition
to the Jay Treaty in Virginia--John Thompson's brilliant
speech expresses popular sentiment--He couples the Jay
Treaty with Neutrality: "a sullen neutrality between
freemen and despots"--The Federalists elect Marshall to the
Legislature--Washington is anxious over its proceedings--
Carrington makes absurdly optimistic forecast--The Republicans
in the Legislature attack the Jay Treaty--Marshall defends it
with great adroitness--Must the new House of Representatives be
consulted about treaties?--Carrington writes Washington that
Marshall's argument was a demonstration--Randolph reports to
Jefferson that Marshall's speech was tricky and ineffectual--
Marshall defeated--Amazing attack on Washington and stout
defense of him led by Marshall--Washington's friends beaten--
Legislature refuses to vote that Washington has "wisdom"--
Jefferson denounces Marshall: "His lax, lounging manners and
profound hypocrisy"--Washington recalls Monroe from France and
tenders the French mission to Marshall, who declines--The
Fauchet dispatch is intercepted and Randolph is disgraced--
Washington forces him to resign as Secretary of State--The
President considers Marshall for the head of his Cabinet--
The opposition to the Jay Treaty grows in intensity--Marshall
arranges a public meeting in Richmond--The debate lasts
all day--The reports as to the effect of his speeches
contradictory--Marshall describes situation--The Republicans
make charges and Marshall makes counter-charges--The national
Federalist leaders depend on Marshall--They commission him to
sound Henry on the Presidency as the successor of Washington--
Washington's second Administration closes--He is savagely abused
by the Republicans--The fight in the Legislature over the
address to him--Marshall leads the Administration forces and is
beaten--The House of Delegates refuse to vote that Washington
is wise, brave, or even patriotic--Washington goes out of the
Presidency amid storms of popular hatred--The "Aurora's"
denunciation of him--His own description of the abuse: "indecent
terms that could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a defaulter, or
a common pickpocket"--Jefferson is now the popular hero--All
this makes a deep and permanent impression on Marshall.
V. THE MAN AND THE LAWYER 166
An old planter refuses to employ Marshall as his lawyer because
of his shabby and unimpressive appearance--He changes his mind
after hearing Marshall address the court--Marshall is conscious
of his superiority over other men--Wirt describes Marshall's
physical appearance--He practices law as steadily as his
political activities permit--He builds a fine house adjacent
to those of his powerful brothers-in-law--Richmond becomes a
flourishing town--Marshall is childishly negligent of his
personal concerns: the Beaumarchais mortgage; but he is extreme
in his solicitude for the welfare of his relatives: the letter
on the love-affair of his sister; and he is very careful of the
business entrusted to him by others--He is an enthusiastic Free
Mason and becomes Grand Master of that order in Virginia--He
has peculiar methods at the bar: cites few authorities, always
closes in argument, and is notably honest with the court: "The
law is correctly stated by opposing counsel"--Gustavus Schmidt
describes Marshall--He is employed in the historic case of Ware
_vs._ Hylton--His argument in the lower court so satisfactory to
his clients that they select him to conduct their case in the
Supreme Court of the United States--Marshall makes a tremendous
and lasting impression by his effort in Philadelphia--Rufus King
pays him high tribute--After twenty-four years William Wirt
remembers Marshall's address and describes it--Wirt advises his
son-in-law to imitate Marshall--Francis Walker Gilmer writes,
from personal observation, a brilliant and accurate analysis of
Marshall as lawyer and orator--The Federalist leaders at the
Capital court Marshall--He has business dealings with Robert
Morris--The Marshall syndicate purchases the Fairfax estate--
Marshall's brother marries Hester Morris--The old financier
makes desperate efforts to raise money for the Fairfax
purchase--Marshall compromises with the Legislature of
Virginia--His brother finally negotiates a loan in Antwerp on
Morris's real estate and pays half of the contract price--
Robert Morris becomes bankrupt and the burden of the Fairfax
debt falls on Marshall--He is in desperate financial
embarrassment--President Adams asks him to go to France as a
member of the mission to that country--The offer a "God-send" to
Marshall, who accepts it in order to save the Fairfax estate.
VI. ENVOY TO FRANCE 214
Marshall starts for France--Letters to his wife--Is bored
by the social life of Philadelphia--His opinion of Adams--The
President's opinion of Marshall--The "Aurora's" sarcasm--The
reason for sending the mission--Monroe's conduct in Paris--The
Republicans a French party--The French resent the Jay Treaty
and retaliate by depredations on American Commerce--Pinckney,
as Monroe's successor, expelled from France--President Adams's
address to Congress--Marshall, Pinckney, and Gerry are
sent to adjust differences between France and America--Gerry's
appointment is opposed by entire Cabinet and all Federalist
leaders because of their distrust of him--Adams cautions Gerry
and Jefferson flatters him--Marshall arrives at The Hague--
Conditions in France--Marshall's letter to his wife--His long,
careful and important letter to Washington--His letter to
Lee from Antwerp--Marshall and Pinckney arrive at Paris--The
city--The corruption of the Government--Gerry arrives--The
envoys meet Talleyrand--Description of the Foreign Minister--His
opinion of America and his estimate of the envoys--Mysterious
intimations.
VII. FACING TALLEYRAND 257
Marshall urges formal representation of American grievances
to French Government--Gerry opposes action--The intrigue
begins--Hottenguer appears--The Directory must be "soothed" by
money "placed at the disposal of M. Talleyrand"--The French
demands: "pay debts due from France to American citizens,
pay for French spoliations of American Commerce, and make a
considerable loan and something for the pocket" (a bribe of
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars)--Marshall indignantly
opposes and insists on formally presenting the American
case--Gerry will not agree--Bellamy comes forward and proposes
still harder terms: "_you must pay money, you must pay a
great deal of money_"--The envoys consult--Marshall and Gerry
disagree--Hottenguer and Bellamy breakfast with Gerry--They
again urge loan and bribe--Marshall writes Washington--His
letter an able review of the state of the country--News of
Bonaparte's diplomatic success at Campo Formio reaches
Paris--Talleyrand's agents again descend on the envoys and
demand money--"No! not a sixpence"--Marshall's bold but moderate
statement--Hauteval joins Hottenguer and Bellamy--Gerry calls
on Talleyrand: is not received--Talleyrand's agents hint at
war--They threaten the envoys with "the French party in
America"--Marshall and Pinckney declare it "degrading to carry
on indirect intercourse"--Marshall again insists on written
statement to Talleyrand--Gerry again objects--Marshall's letter
to his wife--His letter in cipher to Lee--Bonaparte appears in
Paris--His consummate acting--The fête at the Luxemburg to the
Conqueror--Effect on Marshall.
VIII. THE AMERICAN MEMORIAL 290
Madame de Villette--Her friendship with Marshall--Her proposals
to Pinckney--Beaumarchais enters the plot--Marshall his attorney
in Virginia--Bellamy suggests an arrangement between Marshall
and Beaumarchais--Marshall rejects it--Gerry asks Talleyrand
to dine with him--The dinner--Hottenguer in Talleyrand's
presence again proposes the loan and bribe--Marshall once
more insists on written statement of the American case--Gerry
reluctantly consents--Marshall writes the American memorial--
That great state paper--The French decrees against American
commerce become harsher--Gerry holds secret conferences with
Talleyrand--Marshall rebukes Gerry--Talleyrand at last receives
the envoys formally--The fruitless discussion--Altercation
between Marshall and Gerry--Beaumarchais comes with alarming
news--Marshall again writes Washington--Washington's answer--
The French Foreign Minister answers Marshall's memorial--He
proposes to treat with Gerry alone--Marshall writes reply to
Talleyrand--Beaumarchais makes final appeal to Marshall--
Marshall replies with spirit--He sails for America.
IX. THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN 335
Anxiety in America--Jefferson is eager for news--Skipwith writes
Jefferson from Paris--Dispatches of envoys, written by Marshall,
are received by the President--Adams makes alarming speech to
Congress--The strength of the Republican Party increases--
Republicans in House demand that dispatches be made public--
Adams transmits them to Congress--Republicans are thrown into
consternation and now oppose publication--Federalist Senate
orders publication--Effect on Republicans in Congress--Effect
on the country--Outburst of patriotism: "Hail, Columbia!" is
written--Marshall arrives, unexpectedly, at New York--His
dramatic welcome at Philadelphia--The Federalist banquet:
Millions "for defense but not one cent for tribute"--Adams
wishes to appoint Marshall Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court--He declines--He is enthusiastically received at
Richmond--Marshall's speech--He is insulted at the theater in
Fredericksburg--Congress takes decisive action: Navy Department
is created and provisional army raised--Washington accepts
command--His opinions of the French--His letter to Marshall's
brother--Jefferson attacks X. Y. Z. dispatches and defends
Talleyrand--Alien and Sedition Laws are enacted--Gerry's
predicament in France--His return--Marshall disputes Gerry's
statements--Marshall's letter to his wife--He is hard pressed
for money--Compensation for services as envoy saves the Fairfax
estate--Resolves to devote himself henceforth exclusively to
his profession.
X. CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 374
Plight of the Federalists in Richmond--They implore Marshall
to be their candidate for Congress--He refuses--Washington
personally appeals to him--Marshall finally yields--Violence of
the campaign--Republicans viciously attack Marshall--the Alien
and Sedition Laws the central issue--"Freeholder's" questions to
Marshall--His answers--Federalists disgusted with Marshall--"The
Letters of Curtius"--The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions--The
philosophy of secession--Madison writes address of majority of
Virginia Legislature to their constituents--Marshall writes
address of the minority which Federalists circulate as campaign
document--Republicans ridicule its length and verbosity--
Federalists believe Republicans determined to destroy the
National Government--Campaign charges against Marshall--
Marshall's disgust with politics: "Nothing more debases or
pollutes the human mind"--Despondent letter to his brother--
On the brink of defeat--Patrick Henry saves Marshall--Riotous
scenes on election day--Marshall wins by a small majority--
Washington rejoices--Federalist politicians not sure of
Marshall--Jefferson irritated at Marshall's election--Marshall
visits his father--Jefferson thinks it a political journey:
"the visit of apostle Marshall to Kentucky excites anxiety"--
Naval war with France in progress--Adams sends the second
mission to France--Anger of the Federalists--Republican
rejoicing--Marshall supports President's policy--Adams
pardons Fries--Federalists enraged, Republicans jubilant--
State of parties when Marshall takes his seat in Congress.
XI. INDEPENDENCE IN CONGRESS 432
Speaker Sedgwick's estimate of Marshall--Cabot's opinion--
Marshall a leader in Congress from the first--Prepares answer
of House to President's speech--It satisfies nobody--Wolcott
describes Marshall--Presidential politics--Marshall writes his
brother analysis of situation--Announces death of Washington,
presents resolutions, and addresses House: "first in war, first
in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen"--Marshall's
activity in the House--He clashes with John Randolph of
Roanoke--Debate on Slavery and Marshall's vote--He votes against
his party on Sedition Law--Opposes his party's favorite measure,
the Disputed Elections Bill--Forces amendment and kills the
bill--Federalist resentment of his action: Speaker Sedgwick's
comment on Marshall--The celebrated case of Jonathan
Robins--Republicans make it principal ground of attack on
Administration--The Livingston Resolution--Marshall's great
speech on Executive power--Gallatin admits it to be
"unanswerable"--It defeats the Republicans--Jefferson's faint
praise--the "Aurora's" amusing comment--Marshall defends the
army and the policy of preparing for war--His speech the ablest
on the Army Bill--His letter to Dabney describing conditions--
Marshall helps draw the first Bankruptcy Law and, in the
opinion of the Federalists, spoils it--Speaker Sedgwick
vividly portrays Marshall as he appeared to the Federalist
politicians at the close of the session.
XII. CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES 485
The shattering of Adams's Cabinet--Marshall declines office of
Secretary of War--Offered that of Secretary of State--Adams's
difficult party situation--The feud with Hamilton--Marshall
finally, and with reluctance, accepts portfolio of Secretary
of State--Republican comment--Federalist politicians approve:
"Marshall a state conservator"--Adams leaves Marshall in charge
at Washington--Examples of his routine work--His retort to the
British Minister--His strong letter to Great Britain on the
British debts--Controversy with Great Britain over contraband,
treatment of neutrals, and impressment--Marshall's notable
letter on these subjects--His harsh language to Great Britain--
Federalist disintegration begins--Republicans overwhelmingly
victorious in Marshall's home district--Marshall's despondent
letter to Otis: "The tide of real Americanism is on the ebb"--
Federalist leaders quarrel; rank and file confused and
angered--Hamilton's faction plots against Adams--Adams's inept
retaliation: Hamilton and his friends "a British faction"--
Republican strength increases--Jefferson's platform--The
second mission to France succeeds in negotiating a treaty--
Chagrin of Federalists and rejoicing of Republicans--Marshall
dissatisfied but favors ratification--Hamilton's amazing
personal attack on Adams--The Federalists dumbfounded, the
Republicans in glee--The terrible campaign of 1800--Marshall
writes the President's address to Congress--The Republicans
carry the election by a narrow margin--Tie between Jefferson and
Burr--Federalists in House determine to elect Burr--Hamilton's
frantic efforts against Burr: "The _Catiline_ of America"--
Hamilton appeals to Marshall, who favors Burr--Marshall refuses
to aid Jefferson, but agrees to keep hands off--Ellsworth
resigns as Chief Justice--Adams reappoints Jay, who declines--
Adams then appoints Marshall, who, with hesitation, accepts--
The appointment unexpected and arouses no interest--Marshall
continues as Secretary of State--The dramatic contest in the
House over Burr and Jefferson--Marshall accused of advising
Federalists that Congress could provide for Presidency by law
in case of deadlock--Federalists consider Marshall for the
Presidency--Hay assails Marshall--Burr refuses Federalist
proposals--The Federalist bargain with Jefferson--He is
elected--The "midnight judges"--The power over the Supreme
Court which Marshall was to exercise totally unsuspected by
anybody--Failure of friend and foe to estimate properly his
courage and determination.
APPENDIX 565
I. LIST OF CASES 567
II. GENERAL MARSHALL'S ANSWER TO AN ADDRESS OF THE CITIZENS OF
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 571
III. FREEHOLDER'S QUESTIONS TO GENERAL MARSHALL 574
WORKS CITED IN THIS VOLUME 579
ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN MARSHALL AS CHIEF JUSTICE _Colored Frontispiece_
From the portrait by John Wesley Jarvis in the possession of Mr.
Roland Gray, of Boston. It represents Marshall as he was during
his early years as Chief Justice and as he appeared when
Representative in Congress and Secretary of State. The Jarvis
portrait is by far the best likeness of Marshall during this
period of his life.
JOHN MARSHALL 48
From a painting by E. F. Petticolas, presented by the artist to
John Marshall and now in the possession of Mr. Malcolm G. Bruce,
of South Boston, Va.
JOHN MARSHALL 124
From a painting by Rembrandt Peale in the rooms of the Long Island
Historical Society.
JOHN MARSHALL'S HOUSE, RICHMOND 172
From a photograph taken especially for this book. The house was
built by Marshall between 1789 and 1793. It was his second home in
Richmond and the one in which he lived for more than forty years.
THE LARGE ROOM WHERE THE FAMOUS "LAWYERS' DINNERS" WERE GIVEN 172
From a photograph taken especially for this book. The woodwork of
the room, which is somewhat indistinct in the reproduction, is
exceedingly well done.
WILLIAM WIRT 192
From an engraving by A. B. Walter, from a portrait by Charles B.
King, in "Memoirs of William Wirt," by John P. Kennedy, published
by Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1849. Autograph from the
Chamberlain collection, Boston Public Library.
ROBERT MORRIS 202
From an original painting by Gilbert Stuart through kind
permission of the owner, C. F. M. Stark, Esq., of Winchester,
Mass. Autograph from the Declaration of Independence.
FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF JAMES MARSHALL'S ACCOUNT WITH ROBERT
MORRIS, HIS FATHER-IN-LAW 210
From the original in the possession of James M. Marshall, of Front
Royal, Virginia. This page shows £7700 sterling furnished by
Robert Morris to the Marshall brothers for the purchase of the
Fairfax estate. This documentary evidence of the source of the
money with which the Marshalls purchased this holding has not
hitherto been known to exist.
FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF A LETTER FROM JOHN MARSHALL TO HIS
WIFE, JULY 2, 1797 214
From the original in the possession of Miss Emily Harvie, of
Richmond. The letter was written from Philadelphia immediately
after Marshall's arrival at the capital when starting on his
journey to France on the X. Y. Z. Mission. It is characteristic
of Marshall in the fervid expressions of tender affection for his
wife, whom he calls his "dearest life." It is also historically
important as describing his first impression of President Adams.
FACSIMILE OF PART OF LETTER OF JULY 17, 1797, FROM JOHN ADAMS TO
ELBRIDGE GERRY DESCRIBING JOHN MARSHALL 228
From the original in the Adams Manuscripts. President Adams
writes of Marshall as he appeared to him just before he sailed
for France.
CHARLES MAURICE DE TALLEYRAND-PÉRIGORD 252
From an engraving by Bocourt after a drawing by Mullard,
reproduced through the kindness of Mr. Charles E. Goodspeed.
This portrait represents Talleyrand as he was some time after
the X. Y. Z. Mission.
GENERAL CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY 274
From an engraving by E. Wellmore after the miniature by Edward
Greene Malbone.
ELBRIDGE GERRY 310
From an engraving by J. B. Longacre after a drawing made from life
by Vanderlyn in 1798, when Gerry was in Paris.
FACSIMILE OF PART OF A LETTER FROM JOHN MARSHALL TO HIS BROTHER,
DATED APRIL 3, 1799, REFERRING TO THE VIRULENCE OF THE CAMPAIGN
IN WHICH MARSHALL WAS A CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 410
The word "faction" in this excerpt meant "party" in the vernacular
of the period.
STATUE OF JOHN MARSHALL, BY RANDOLPH ROGERS 456
This is one of six statues at the base of the Washington monument
in Richmond, Va., the other figures being Jefferson, Henry, Mason,
Nelson, and Lewis. The Washington Monument was designed by Thomas
Crawford, who died before completing the work, and was finished by
Rogers. From a photograph.
STATUE OF MARSHALL, BY W. W. STORY 530
At the Capitol, Washington, D.C. From a photograph.
LIST OF ABBREVIATED TITLES MOST FREQUENTLY CITED
_All references here are to the List of Authorities at the end of
this volume._
_Am. St. Prs._ _See_ American State Papers.
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.
_Cor. Rev._: Sparks. _See_ Sparks, Jared. Correspondence of the
Revolution.
_Cunningham Letters._ _See_ Adams, John. Correspondence with William
Cunningham.
_Letters_: Ford. _See_ Vans Murray, William. Letters to John Quincy
Adams. Edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford.
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.
_Works_: Adams. _See_ Adams, John. Works. Edited by Charles Francis
Adams.
_Works_: Ames. _See_ Ames, Fisher. Works. Edited by Seth Ames.
_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, J. Q. A._: Ford. _See_ Adams, John Quincy. Writings. Edited
by Worthington Chauncey Ford.
_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
INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ON AMERICA
Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left
free, it would be better than it now is. (Jefferson.)
That malignant philosophy which can coolly and deliberately
pursue, through oceans of blood, abstract systems for the
attainment of some fancied untried good. (Marshall.)
The only genuine liberty consists in a mean equally distant from
the despotism of an individual and a million. ("Publicola": J. Q.
Adams, 1792.)
The decision of the French King, Louis XVI, on the advice of his
Ministers, to weaken Great Britain by aiding the Americans in their War
for Independence, while it accomplished its purpose, was fatal to
himself and to the Monarchy of France. As a result, Great Britain lost
America, but Louis lost his head. Had not the Bourbon Government sent
troops, fleets, munitions, and money to the support of the failing and
desperate American fortunes, it is probable that Washington would not
have prevailed; and the fires of the French holocaust which flamed
throughout the world surely would not have been lit so soon.
The success of the American patriots in their armed resistance to the
rule of George III, although brought about by the aid of the French
Crown, was, nevertheless, the shining and dramatic example which
Frenchmen imitated in beginning that vast and elemental upheaval called
the French Revolution.[1] Thus the unnatural alliance in 1778 between
French Autocracy and American Liberty was one of the great and decisive
events of human history.
In the same year, 1789, that the American Republic began its career
under the forms of a National Government, the curtain rose in France on
that tremendous drama which will forever engage the interest of mankind.
And just as the American Revolution vitally influenced French opinion,
so the French Revolution profoundly affected American thought; and,
definitely, helped to shape those contending forces in American life
that are still waging their conflict.
While the economic issue, so sharp in the adoption of the Constitution,
became still keener, as will appear, after the National Government was
established, it was given a higher temper in the forge of the French
Revolution. American history, especially of the period now under
consideration, can be read correctly only by the lights that shine from
that titanic smithy; can be understood only by considering the effect
upon the people, the thinkers, and the statesmen of America, of the
deeds done and words spoken in France during those inspiring if
monstrous years.
The naturally conservative or radical temperaments of men in America
were hardened by every episode of the French convulsion. The events in
France, at this time, operated upon men like Hamilton on the one hand,
and Jefferson on the other hand, in a fashion as deep and lasting as it
was antagonistic and antipodal; and the intellectual and moral
phenomena, manifested in picturesque guise among the people in America,
impressed those who already were, and those who were to become, the
leaders of American opinion, as much as the events of the Gallic
cataclysm itself.
George Washington at the summit of his fame, and John Marshall just
beginning his ascent, were alike confirmed in that non-popular tendency
of thought and feeling which both avowed in the dark years between our
War for Independence and the adoption of our Constitution.[2] In
reviewing all the situations, not otherwise to be fully understood, that
arose from the time Washington became President until Marshall took his
seat as Chief Justice, we must have always before our eyes the
extraordinary scenes and consider the delirious emotions which the
French Revolution produced in America. It must be constantly borne in
mind that Americans of the period now under discussion did not and could
not look upon it with present-day knowledge, perspective, or calmness.
What is here set down is, therefore, an attempt to portray the effects
of that volcanic eruption of human forces upon the minds and hearts of
those who witnessed, from across the ocean, its flames mounting to the
heavens and its lava pouring over the whole earth.
Unless this portrayal is given, a blank must be left in a recital of the
development of American radical and conservative sentiment and of the
formation of the first of American political parties. Certainly for the
purposes of the present work, an outline, at least, of the effect of the
French Revolution on American thought and feeling is indispensable. Just
as the careers of Marshall and Jefferson are inseparably intertwined,
and as neither can be fully understood without considering the other, so
the American by-products of the French Revolution must be examined if we
would comprehend either of these great protagonists of hostile theories
of democratic government.
At first everybody in America heartily approved the French reform
movement. Marshall describes for us this unanimous approbation. "A great
revolution had commenced in that country," he writes, "the first stage
of which was completed by limiting the powers of the monarch, and by the
establishment of a popular assembly. In no part of the globe was this
revolution hailed with more joy than in America. The influence it would
have on the affairs of the world was not then distinctly foreseen; and
the philanthropist, without becoming a political partisan, rejoiced in
the event. On this subject, therefore, but one sentiment existed."[3]
Jefferson had written from Paris, a short time before leaving for
America: "A complete revolution in this [French] government, has been
effected merely by the force of public opinion; ... and this revolution
has not cost a single life."[4] So little did his glowing mind then
understand the forces which he had helped set in motion. A little later
he advises Madison of the danger threatening the reformed French
Government, but adds, reassuringly, that though "the lees ... of the
patriotic party [the French radical party] of wicked principles &
desperate fortunes" led by Mirabeau who "is the chief ... may produce a
temporary confusion ... they cannot have success ultimately. The King,
the mass of the substantial people of the whole country, the army, and
the influential part of the clergy, form a firm phalanx which must
prevail."[5]
So, in the beginning, all American newspapers, now more numerous, were
exultant. "Liberty will have another feather in her cap.... The ensuing
winter [1789] will be the commencement of a Golden Age,"[6] was the
glowing prophecy of an enthusiastic Boston journal. Those two sentences
of the New England editor accurately stated the expectation and belief
of all America.
But in France itself one American had grave misgivings as to the
outcome. "The materials for a revolution in this country are very
indifferent. Everybody agrees that there is an utter prostration of
morals; but this general position can never convey to an American mind
the degree of depravity.... A hundred thousand examples are required to
show the extreme rottenness.... The virtuous ... stand forward from a
background deeply and darkly shaded.... From such crumbling matter ...
the great edifice of freedom is to be erected here [in France]....
[There is] a perfect indifference to the violation of engagements....
Inconstancy is mingled in the blood, marrow, and very essence of this
people.... Consistency is a phenomenon.... The great mass of the common
people have ... no morals but their interest. These are the creatures
who, led by drunken curates, are now in the high road _à la
liberté_."[7] Such was the report sent to Washington by Gouverneur
Morris, the first American Minister to France under the Constitution.
Three months later Morris, writing officially, declares that "this
country is ... as near to anarchy as society can approach without
dissolution."[8] And yet, a year earlier, Lafayette had lamented the
French public's indifference to much needed reforms; "The people ...
have been so dull that it has made me sick" was Lafayette's doleful
account of popular enthusiasm for liberty in the France of 1788.[9]
Gouverneur Morris wrote Robert Morris that a French owner of a quarry
demanded damages because so many bodies had been dumped into the quarry
that they "choked it up so that he could not get men to work at it."
These victims, declared the American Minister, had been "the best
people," killed "without form of trial, and their bodies thrown like
dead dogs into the first hole that offered."[10] Gouverneur Morris's
diary abounds in such entries as "[Sept. 2, 1792] the murder of the
priests, ... murder of prisoners,... [Sept. 3] The murdering continues
all day.... [Sept. 4th].... And still the murders continue."[11]
John Marshall was now the attorney of Robert Morris; was closely
connected with him in business transactions; and, as will appear, was
soon to become his relative by the marriage of Marshall's brother to the
daughter of the Philadelphia financier. Gouverneur Morris, while not
related to Robert Morris, was "entirely devoted" to and closely
associated with him in business; and both were in perfect agreement of
opinions.[12] Thus the reports of the scarlet and revolting phases of
the French Revolution that came to the Virginia lawyer were carried
through channels peculiarly personal and intimate.
They came, too, from an observer who was thoroughly aristocratic in
temperament and conviction.[13] Little of appreciation or understanding
of the basic causes and high purposes of the French Revolution appears
in Gouverneur Morris's accounts and comments, while he portrays the
horrible in unrelieved ghastliness.[14]
Such, then, were the direct and first-hand accounts that Marshall
received; and the impression made upon him was correspondingly dark, and
as lasting as it was somber. Of this, Marshall himself leaves us in no
doubt. Writing more than a decade later he gives his estimate of
Gouverneur Morris and of his accounts of the French Revolution.
"The private correspondence of Mr. Morris with the president [and, of
course, much more so with Robert Morris] exhibits a faithful picture,
drawn by the hand of a master, of the shifting revolutionary scenes
which with unparalleled rapidity succeeded each other in Paris. With the
eye of an intelligent, and of an unimpassioned observer, he marked all
passing events, and communicated them with fidelity. He did not mistake
despotism for freedom, because it was sanguinary, because it was
exercised by those who denominated themselves the people, or because it
assumed the name of liberty. Sincerely wishing happiness and a really
free government to France, he could not be blind to the obvious truth
that the road to those blessings had been mistaken."[15]
Everybody in America echoed the shouts of the Parisian populace when the
Bastille fell. Was it not the prison where kings thrust their subjects
to perish of starvation and torture?[16] Lafayette, "as a missionary of
liberty to its patriarch," hastened to present Washington with "the main
key of the fortress of despotism."[17] Washington responded that he
accepted the key of the Bastille as "a token of the victory gained by
liberty."[18] Thomas Paine wrote of his delight at having been chosen by
Lafayette to "convey ... the first ripe fruits of American principles,
transplanted into Europe, to his master and patron."[19] Mutual
congratulations were carried back and forth by every ship.
Soon the mob in Paris took more sanguinary action and blood flowed more
freely, but not in sufficient quantity to quench American enthusiasm for
the cause of liberty in France. We had had plenty of mobs ourselves and
much crimson experience. Had not mobs been the precursors of our own
Revolution?
The next developments of the French uprising and the appearance of the
Jacobin Clubs, however, alarmed some and gave pause to all of the
cautious friends of freedom in America and other countries.
Edmund Burke hysterically sounded the alarm. On account of his
championship of the cause of American Independence, Burke had enjoyed
much credit with all Americans who had heard of him. "In the last age,"
exclaimed Burke in Parliament, February 9, 1790, "we were in danger of
being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relentless
despotism.... Our present danger from the example of a people whose
character knows no medium, is, with regard to government, a danger from
anarchy; a danger of being led, through an admiration of successful
fraud and violence, to an imitation of the excesses of an irrational,
unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody,
and tyrannical democracy."[20]
Of the French declaration of human rights Burke declared: "They made and
recorded a sort of _institute_ and _digest_ of anarchy, called the
rights of man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as
would have disgraced boys at school.... They systematically destroyed
every hold of authority by opinion, religious or civil, on the minds of
the people.[21]... On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is
the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings," exclaimed the
great English liberal, "laws are to be supported only by their own
terrours.... In the groves of _their_ academy, at the end of every
vista, you see nothing but the gallows."[22]
Burke's extravagant rhetoric, although reprinted in America, was little
heeded. It would have been better if his pen had remained idle. For
Burke's wild language, not yet justified by the orgy of blood in which
French liberty was, later, to be baptized, caused a voice to speak to
which America did listen, a page to be written that America did read.
Thomas Paine, whose "Common Sense" had made his name better known to all
people in the United States than that of any other man of his time
except Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and Henry, was then in France.
This stormy petrel of revolution seems always to have been drawn by
instinct to every part of the human ocean where hurricanes were
brooding.[23]
Paine answered Burke with that ferocious indictment of monarchy entitled
"The Rights of Man," in which he went as far to one extreme as the
English political philosopher had gone to the other; for while Paine
annihilated Burke's Brahminic laudation of rank, title, and custom, he
also penned a doctrine of paralysis to all government. As was the case
with his "Common Sense," Paine's "Rights of Man" abounded in attractive
epigrams and striking sentences which quickly caught the popular ear and
were easily retained by the shallowest memory.
"The cause of the French people is that of ... the whole world,"
declared Paine in the preface of his flaming essay;[24] and then, the
sparks beginning to fly from his pen, he wrote: "Great part of that
order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government.... It
existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of
government was abolished.... The instant formal government is
abolished," said he, "society begins to act; ... and common interest
produces common security." And again: "The more perfect civilization is,
the less occasion has it for government.... It is but few general laws
that civilised life requires."
Holding up our own struggle for liberty as an illustration, Paine
declared: "The American Revolution ... laid open the imposition of
governments"; and, using our newly formed and untried National
Government as an example, he asserted with grotesque inaccuracy: "In
America ... all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There the
poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged.... Their taxes are
few, because their government is just."[25]
Proceeding thence to his assault upon all other established governments,
especially that of England, the great iconoclast exclaimed: "It is
impossible that such governments as have hitherto [1790] existed in the
world, could have commenced by any other means than a violation of every
principle sacred and moral."
Striking at the foundations of all permanent authority, Paine declared
that "Every age and generation must be ... free to act for itself _in
all cases_.... The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave
is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies." The people of
yesterday have "no right ... to bind or to control ... the people of the
present day ... _in any shape whatever_.... Every generation is, and
must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require."[26]
So wrote the incomparable pamphleteer of radicalism.
Paine's essay, issued in two parts, was a torch successively applied to
the inflammable emotions of the American masses. Most newspapers printed
in each issue short and appealing excerpts from it. For example, the
following sentence from Paine's "Rights of Man" was reproduced in the
"Columbian Centinel" of Boston on June 6, 1792: "Can we possibly suppose
that if government had originated in right principles and had not an
interest in pursuing a wrong one, that the world could have been in the
wretched and quarrelsome condition it is?" Such quotations from Paine
appeared in all radical and in some conservative American publications;
and they were repeated from mouth to mouth until even the backwoodsmen
knew of them--and believed them.
"Our people ... love what you write and read it with delight" ran the
message which Jefferson sent across the ocean to Paine. "The printers,"
continued Jefferson, "season every newspaper with extracts from your
last, as they did before from your first part of the _Rights of Man_.
They have both served here to separate the wheat from the chaff....
Would you believe it possible that in this country there should be high
& important characters[27] who need your lessons in republicanism & who
do not heed them. It is but too true that we have a sect preaching up &
pouting after an English constitution of king, lords, & commons, &
whose heads are itching for crowns, coronets & mitres....
"Go on then," Jefferson urged Paine, "in doing with your pen what in
other times was done with the sword, ... and be assured that it has not
a more sincere votary nor you a more ardent well-wisher than ... Tho^s.
Jefferson."[28]
And the wheat was being separated from the chaff, as Jefferson declared.
Shocked not more by the increasing violence in France than by the
principles which Paine announced, men of moderate mind and conservative
temperament in America came to have misgivings about the French
Revolution, and began to speak out against its doings and its doctrines.
A series of closely reasoned and well-written articles were printed in
the "Columbian Centinel" of Boston in the summer of 1791, over the _nom
de guerre_ "Publicola"; and these were widely copied. They were ascribed
to the pen of John Adams, but were the work of his brilliant son.[29]
The American edition of Paine's "Rights of Man" was headed by a letter
from Secretary of State Jefferson to the printer, stating his pleasure
that the essay was to be printed in this country and "that something is
at length to be publickly said against the political heresies which have
sprung up among us."[30] Publicola called attention to this and thus,
more conspicuously, displayed Jefferson as an advocate of Paine's
doctrines.[31]
All Americans had "seen with pleasure the temples of despotism levelled
with the ground," wrote the keen young Boston law student.[32] There was
"but one sentiment...--that of exultation." But what did Jefferson mean
by "heresies"? asked Publicola. Was Paine's pamphlet "the canonical book
of scripture?" If so, what were its doctrines? "That which a whole
nation chooses to do, it has a right to do" was one of them.
Was that "principle" sound? No! avowed Publicola, for "the eternal and
immutable laws of justice and of morality are paramount to all human
legislation." A nation might have the power but never the right to
violate these. Even majorities have no right to do as they please; if
so, what security has the individual citizen? Under the unrestrained
rule of the majority "the principles of liberty must still be the sport
of arbitrary power, and the hideous form of despotism must lay aside the
diadem and the scepter, only to assume the party-colored garments of
democracy."
"The only genuine liberty consists in a mean equally distant from the
despotism of an individual and of a million," asserted Publicola. "Mr.
Paine seems to think it as easy for a nation to change its government as
for a man to change his coat." But "the extreme difficulty which impeded
the progress of its [the American Constitution's] adoption ... exhibits
the fullest evidence of what a more than Herculean task it is to unite
the opinions of a free people on any system of government whatever."
The "mob" which Paine exalted as the common people, but which Publicola
thought was really only the rabble of the cities, "can be brought to act
in concert" only by "a frantic enthusiasm and ungovernable fury; their
profound ignorance and deplorable credulity make them proper tools for
any man who can inflame their passions; ... and," warned Publicola, "as
they have nothing to lose by the total dissolution of civil society,
their rage may be easily directed against any victim which may be
pointed out to them.... To set in motion this inert mass, the eccentric
vivacity of a madman is infinitely better calculated than the sober
coolness of phlegmatic reason."
"Where," asked Publicola, "is the power that should control them
[Congress]?" if they violate the letter of the Constitution. Replying to
his own question, he asserted that the real check on Congress "is the
spirit of the people."[33] John Marshall had said the same thing in the
Virginia Constitutional Convention; but even at that early period the
Richmond attorney went further and flatly declared that the temporary
"spirit of the people" was not infallible and that the Supreme Court
could and would declare void an unconstitutional act of Congress--a
truth which he was, unguessed at that time by himself or anybody else,
to announce with conclusive power within a few years and at an hour when
dissolution confronted the forming Nation.
Such is a rapid _précis_ of the conservative essays written by the
younger Adams. Taken together, they were a rallying cry to those who
dared to brave the rising hurricane of American sympathy with the French
Revolution; but they also strengthened the force of that growing storm.
Multitudes of writers attacked Publicola as the advocate of
"aristocracy" and "monarchy." "The papers under the signature of
PUBLICOLA have called forth a torrent of abuse," declared the final
essay of the series.
Brown's "Federal Gazette" of Philadelphia branded Publicola's doctrines
as "abominable heresies"; and hoped that they would "not procure many
proselytes either to _monarchy_ or _aristocracy_."[34] The "Independent
Chronicle" of Boston asserted that Publicola was trying to build up a
"system of MONARCHY AND ARISTOCRACY ... on the ruins both of the
REPUTATION and LIBERTIES of the PEOPLE."[35] Madison reported to
Jefferson that because of John Adams's reputed authorship of these
unpopular letters, the supporters of the Massachusetts statesman had
become "perfectly insignificant in ... number" and that "in Boston he
is ... distinguished for his unpopularity."[36]
In such fashion the controversy began in America over the French
Revolution.
But whatever the misgivings of the conservative, whatever the alarm of
the timid, the overwhelming majority of Americans were for the French
Revolution and its doctrines;[37] and men of the highest ability and
station gave dignity to the voice of the people.
In most parts of the country politicians who sought election to public
office conformed, as usual, to the popular view. It would appear that
the prevailing sentiment was influential even with so strong a
conservative and extreme a Nationalist as Madison, in bringing about his
amazing reversal of views which occurred soon after the Constitution was
adopted.[38] But those who, like Marshall, were not shaken, were made
firmer in their opinions by the very strength of the ideas thus making
headway among the masses.
An incident of the French Revolution almost within sight of the American
coast gave to the dogma of equality a new and intimate meaning in the
eyes of those who had begun to look with disfavor upon the results of
Gallic radical thought. Marshall and Jefferson best set forth the
opposite impressions made by this dramatic event.
"Early and bitter fruits of that malignant philosophy," writes Marshall,
"which ... can coolly and deliberately pursue, through oceans of blood,
abstract systems for the attainment of some fancied untried good, were
gathered in the French West Indies.... The revolutionists of France
formed the mad and wicked project of spreading their doctrines of
equality among persons [negroes and white people] between whom
distinctions and prejudices exist to be subdued only by the grave. The
rage excited by the pursuit of this visionary and baneful theory, after
many threatening symptoms, burst forth on the 23d day of August 1791,
with a fury alike destructive and general.
"In one night, a preconcerted insurrection of the blacks took place
throughout the colony of St. Domingo; and the white inhabitants of the
country, while sleeping in their beds, were involved in one
indiscriminate massacre, from which neither age nor sex could afford an
exemption. Only a few females, reserved for a fate more cruel than
death, were intentionally spared; and not many were fortunate enough to
escape into the fortified cities. The insurgents then assembled in vast
numbers, and a bloody war commenced between them and the whites
inhabiting the towns."[39]
After the African disciples of French liberty had overthrown white
supremacy in St. Domingo, Jefferson wrote his daughter that he had been
informed "that the Patriotic party [St. Domingo revolutionists] had
taken possession of 600 aristocrats & monocrats, had sent 200 of them to
France, & were sending 400 here.... I wish," avowed Jefferson, in this
intimate family letter, "we could distribute our 400 [white French
exiles] among the Indians, who would teach them lessons of liberty &
equality."[40]
Events in France marched swiftly from one bloody climax to another still
more scarlet. All were faithfully reflected in the views of the people
of the United States. John Marshall records for us "the fervour of
democracy" as it then appeared in our infant Republic. He repeats that,
at first, every American wished success to the French reformers. But the
later steps of the movement "impaired this ... unanimity of opinion....
A few who had thought deeply on the science of government ... believed
that ... the influence of the galleries over the legislature, and of
mobs over the executive; ... the tumultuous assemblages of the people
and their licentious excesses ... did not appear to be the symptoms of a
healthy constitution, or of genuine freedom.... They doubted, and they
feared for the future."
Of the body of American public opinion, however, Marshall chronicles
that: "In total opposition to this sentiment was that of the public.
There seems to be something infectious in the example of a powerful and
enlightened nation verging towards democracy, which imposes on the human
mind, and leads human reason in fetters.... Long settled opinions yield
to the overwhelming weight of such dazzling authority. It wears the
semblance of being the sense of mankind, breaking loose from the
shackles which had been imposed by artifice, and asserting the freedom,
and the dignity, of his nature."
American conservative writers, says Marshall, "were branded as the
advocates of royalty, and of aristocracy. To question the duration of
the present order of things [in France] was thought to evidence an
attachment to unlimited monarchy, or a blind prejudice in favour of
British institutions.... The war in which the several potentates of
Europe were engaged against France, although in almost every instance
declared by that power, was pronounced to be a war for the extirpation
of human liberty, and for the banishment of free government from the
face of the earth. The preservation of the constitution of the United
States was supposed to depend on its issue; and the coalition against
France was treated as a coalition against America also."[41]
Marshall states, more clearly, perhaps, than any one else, American
conservative opinion of the time: "The circumstances under which the
abolition of royalty was declared, the massacres which preceded it, the
scenes of turbulence and violence which were acted in every part of the
nation, appeared to them [American conservatives] to present an awful
and doubtful state of things.... The idea that a republic was to be
introduced and supported by force, was, to them, a paradox in politics."
Thus it was, he declares, that "the French revolution will be found to
have had great influence on the strength of parties, and on the
subsequent political transactions of the United States."[42]
As the French storm increased, its winds blew ever stronger over the
responsive waters of American opinion. Jefferson, that accurate
barometer of public weather, thus registers the popular feeling: "The
sensations it [the French Revolution] has produced here, and the
indications of them in the public papers, have shown that the form our
own government was to take depended much more on the events of France
than anybody had before imagined."[43] Thus both Marshall and Jefferson
bear testimony as to the determining effect produced in America by the
violent change of systems in France.
William Short, whom Jefferson had taken to France as his secretary, when
he was the American Minister to France, and who, when Jefferson returned
to the United States, remained as _chargé d'affaires_,[44] had written
both officially and privately of what was going on in France and of the
increasing dominance of the Jacobin Clubs.[45] Perhaps no more
trustworthy statement exists of the prevailing American view of the
French cataclysm than that given in Jefferson's fatherly letter to his
protégé:--
"The tone of your letters had for some time given me pain," wrote
Jefferson, "on account of the extreme warmth with which they censured
the proceedings of the Jacobins of France.[46]... Many guilty persons
[aristocrats] fell without the forms of trial, and with them some
innocent:... It was necessary to use the arm of the people, a machine
not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree....
"The liberty of the whole earth," continued Jefferson, "was depending on
the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little
innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of
the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I
would have seen half the earth desolated.
"Were there but an Adam & an Eve left in every country, & left free, it
would be better than as it now is," declared Jefferson; and "my
sentiments ... are really those of 99 in an hundred of our citizens,"
was that careful political observer's estimate of American public
opinion. "Your temper of mind," Jefferson cautions Short, "would be
extremely disrelished if known to your countrymen.
"There are in the U.S. some characters of opposite principles....
Excepting them, this country is entirely republican, friends to the
constitution.... The little party above mentioned have espoused it only
as a stepping stone to monarchy.... The successes of republicanism in
France have given the coup de grace to their prospects, and I hope to
their projects.
"I have developed to you faithfully the sentiments of your country,"
Jefferson admonishes Short, "that you may govern yourself
accordingly."[47]
Jefferson's count of the public pulse was accurate. "The people of this
country [Virginia] ... are unanimous & explicit in their sympathy with
the Revolution" was the weather-wise Madison's report.[48] And the fever
was almost as high in other States.
When, after many executions of persons who had been "denounced" on mere
suspicion of unfriendliness to the new order of things, the neck of
Louis XVI was finally laid beneath the knife of the guillotine and the
royal head rolled into the executioner's basket, even Thomas Paine was
shocked. In a judicious letter to Danton he said:--
"I now despair of seeing the great object of European liberty
accomplished" because of "the tumultuous misconduct" of "the present
revolution" which "injure[s its] character ... and discourage[s] the
progress of liberty all over the world.... There ought to be some
regulation with respect to the spirit of denunciation that now
prevails."[49]
So it was that Thomas Paine, in France, came to speak privately the
language which, in America, at that very hour, was considered by his
disciples to be the speech of "aristocracy," "monarchy," and
"despotism"; for the red fountains which drenched the fires of even
Thomas Paine's enthusiasm did not extinguish the flames his burning
words had lighted among the people of the United States. Indeed Paine,
himself, was attacked for regretting the execution of the King.[50]
Three months after the execution of the French King, the new Minister of
the French Republic, "Citizen" Genêt, arrived upon our shores. He
landed, not at Philadelphia, then our seat of government, but at
Charleston, South Carolina. The youthful[51] representative of
Revolutionary France was received by public officials with obsequious
flattery and by the populace with a frenzy of enthusiasm almost
indescribable in its intensity.
He acted on the welcome. He fitted out privateers, engaged seamen,
issued letters of marque and reprisal, administered to American citizens
oaths of "allegiance" to the authority then reigning in Paris. All this
was done long before he presented his credentials to the American
Government. His progress to our Capital was an unbroken festival of
triumph. Washington's dignified restraint was interpreted as hostility,
not only to Genêt, but also to "liberty." But if Washington's heart was
ice, the people's heart was fire.
"We expect Mr. Genest here within a few days," wrote Jefferson, just
previous to the appearance of the French Minister in Philadelphia and
before our ignored and offended President had even an opportunity to
receive him. "It seems," Jefferson continued, "as if his arrival would
furnish occasion for the _people_ to testify their affections without
respect to the cold caution of their government."[52]
Again Jefferson measured popular sentiment accurately. Genêt was made an
idol by the people. Banquets were given in his honor and extravagant
toasts were drunk to the Republic and the guillotine. Showers of fiery
"poems" filled the literary air.[53] "What hugging and tugging! What
addressing and caressing! What mountebanking and chanting! with liberty
caps and other wretched trumpery of _sans culotte_ foolery!" exclaimed a
disgusted conservative.[54]
While all this was going on in America, Robespierre, as the incarnation
of liberty, equality, and fraternity in France, achieved the summit of
power and "The Terror" reached high tide. Marie Antoinette met the fate
of her royal husband, and the executioners, overworked, could not
satisfy the lust of the Parisian populace for human life. All this,
however, did not extinguish American enthusiasm for French liberty.
Responding to the wishes of their subscribers, who at that period were
the only support of the press, the Republican newspapers suppressed such
atrocities as they could, but when concealment was impossible, they
defended the deeds they chronicled.[55] It was a losing game to do
otherwise, as one of the few journalistic supporters of the American
Government discovered to his sorrow. Fenno, the editor of the "Gazette
of the United States," found opposition to French revolutionary ideas,
in addition to his support of Hamilton's popularly detested financial
measures,[56] too much for him. The latter was load enough; but the
former was the straw that broke the conservative editor's back.
"I am ... incapacitate[d] ... from printing another paper without the
aid of a considerable loan," wrote the bankrupt newspaper opponent of
French doctrines and advocate of Washington's Administration. "Since the
18th September, [1793] I have rec'd only 35-1/4 dollars," Fenno
lamented. "Four years & an half of my life is gone for nothing; & worse
(for I have a Debt of 2500 Dollars on my Shoulders), if at this crisis
the hand of benevolence & _patriotism_ is not extended."[57]
Forgotten by the majority of Americans was the assistance which the
demolished French Monarchy and the decapitated French King had given the
American army when, but for that assistance, our cause had been lost.
The effigy of Louis XVI was guillotined by the people, many times every
day in Philadelphia, on the same spot where, ten years before, as a
monument of their gratitude, these same patriots had erected a triumphal
arch, decorated with the royal lilies of France bearing the motto, "They
exceed in glory," surmounted by a bust of Louis inscribed, "His merit
makes us remember him."[58]
At a dinner in Philadelphia upon the anniversary of the French King's
execution, the dead monarch was represented by a roasted pig. Its head
was cut off at the table, and each guest, donning the liberty cap,
shouted "tyrant" as with his knife he chopped the sundered head of the
dead swine.[59] The news of the beheading of Louis's royal consort met
with a like reception. "I have heard more than one young woman under the
age of twenty declare," testifies Cobbett, "that they would willingly
have dipped their hands in the blood of the queen of France."[60]
But if the host of American radicals whom Jefferson led and whose spirit
he so truly interpreted were forgetful of the practical friendship of
French Royalty in our hour of need, American conservatives, among whom
Marshall was developing leadership, were also unmindful of the dark
crimes against the people which, at an earlier period, had stained the
Monarchy of France and gradually cast up the account that brought on the
inevitable settlement of the Revolution. The streams of blood that
flowed were waters of Lethe to both sides.
Yet to both they were draughts which produced in one an obsession of
reckless unrestraint and in the other a terror of popular rule no less
exaggerated.[61] Of the latter class, Marshall was, by far, the most
moderate and balanced, although the tragic aspect of the convulsion in
which French liberty was born, came to him in an especially direct
fashion, as we have seen from the Morris correspondence already cited.
Another similar influence on Marshall was the case of Lafayette. The
American partisans of the French Revolution accused this man, who had
fought for us in our War for Independence, of deserting the cause of
liberty because he had striven to hold the Gallic uprising within
orderly bounds. When, for this, he had been driven from his native land
and thrown into a foreign dungeon, Freneau thus sang the conviction of
the American majority:--
"Here, bold in arms, and firm in heart,
He help'd to gain our cause,
Yet could not from a tyrant part,
But, turn'd to embrace his laws!"[62]
Lafayette's expulsion by his fellow Republicans and his imprisonment by
the allied monarchs, was brought home to John Marshall in a very direct
and human fashion. His brother, James M. Marshall, was sent by
Washington[63] as his personal representative, to plead unofficially for
Lafayette's release. Marshall tells us of the strong and tender personal
friendship between Washington and Lafayette and of the former's anxiety
for the latter. But, writes Marshall: "The extreme jealousy with which
the persons who administered the government of France, as well as a
large party in America, watched his [Washington's] deportment towards
all those whom the ferocious despotism of the jacobins had exiled from
their country" rendered "a formal interposition in favour of the
virtuous and unfortunate victim [Lafayette] of their furious
passions ... unavailing."
Washington instructed our ministers to do all they could "unofficially"
to help Lafayette, says Marshall; and "a confidential person [Marshall's
brother James] had been sent to Berlin to solicit his discharge: but
before this messenger had reached his destination, the King of Prussia
had delivered over his illustrious prisoner to the Emperor of
Germany."[64] Washington tried "to obtain the powerful mediation of
Britain" and hoped "that the cabinet of St. James would take an interest
in the case; but this hope was soon dissipated." Great Britain would do
nothing to secure from her allies Lafayette's release.[65]
Thus Marshall, in an uncommonly personal way, was brought face to face
with what appeared to him to be the injustice of the French
revolutionists. Lafayette, under whom John Marshall had served at
Brandywine and Monmouth; Lafayette, leader of the movement in France for
a free government like our own; Lafayette, hated by kings and
aristocrats because he loved genuine liberty, and yet exiled from his
own country by his own countrymen for the same reason[66]--this picture,
which was the one Marshall saw, influenced him profoundly and
permanently.
Humor as well as horror contributed to the repugnance which Marshall and
men of his type felt ever more strongly for what they considered to be
mere popular caprice. The American passion for equality had its comic
side. The public hatred of all rank did not stop with French royalty
and nobility. Because of his impassioned plea in Parliament for the
American cause, a statue of Lord Chatham had been erected at Charleston,
South Carolina; the people now suspended it by the neck in the air until
the sculptured head was severed from the body. But Chatham was dead and
knew only from the spirit world of this recognition of his bold words in
behalf of the American people in their hour of trial and of need. In
Virginia the statue of Lord Botetourt was beheaded.[67] This nobleman
was also long since deceased, guilty of no fault but an effort to help
the colonists, more earnest than some other royal governors had
displayed. Still, in life, he had been called a "lord"; so off with the
head of his statue!
In the cities, streets were renamed. "Royal Exchange Alley" in Boston
became "Equality Lane"; and "Liberty Stump" was the name now given to
the base of a tree that formerly had been called "Royal." In New York,
"_Queen Street_ became _Pearl Street_; and _King Street_, Liberty
Street."[68] The liberty cap was the popular headgear and everybody wore
the French cockade. Even the children, thus decorated, marched in
processions,[69] singing, in a mixture of French and English words, the
meaning of which they did not in the least understand, the glories of
"liberté, égalité, fraternité."
At a town meeting in Boston resolutions asking that a city charter be
granted were denounced as an effort to "destroy the liberties of the
people; ... a link in the chain of aristocratic influence."[70] Titles
were the especial aversion of the masses. Even before the formation of
our government, the people had shown their distaste for all formalities,
and especially for terms denoting official rank; and, after the
Constitution was adopted, one of the first things Congress did was to
decide against any form of address to the President. Adams and Lee had
favored some kind of respectful designation of public officials. This
all-important subject had attracted the serious thought of the people
more than had the form of government, foreign policy, or even taxes.
Scarcely had Washington taken his oath of office when David Stuart
warned him that "nothing could equal the ferment and disquietude
occasioned by the proposition respecting titles. As it is believed to
have originated from Mr. Adams and Mr. Lee, they are not only unpopular
to an extreme, but highly odious.... It has given me much pleasure to
hear every part of your conduct spoken of with high approbation, and
particularly your dispensing with ceremony, occasionally walking the
streets; while Adams is never seen but in his carriage and six. As
trivial as this may appear," writes Stuart, "it appears to be more
captivating to the generality, than matters of more importance. Indeed,
I believe the great herd of mankind form their judgments of characters,
more from such slight occurrences, than those of greater magnitude."[71]
This early hostility to ostentation and rank now broke forth in rabid
virulence. In the opinion of the people, as influenced by the French
Revolution, a Governor or President ought not to be referred to as "His
Excellency"; nor a minister of the gospel as "Reverend." Even "sir" or
"esquire" were, plainly, "monarchical." The title "Honorable" or "His
Honor," when applied to any official, even a judge, was base pandering
to aristocracy. "Mr." and "Mrs." were heretical to the new religion of
equality. Nothing but "citizen"[72] would do--citizen judge, citizen
governor, citizen clergyman, citizen colonel, major, or general, citizen
baker, shoemaker, banker, merchant, and farmer,--citizen everybody.
To address the master of ceremonies at a dinner or banquet or other
public gathering as "Mr. Chairman" or "Mr. Toastmaster" was
aristocratic: only "citizen chairman" or "citizen toastmaster" was the
true speech of genuine liberty.[73] And the name of the _Greek_ letter
college fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was the trick of kings to ensnare
our unsuspecting youth. Even "[Greek: Ph.B.K.]" was declared to be "an
infringement of the natural rights of society." A college fraternity was
destructive of the spirit of equality in American colleges.[74]
"_Lèse-républicanisme_" was the term applied to good manners and
politeness.[75]
Such were the surface and harmless evidences of the effect of the French
Revolution on the great mass of American opinion. But a serious and
practical result developed. Starting with the mother organization at
Philadelphia, secret societies sprang up all over the Union in imitation
of the Jacobin Clubs of France. Each society had its corresponding
committee; and thus these organizations were welded into an unbroken
chain. Their avowed purpose was to cherish the principles of human
freedom and to spread the doctrine of true republicanism. But they soon
became practical political agencies; and then, like their French
prototype, the sowers of disorder and the instigators of
insurrection.[76]
The practical activities of these organizations aroused, at last, the
open wrath of Washington. They "are spreading mischief far and wide," he
wrote;[77] and he declared to Randolph that "if these self-created
societies cannot be discountenanced, they will destroy the government of
this country."[78]
Conservative apprehensions were thus voiced by George Cabot: "We have
seen ... the ... representatives of the people butchered, and a band of
relentless murderers ruling in their stead with rods of iron. Will not
this, or something like it, be the wretched fate of our country?... Is
not this hostility and distrust [to just opinions and right sentiments]
chiefly produced by the slanders and falsehoods which the anarchists
incessantly inculcate?"[79]
Young men like John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts and John Marshall of
Virginia thought that "the rabble that followed on the heels of Jack
Cade could not have devised greater absurdities than" the French
Revolution had inspired in America;[80] but they were greatly
outnumbered by those for whom Jefferson spoke when he said that "I feel
that the permanence of our own [Government] leans" on the success of the
French Revolution.[81]
The American democratic societies, like their French originals, declared
that theirs was the voice of "the people," and popular clamor justified
the claim.[82] Everybody who dissented from the edicts of the clubs was
denounced as a public robber or monarchist. "What a continual yelping
and barking are our Swindlers, Aristocrats, Refugees, and British Agents
making at the Constitutional Societies" which were "like a noble
mastiff ... with ... impotent and noisy puppies at his heels," cried the
indignant editor of the "Independent Chronicle" of Boston,[83] to whom
the democratic societies were "guardians of liberty."
While these organizations strengthened radical opinion and fashioned
American sympathizers of the French Revolution into disciplined ranks,
they also solidified the conservative elements of the United States.
Most viciously did the latter hate these "Jacobin Clubs," the principles
they advocated, and their interference with public affairs. "They were
born in sin, the impure offspring of Genêt," wrote Fisher Ames.
"They are the few against the many; the sons of darkness (for their
meetings are secret) against those of the light; and above all, it is a
_town_ cabal, attempting to rule the _country_."[84] This testy New
Englander thus expressed the extreme conservative feeling against the
"insanity which is epidemic":[85] "This French mania," said Ames, "is
the bane of our politics, the mortal poison that makes our peace so
sickly."[86] "They have, like toads, sucked poison from the earth. They
thirst for vengeance."[87] "The spirit of mischief is as active as the
element of fire and as destructive."[88] Ames describes the activities
of the Boston Society and the aversion of the "better classes" for it:
"The club is despised here by men of right heads," he writes. "But ...
they [the members of the Club] poison every spring; they whisper lies to
every gale; they are everywhere, always acting like Old Nick and his
imps.... They will be as busy as Macbeth's witches at the
election."[89]
In Virginia the French Revolution and the American "Jacobins" helped to
effect that change in Patrick Henry's political sentiments which his
increasing wealth had begun. "If my Country," wrote Henry to Washington,
"is destined in my day to encounter the horrors of anarchy, every power
of mind or body which I possess will be exerted in support of the
government under which I live."[90] As to France itself, Henry predicted
that "anarchy will be succeeded by despotism" and Bonaparte,
"Caesar-like, subvert the liberties of his country."[91]
Marshall was as much opposed to the democratic societies as was
Washington, or Cabot, or Ames, but he was calmer in his opposition,
although vitriolic enough. When writing even ten years later, after time
had restored perspective and cooled feeling, Marshall says that these
"pernicious societies"[92] were "the resolute champions of all the
encroachments attempted by the agents of the French republic on the
government of the United States, and the steady defamers of the views
and measures of the American executive."[93] He thus describes their
decline:--
"The colossean power of the [French] clubs, which had been abused to an
excess that gives to faithful history the appearance of fiction, fell
with that of their favourite member, and they sunk into long merited
disgrace. The means by which their political influence had been
maintained were wrested from them; and, in a short time, their meetings
were prohibited. Not more certain is it that the boldest streams must
disappear, if the fountains which fed them be emptied, than was the
dissolution of the democratic societies of America, when the Jacobin
clubs were denounced by France. As if their destinies depended on the
same thread, the political death of the former was the unerring signal
for that of the latter."[94]
Such was the effect of the French Revolution on American thought at the
critical period of our new Government's first trials. To measure justly
the speech and conduct of men during the years we are now to review,
this influence must always be borne in mind. It was woven into every
great issue that arose in the United States. Generally speaking, the
debtor classes and the poorer people were partisans of French
revolutionary principles; and the creditor classes, the mercantile and
financial interests, were the enemies of what they called "Jacobin
philosophy." In a broad sense, those who opposed taxes, levied to
support a strong National Government, sympathized with the French
Revolution and believed in its ideas; those who advocated taxes for that
purpose, abhorred that convulsion and feared its doctrines.
Those who had disliked government before the Constitution was
established and who now hated National control, heard in the preachings
of the French revolutionary theorists the voice of their hearts; while
those who believed that government is essential to society and
absolutely indispensable to the building of the American Nation, heard
in the language and saw in the deeds of the French Revolution the forces
that would wreck the foundations of the state even while they were but
being laid and, in the end, dissolve society itself. Thus were the ideas
of Nationality and localism in America brought into sharper conflict by
the mob and guillotine in France.
All the passion for irresponsible liberty which the French Revolution
increased in America, as well as all the resentment aroused by the
financial measures and foreign policy of the "Federal Administrations,"
were combined in the opposition to and attacks upon a strong National
Government. Thus provincialism in the form of States' Rights was given a
fresh impulse and a new vitality. Through nearly all the important
legislation and diplomacy of those stirring and interpretative years
ran, with ever increasing clearness, the dividing line of Nationalism as
against localism.
Such are the curious turns of human history. Those whom Jefferson led
profoundly believed that they were fighting for human rights; and in
their view and as a practical matter at that particular time this sacred
cause meant State Rights. For everything which they felt to be
oppressive, unjust, and antagonistic to liberty, came from the National
Government. By natural contrast in their own minds, as well as by
assertions of their leaders, the State Governments were the sources of
justice and the protectors of the genuine rights of man.
In the development of John Marshall as well as of his great ultimate
antagonist, Thomas Jefferson, during the formative decade which we are
now to consider, the influence of the French Revolution must never be
forgotten. Not a circumstance of the public lives of these two men and
scarcely an incident of their private experience but was shaped and
colored by this vast series of human events. Bearing in mind the
influence of the French Revolution on American opinion, and hence, on
Marshall and Jefferson, let us examine the succeeding years in the light
of this determining fact.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "That the principles of America opened the Bastille is not to be
doubted." (Thomas Paine to Washington, May 1, 1790; _Cor. Rev.^2_:
Sparks, iv, 328.) "The principles of it [the French Revolution] were
copied from America." (Paine to Citizens of the United States, Nov. 15,
1802; _Writings_: Conway, iii, 381.)
"Did not the American Revolution produce the French Revolution? And did
not the French Revolution produce all the Calamities and Desolations to
the human Race and the whole Globe ever since?" (Adams to Rush, Aug. 28,
1811; _Old Family Letters_, 352.)
"Many of ... the leaders [of the French Revolution] have imbibed their
principles in America, and all have been fired by our example."
(Gouverneur Morris to Washington, Paris, April 29, 1789; _Cor. Rev._:
Sparks, iv, 256.)
"All the friends of freedom on this side the Atlantic are now rejoicing
for an event which ... has been accelerated by the American
Revolution.... You have been the means of raising that spirit in Europe
which ... will ... extinguish every remain of that barbarous servitude
under which all the European nations, in a less ... degree, have so long
been subject." (Catharine M. Graham to Washington, Berks (England), Oct.
1789; _ib._, 284; and see Cobbett, i, 97.)
[2] See vol. I, chap. VIII, of this work.
[3] Marshall, ii, 155. "The mad harangues of the [French] National
Convention were all translated and circulated through the States. The
enthusiasm they excited it is impossible for me to describe." (Cobbett
in "Summary View"; Cobbett, i, 98.)
[4] Jefferson to Humphreys, March 18, 1789; _Works_: Ford, v, 467.
[5] Jefferson to Madison, Aug. 28, 1789; _ib._, 490.
[6] _Boston Gazette_, Sept. 7 and Nov. 30, 1789; as quoted in Hazen; and
see Hazen, 142-43.
[7] Gouverneur Morris to Washington, Paris, April 29, 1789; _Cor. Rev._:
Sparks, iv, 256. Even Jefferson had doubted French capacity for
self-government because of what he described as French light-mindedness.
(Jefferson to Mrs. Adams, Feb. 22, 1787; _Works_: Ford, v, 263; also see
vol. I, chap. VIII, of this work.)
[8] Morris to Washington, July 31, 1789; _Cor. Rev._: Sparks, iv, 270.
[9] Lafayette to Washington, May 25, 1788; _Cor. Rev._: Sparks, iv, 216.
Lafayette's letters to Washington, from the beginning of the French
Revolution down to his humiliating expulsion from France, constitute a
thermometer of French temperature, all the more trustworthy because his
letters are so naïve. For example, in March, 1790: "Our revolution is
getting on as well as it can, with a nation that has swallowed liberty
at once, and is still liable to mistake licentiousness for freedom." Or,
in August of the same year: "I have lately lost some of my favor with
the mob, and displeased the frantic lovers of licentiousness, as I am
bent on establishing a legal subordination." Or, six months later: "I
still am tossed about in the ocean of factions and commotions of every
kind." Or, two months afterwards: "There appears a kind of phenomenon in
my situation; all parties against me, and a national popularity which,
in spite of every effort, has been unshakable." (Lafayette to
Washington, March 17, 1790; _ib._, 321; Aug. 28, _ib._, 345; March 7,
1791, _ib._, 361; May 3, 1791, _ib._, 372.)
[10] G. Morris to R. Morris, Dec. 24, 1792; Morris, ii, 15.
[11] _Ib._, i, 582-84.
[12] Louis Otto to De Montmorin, March 10, 1792; _Writings_: Conway,
iii, 153.
[13] _Ib._, 154-56.
[14] Morris associated with the nobility in France and accepted the
aristocratic view. (_Ib._; and see A. Esmein, Membre de l'Institut:
_Gouverneur Morris, un témoin américain de la révolution française_,
Paris, 1906.)
[15] Marshall, ii, note xvi, p. 17.
[16] Recent investigation establishes the fact that the inmates of the
Bastille generally found themselves very well off indeed. The records of
this celebrated prison show that even prisoners of mean station, when
incarcerated for so grave a crime as conspiracy against the King's life,
had, in addition to remarkably abundant meals, an astonishing amount of
extra viands and refreshments including comfortable quantities of wine,
brandy, and beer. Prisoners of higher station fared still more
generously, of course. (Funck-Brentano: _Legends of the Bastille_,
85-113; see also _ib._, introduction.) It should be said, however, that
the _lettres de cachet_ were a chief cause of complaint, although the
stories, generally exaggerated, concerning the cruel treatment of
prisoners came to be the principal count of the public indictment of the
Bastille.
[17] Lafayette to Washington, March 17, 1790; _Cor. Rev._: Sparks, iv,
322.
[18] Washington to Lafayette, August 11, 1790; _Writings:_ Ford, xi,
493.
[19] Paine to Washington, May 1, 1790; _Cor. Rev._: Sparks, iv, 328.
Paine did not, personally, bring the key, but forwarded it from London.
[20] Burke in the House of Commons; _Works_: Burke, i, 451-53.
[21] _Ib._
[22] _Reflections on the Revolution in France_; _ib._, i, 489. Jefferson
well stated the American radical opinion of Burke: "The Revolution of
France does not astonish me so much as the Revolution of Mr. Burke....
How mortifying that this evidence of the rottenness of his mind must
oblige us now to ascribe to wicked motives those actions of his life
which were the mark of virtue & patriotism." (Jefferson to Vaughan, May
11, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 260.)
[23] Paine had not yet lost his immense popularity in the United States.
While, later, he came to be looked upon with horror by great numbers of
people, he enjoyed the regard and admiration of nearly everybody in
America at the time his _Rights of Man_ appeared.
[24] _Writings_: Conway, ii, 272.
[25] _Writings_: Conway, ii, 406. At this very moment the sympathizers
with the French Revolution in America were saying exactly the reverse.
[26] _Writings_: Conway, ii, 278-79, 407, 408, 413, 910.
[27] Compare with Jefferson's celebrated letter to Mazzei (_infra_,
chap. VII). Jefferson was now, however, in Washington's Cabinet.
[28] Jefferson to Paine, June 19, 1792; _Works_: Ford, vii, 121-22; and
see Hazen, 157-60. Jefferson had, two years before, expressed precisely
the views set forth in Paine's _Rights of Man_. Indeed, he stated them
in even more startling terms. (See Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789;
_ib._, vi, 1-11.)
[29] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65-110. John Quincy Adams wrote
these admirable essays when he was twenty-four years old. Their logic,
wit, and style suggest the writer's incomparable mother. Madison, who
remarked their quality, wrote to Jefferson: "There is more of method ...
in the arguments, and much less of clumsiness & heaviness in the style,
than characterizes his [John Adams's] writings." (Madison to Jefferson,
July 13, 1791; _Writings_: Hunt, vi, 56.)
The sagacious industry of Mr. Worthington C. Ford has made these and all
the other invaluable papers of the younger Adams accessible, in his
_Writings of John Quincy Adams_ now issuing.
[30] Jefferson to Adams, July 17, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 283, and
footnote; also see Jefferson to Washington, May 8, 1791; _ib._, 255-56.
Jefferson wrote Washington and the elder Adams, trying to evade his
patronage of Paine's pamphlet; but, as Mr. Ford moderately remarks,
"the explanation was somewhat lame." (_Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65;
and see Hazen, 156-57.) Later Jefferson avowed that "Mr. Paine's
principles ... were the principles of the citizens of the U. S."
(Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 30, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 314.) To his
intimate friend, Monroe, Jefferson wrote that "Publicola, in attacking
all Paine's principles, is very desirous of involving me in the same
censure with the author. I certainly merit the same, for I profess the
same principles." (Jefferson to Monroe, July 10, 1791; _ib._, 280.)
Jefferson at this time was just on the threshold of his discovery of and
campaign against the "deep-laid plans" of Hamilton and the Nationalists
to transform the newborn Republic into a monarchy and to deliver the
hard-won "liberties" of the people into the rapacious hands of
"monocrats," "stockjobbers," and other "plunderers" of the public. (See
next chapter.)
[31] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65-66.
[32] Although John Quincy Adams had just been admitted to the bar, he
was still a student in the law office of Theophilus Parsons at the time
he wrote the Publicola papers.
[33] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 65-110.
[34] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, footnote to 107.
"As soon as Publicola attacked Paine, swarms appeared in his defense....
Instantly a host of writers attacked Publicola in support of those
[Paine's] principles." (Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 30, 1791; _Works_:
Ford, vi, 314; and see Jefferson to Madison, July 10, 1791; _ib._, 279.)
[35] _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 110.
[36] Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791; _Writings_; Hunt, vi, 56; and
see Monroe to Jefferson, July 25, 1791; Monroe's _Writings_: Hamilton,
i, 225-26.
[37] A verse of a song by French Revolutionary enthusiasts at a Boston
"CIVIC FESTIVAL in commemoration of the SUCCESSES of their French
brethren in their glorious enterprise for the ESTABLISHMENT of EQUAL
LIBERTY," as a newspaper describes the meeting, expresses in reserved
and moderate fashion the popular feeling:--
"See the bright flame arise,
In yonder Eastern skies
Spreading in veins;
'T is pure Democracy
Setting all Nations free
Melting their chains."
At this celebration an ox with gilded horns, one bearing the French flag
and the other the American; carts of bread and two or three hogsheads of
rum; and other devices of fancy and provisions for good cheer were the
material evidence of the radical spirit. (See _Columbian Centinel_, Jan.
26, 1793.)
[38] It is certain that Madison could not possibly have continued in
public life if he had remained a conservative and a Nationalist. (See
next chapter.)
[39] Marshall, ii, 239.
[40] Jefferson to Martha Jefferson Randolph, May 26, 1793; _Works_:
Ford, vii, 345.
[41] Marshall, ii, 249-51.
[42] Marshall, ii, 251-52.
[43] Jefferson to T. M. Randolph, Jan. 7, 1793; _Works_: Ford, vii, 207.
[44] Mass. Hist. Collections (7th Series), i, 138.
[45] Typical excerpts from Short's reports to Jefferson are: July 20,
1792: "Those mad & corrupted people in France who under the name of
liberty have destroyed their own government [French Constitution of
1791] & disgusted all ... men of honesty & property.... All the rights
of humanity ... are daily violated with impunity ... universal anarchy
prevails.... There is no succour ... against mobs & factions which have
assumed despotic power."
July 31: "The factions which have lately determined the system ... for
violating all the bonds of civil society ... have disgusted all, except
the _sans culottes_ ... with the present order of things ... the most
perfect & universal disorder that ever reigned in any country. Those who
from the beginning took part in the revolution ... have been disgusted,
by the follies, injustice, & atrocities of the Jacobins.... All power
[is] in the hands of the most mad, wicked & atrocious assembly that ever
was collected in any country."
August 15: "The Swiss guards have been massacred by the people & ...
streets literally are red with blood."
October 12: "Their [French] successes abroad are unquestionably evils
for humanity. The spirit which they will propagate is so destructive of
all order ... so subversive of all ideas of justice--the system they aim
at so absolutely visionary & impracticable--that their efforts can end
in nothing but despotism after having bewildered the unfortunate people,
whom they render free in their way, in violence & crimes, & wearied them
with sacrifices of blood, which alone they consider worthy of the furies
whom they worship under the names of _Liberté_ & _Egalité_!"
August 24: "I sh^d. not be at all surprized to hear of the present
leaders being hung by the people. Such has been the moral of this
revolution from the beginning. The people have gone farther than their
leaders.... We may expect ... to hear of such proceedings, under the
cloak of liberty, _égalité_ & patriotism as would disgrace any _chambre
ardente_ that has ever created in humanity shudders at the idea." (Short
MSS., Lib. Cong.)
These are examples of the statements to which Jefferson's letter, quoted
in the text following, was the reply. Short's most valuable letters are
from The Hague, to which he had been transferred. They are all the more
important, as coming from a young radical whom events in France had
changed into a conservative. And Jefferson's letter is conclusive of
American popular sentiment, which he seldom opposed.
[46] Almost at the same time Thomas Paine was writing to Jefferson from
Paris of "the Jacobins who act without either prudence or morality."
(Paine to Jefferson, April 20, 1793; _Writings_: Conway, iii, 132.)
[47] Jefferson to Short, Jan. 3, 1793; _Works_: Ford, vii, 202-05. Short
had written Jefferson that Morris, then in Paris, would inform him of
French conditions. Morris had done so. For instance, he wrote officially
to Jefferson, nearly four months before the latter's letter to Short
quoted in the text, that: "We have had one week of unchecked murders, in
which some thousands have perished in this city [Paris]. It began with
between two and three hundred of the clergy, who would not take the oath
prescribed by law. Thence these _executors of speedy justice_ went to
the Abbaye, where the prisoners were confined who were at Court on the
10th. Madame de Lamballe ... was beheaded and disembowelled; the head
and entrails paraded on pikes through the street, and the body dragged
after them," etc., etc. (Morris to Jefferson, Sept. 10, 1792; Morris, i,
583-84.)
[48] Madison to Jefferson, June 17, 1793; _Writings_: Hunt, vi, 133.
[49] Paine to Danton, May 6, 1793; _Writings_: Conway, iii, 135-38.
[50] "Truth," in the _General Advertiser_ (Philadelphia), May 8, 1793.
"Truth" denied that Louis XVI had aided us in our Revolution and
insisted that it was the French Nation that had come to our assistance.
Such was the disregard of the times for even the greatest of historic
facts, and facts within the personal knowledge of nine tenths of the
people then living.
[51] See _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 151.
[52] Jefferson to Madison, April 28, 1793; _Works_: Ford, vii, 301.
[53] For examples of these, see Hazen, 220-45.
[54] Graydon, 363.
[55] Freneau's _National Gazette_ defended the execution of the King and
the excesses of the Terror. (Hazen, 256; and see Cobbett, iii, 4.) While
Cobbett, an Englishman, was a fanatic against the whole democratic
movement, and while his opinions are violently prejudiced, his
statements of fact are generally trustworthy. "I have seen a bundle of
Gazettes published all by the same man, wherein Mirabeau, Fayette,
Brissot, Danton, Robespierre, and Barras, are all panegyrized and
execrated in due succession." (_Ib._, i, 116.) Cobbett did his best to
turn the radical tide, but to no purpose. "Alas!" he exclaimed, "what
can a straggling pamphlet ... do against a hundred thousand volumes of
miscellaneous falsehood in folio?" (_Ib._, iii, 5.)
[56] See next chapter.
[57] Fenno to Hamilton, Nov. 9, 1793; King, i, 501-02. "The hand of
benevolence & _patriotism_" was extended, it appears: "If you can ...
raise 1000 Dollars in New York, I will endeavor to raise another
Thousand at Philadelphia. If this cannot be done, we must lose his
[Fenno's and the _Gazette of the United States_] services & he will be
the Victim of his honest public spirit." (Hamilton to King, Nov. 11,
1793; King, i, 502.)
[58] Cobbett, i, footnote to 114. Curiously enough Louis XVI had
believed that he was leading the French people in the reform movement.
Thomas Paine, who was then in Paris, records that "The King ... prides
himself on being the head of the revolution." (Paine to Washington, May
1, 1790; _Cor. Rev._: Sparks, iv, 328.)
[59] Cobbett, i, 113-14; and see Hazen, 258. For other accounts of the
"feasts" in honor of _liberté, égalité, et fraternité_, in America, see
_ib._, 165-73.
[60] Cobbett, i, 113.
[61] For instance, the younger Adams wrote that the French Revolution
had "contributed more to ... Vandalic ignorance than whole centuries can
retrieve.... The myrmidons of Robespierre were as ready to burn
libraries as the followers of Omar; and if the principle is finally to
prevail which puts the sceptre of Sovereignty in the hands of European
Sans Culottes, they will soon reduce everything to the level of their
own ignorance." (John Quincy Adams to his father, July 27, 1795;
_Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, i, 389.)
And James A. Bayard wrote that: "The Barbarians who inundated the Roman
Empire and broke to pieces the institutions of the civilized world, in
my opinion innovated the state of things not more than the French
revolution." (Bayard to Bassett, Dec. 30, 1797; _Bayard Papers_: Donnan,
47.)
[62] Freneau, iii, 86.
[63] Marshall, ii, 387.
[64] Austria.
[65] Marshall, ii, 387.
[66] "They have long considered the M^{is} de lafayette as really the
firmest supporter of the principles of liberty in France--& as they are
for the most part no friends to these principles anywhere, they cannot
conceal the pleasure they [the aristocracy at The Hague] feel at their
[principles of liberty] supporters' being thus expelled from the country
where he laboured to establish them." (Short to Jefferson, Aug. 24,
1792; Short MSS., Lib. Cong.)
[67] Cobbett, i, 112.
[68] _Ib._ When the corporation of New York City thus took all monarchy
out of its streets, Noah Webster suggested that, logically, the city
ought to get rid of "this vile aristocratical name New York"; and, why
not, inquired he, change the name of Kings County, Queens County, and
Orange County? "Nay," exclaimed the sarcastic savant, "what will become
of the people named King? Alas for the liberties of such people!"
(Hazen, 216.)
[69] Hazen, 218.
[70] J. Q. Adams, to T. B. Adams, Feb. 1, 1792; _Writings, J. Q. A._:
Ford, i, 111-13.
[71] Stuart to Washington, July 14, 1789; _Cor. Rev._: Sparks, iv,
265-66; and see Randolph to Madison, May 19, 1789; Conway, 124.
[72] See Hazen, 209-15.
[73] _Ib._, 213.
[74] See Hazen, 215.
[75] Cobbett, i, 111.
[76] For an impartial and comprehensive account of these clubs see
Hazen, 188-208; also, Marshall, ii, 269 _et seq._ At first many
excellent and prominent men were members; but these withdrew when the
clubs fell under the control of less unselfish and high-minded persons.
[77] Washington to Thruston, Aug. 10, 1794; _Writings_: Ford, xii, 451.
[78] Washington to Randolph, Oct. 16, 1794; _ib._, 475; and see
Washington to Lee, Aug. 26, 1794; _ib._, 455.
[79] Cabot to Parsons, Aug. 12, 1794; Lodge: _Cabot_, 79.
[80] J. Q. Adams to John Adams, Oct. 19, 1790; _Writings, J. Q. A._:
Ford, i, 64.
[81] Jefferson to Rutledge, Aug. 29, 1791; _Works_: Ford, vi, 309.
[82] See Hazen, 203-07.
[83] September 18, 1794.
[84] Ames to Dwight, Sept. 11, 1794; _Works_: Ames, i, 150.
[85] Cabot to King, July 25, 1795; Lodge: _Cabot_, 80.
[86] Ames to Gore, March 26, 1794; _Works_: Ames, i, 139.
[87] Ames to Minot, Feb. 20, 1793; _ib._, 128.
[88] Ames to Gore, Jan. 28, 1794; _ib._, 134.
[89] Ames to Dwight, Sept. 3, 1794; _ib._, 148.
[90] Henry to Washington, Oct. 16, 1795; Henry, ii, 559.
[91] _Ib._, 576.
[92] Marshall, ii, 353.
[93] _Ib._, 269.
[94] Marshall, ii, 353-54.