The Life of John Marshall Volume III Part 2

This conduct of the National Judiciary furnished Jefferson with another of those "issues" of which that astute politician knew how to make such effective use. He quickly seized upon it, and with characteristic fervency of phrase used it as a powerful weapon against the Federalist Party. All the evil things accomplished by that organization of "monocrats," "aristocrats," and "monarchists"--the bank, the treaty, the Sedition Act, even the army and the navy--"have been solitary, inconsequential, timid things," avowed Jefferson, "in comparison with the audacious, barefaced and sweeping pretension to a system of law for the U.S. without the adoption of their legislature, and so infinitely beyond their power to adopt."[93]

But if the National judges had caused alarm by treating the common law as though it were a statute of the United States without waiting for an act of Congress to make it so, their manners and methods in the enforcement of the Sedition Act[94] aroused against them an ever-increasing hostility.

Stories of their performances on the bench in such cases--their tones when speaking to counsel, to accused persons, and even to witnesses, their immoderate language, their sympathy with one of the European nations then at war and their animosity toward the other, their partisans.h.i.+p in cases on trial before them--tales made up from such material flew from mouth to mouth, until finally the very name and sight of National judges became obnoxious to most Americans. In short, the a.s.saults upon the National Judiciary were made possible chiefly by the conduct of the National judges themselves.[95]

The first man convicted under the Sedition Law was a Representative in Congress, the notorious Matthew Lyon of Vermont. He had charged President Adams with a "continual grasp for power ... an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation and selfish avarice."

Also, Lyon had permitted the publication of a letter to him from Joel Barlow, in which the President's address to the Senate and the Senate's response[96] were referred to as "the bullying speech of your President"

and "the stupid answer of your Senate"; and expressed wonder "that the answer of both Houses had not been an order to send him [Adams] to the mad house."[97]

Lyon was indicted under the accusation that he had tried "to stir up sedition and to bring the President and Government of the United States into contempt." He declared that the jury was selected from his enemies.[98] Under the charge of Justice Paterson of the Supreme Court he was convicted. The court sentenced him to four months in jail and the payment of a fine of one thousand dollars.[99]

In the execution of the sentence, United States Marshal Jabez G. Fitch used the prisoner cruelly. On the way to the jail at Vergennes, Vermont, he was repeatedly insulted. He was finally thrown into a filthy, stench-filled cell without a fireplace and with nothing "but the iron bars to keep the cold out." It was "the common receptacle for horse-thieves ... runaway negroes, or any kind of felons." He was subjected to the same kind of treatment that was accorded in those days to the lowest criminals.[100] The people were deeply stirred by the fate of Matthew Lyon. Quick to realize and respond to public feeling, Jefferson wrote: "I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things."[101]

One Anthony Haswell, editor of the _Vermont Gazette_ published at Bennington, printed an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a lottery by which friends of Lyon, who was a poor man, hoped to raise enough money to pay his fine.

This advertis.e.m.e.nt was addressed "to the enemies of political persecutions in the western district of Vermont." It was a.s.serted that Lyon "is holden by the oppressive hand of usurped power in a loathsome prison, deprived almost of the right of reason, and suffering all the indignities which can be heaped upon him by a hard-hearted savage, who has, to the disgrace of Federalism, been elevated to a station where he can satiate his barbarity on the misery of his victims."[102] The "savage" referred to was United States Marshal Fitch. In the same paper an excerpt was reprinted from the _Aurora_ which declared that "the administration publically notified that Tories ... were worthy of the confidence of the government."[103]

Haswell was indicted for sedition. In defense he established the brutality with which Lyon had been treated and proposed to prove by two witnesses not then present (General James Drake of Virginia, and James McHenry, President Adams's Secretary of War) that the Government favored the occasional appointment of Tories to office. Justice Paterson ruled that such evidence was inadmissible, and charged the jury that if Haswell's intent was defamatory, he should be found guilty. Thereupon he was convicted and sentenced to two months' imprisonment and the payment of a fine of two hundred dollars.[104]

Dr. Thomas Cooper, editor of the _Sunbury and Northumberland Gazette_ in Pennsylvania, in the course of a political controversy declared in his paper that when, in the beginning of Adams's Administration, he had asked the President for an office, Adams "was hardly in the infancy of political mistake; even those who doubted his capacity thought well of his intentions.... Nor were we yet saddled with the expense of a permanent navy, or threatened ... with the existence of a standing army.... Mr. Adams ... had not yet interfered ... to influence the decisions of a court of justice."[105]

For this "attack" upon the President, Cooper was indicted under the Sedition Law. Conducting his own defense, he pointed out the issues that divided the two great parties, and insisted upon the propriety of such political criticism as that for which he had been indicted.

Cooper was himself learned in the law,[106] and during the trial he applied for a subpoena _duces tec.u.m_ to compel President Adams to attend as a witness, bringing with him certain doc.u.ments which Cooper alleged to be necessary to his defense. In a rage Justice Samuel Chase of the Supreme Court, before whom, with Judge Richard Peters of the District Court, the case was tried, refused to issue the writ. For this he was denounced by the Republicans. In the trial of Aaron Burr, Marshall was to issue this very writ to President Thomas Jefferson and, for doing so, to be rebuked, denounced, and abused by the very partisans who now a.s.sailed Justice Chase for refusing to grant it.[107]

Justice Chase charged the jury at intolerable length: "If a man attempts to destroy the confidence of the people in their officers ... he effectually saps the foundation of the government." It was plain that Cooper "intended to provoke" the Administration, for had he not admitted that, although he did not arraign the motives, he did mean "to censure the conduct of the President"? The offending editor's statement that "our credit is so low that we are obliged to borrow money at 8 per cent.

in time of peace," especially irritated the Justice. "I cannot," he cried, "suppress my feelings at this gross attack upon the President."

Chase then told the jury that the conduct of France had "rendered a loan necessary"; that undoubtedly Cooper had intended "to mislead the ignorant ... and to influence their votes on the next election."

So Cooper was convicted and sentenced "to pay a fine of four hundred dollars, to be imprisoned for six months, and at the end of that period to find surety for his good behavior himself in a thousand, and two sureties in five hundred dollars each."[108]

"Almost every other country" had been "convulsed with ... war,"

desolated by "every species of vice and disorder" which left innocence without protection and encouraged "the basest crimes." Only in America there was no "grievance to complain of." Yet our Government had been "as grossly abused as if it had been guilty of the vilest tyranny"--as if real "republicanism" could "only be found in the happy soil of France" where "Liberty, like the religion of Mahomet, is propagated by the sword." In the "bosom" of that nation "a dagger was concealed."[109]

In these terms spoke James Iredell, a.s.sociate Justice of the Supreme Court, in addressing the grand jury for the District of Pennsylvania. He was delivering the charge that resulted in the indictment for treason of John Fries and others who had resisted the Federalist land tax.[110]

The triumph of France had, of course, nothing whatever to do with the forcible protest of the Pennsylvania farmers against what they felt to be Federalist extortion; nevertheless upon the charge of Justice Iredell as to the law of treason, they were indicted and convicted for that gravest of all offenses. A new trial was granted because one of the jury, John Rhoad, "had declared a prejudice against the prisoner after he was summoned as a juror."[111] On April 29, 1800, the second trial was held. This time Justice Chase presided. The facts were agreed to by counsel. Before the jury had been sworn, Chase threw on the table three papers in writing and announced that these contained the opinion of the judges upon the law of treason--one copy was for the counsel for the Government, one for the defendant's counsel, and one for the jury.

William Lewis, leading attorney for Fries, and one of the ablest members of the Philadelphia bar,[112] was enraged. He looked upon the paper, flung it from him, declaring that "his hand never should be polluted by a prejudicated opinion," and withdrew from the case, although Chase tried to persuade him to "go on in any manner he liked."

Alexander J. Dallas, the other counsel for Fries, also withdrew, and the terrified prisoner was left to defend himself. The court told him that the judges, personally, would see that justice was done him. Again Fries and his accomplices were convicted under the charge of the court. "In an aweful and affecting manner"[113] Chase p.r.o.nounced the sentence, which was that the condemned men should be "hanged by the neck _until dead_."[114]

The Republicans furiously a.s.sailed this conviction and sentence.

President Adams pardoned Fries and his a.s.sociates, to the disgust and resentment of the Federalist leaders.[115] On both sides the entire proceeding was made a political issue.

On the heels of this "repet.i.tion of outrage," as the Republicans promptly labeled the condemnation of Fries, trod the trial of James Thompson Callender for sedition, over which it was again the fate of the unlucky Chase to preside. _The Prospect Before Us_, written by Callender under the encouragement of Jefferson,[116] contained a characteristically vicious screed against Adams. His Administration had been "a tempest of malignant pa.s.sions"; his system had been "a French war, an American navy, a large standing army, an additional load of taxes." He "was a professed aristocrat and he had proved faithful and serviceable to the British interest" by sending Marshall and his a.s.sociates to France. In the President's speech to Congress,[117] "this h.o.a.ry headed incendiary ... bawls to arms! then to arms!"

Callender was indicted for libel under the Sedition Law.

Before Judge Chase started for Virginia, Luther Martin had given him a copy of Callender's pamphlet, with the offensive pa.s.sages underscored.

During a session of the National court at Annapolis, Chase, in a "jocular conversation," had said that he would take Callender's book with him to Richmond, and that, "if Virginia was not too depraved" to furnish a jury of respectable men, he would certainly punish Callender.

He would teach the lawyers of Virginia the difference between the liberty and the licentiousness of the press.[118] On the road to Richmond, James Triplett boarded the stage that carried the avenging Justice of the Supreme Court. He told Chase that Callender had once been arrested in Virginia as a vagrant. "It is a pity," replied Chase, "that they had not hanged the rascal."[119]

But the people of Virginia, because of their hatred of the Sedition Law, were ardent champions of Callender. Richmond lawyers were hostile to Chase and were the bitter enemies of the statute which they knew he would enforce. Jefferson was anxious that Callender "should be substantially defended, whether in the first stages by public interference or private contributors."[120]

One ambitious young attorney, George Hay, who seven years later was to act as prosecutor in the greatest trial at which John Marshall ever presided,[121] volunteered to defend Callender, animated to this course by devotion to "the cause of the Const.i.tution," in spite of the fact that he "despised" his adopted client.[122] William Wirt was also inspired to offer his services in the interest of free speech. These Virginia attorneys would show this tyrant of the National Judiciary that the Virginia bar could not be borne down.[123] Of all this the hot-spirited Chase was advised; and he resolved to forestall the pa.s.sionate young defenders of liberty. He was as witty as he was fearless, and throughout the trial brought down on Hay and Wirt the laughter of the spectators.

But in the court-room there was one spectator who did not laugh. John Marshall, then Secretary of State, witnessed the proceedings[124] with grave misgivings.

Chase frequently interrupted the defendant's counsel. "What," said he, "must there be a departure from common sense to find out a construction favorable" to Callender? The Justice declared that a legal point which Hay attempted to make was "a wild notion."[125] When a juror said that he had never seen the indictment or heard it read, Chase declared that of course he could not have formed or delivered an opinion on the charges; and then denied the request that the indictment be read for the information of the juror. Chase would not permit that eminent patriot and publicist, Colonel John Taylor of Caroline, to testify that part of Callender's statement was true; "No evidence is admissible," said the Justice, "that does not ... justify the whole charge."[126]

William Wirt, in addressing the jury, was arguing that if the jury believed the Sedition Act to be unconst.i.tutional, and yet found Callender guilty, they "would violate their oath." Chase ordered him to sit down. The jury had no right to pa.s.s upon the const.i.tutionality of the law--"such a power would be extremely dangerous. Hear my words, I wish the world to know them." The Justice then read a long and very able opinion which he had carefully prepared in antic.i.p.ation that this point would be raised by the defense.[127] After another interruption, in which Chase referred to Wirt as "the _young gentleman_" in a manner that vastly amused the audience, the discomfited lawyer, covered with confusion, abandoned the case.

When Hay, in his turn, was addressing the jury, Chase twice interrupted him, a.s.serting that the beardless attorney was not stating the law correctly. The reporter notes that thereupon "Mr. Hay folded up and put away his papers ... and refused to proceed." The Justice begged him to go on, but Hay indignantly stalked from the room.

Acting under the instructions of Chase, Callender was convicted. The court sentenced him to imprisonment for nine months, and to pay a fine of two hundred dollars.[128]

The proceedings at this trial were widely published. The growing indignation of the people at the courts rose to a dangerous point. The force of popular wrath was increased by the alarm of the bar, which generally had been the stanch supporter of the bench.[129]

Hastening from Richmond to New Castle, Delaware, Justice Chase emphasized the opinion now current that he was an American Jeffreys and typical of the spirit of the whole National Judiciary. Upon opening court, he said that he had heard that there was a seditious newspaper in the State. He directed the United States Attorney to search the files of all the papers that could be found, and to report any abusive language discovered. It was the haying season, and the grand jury, most of whom were farmers, asked to be discharged, since there was no business for them to transact. Chase refused and held them until the next day, in order to have them return indictments against any printer that might have criticized the Administration.[130] But the prosecutor's investigation discovered nothing "treasonable" except a brief and unpleasant reference to Chase himself. So ended the Delaware visit of the ferret of the National Judiciary.

Thus a popular conviction grew up that no man was safe who a.s.sumed to criticize National officials. The persecution of Matthew Lyon was recalled, and the punishment of other citizens in cases less widely known[131] became the subject of common talk,--all adding to the growing popular wrath against the whole National Judiciary. The people regarded those brought under the lash of justice as martyrs to the cause of free speech; and so, indeed, they were.

The method of securing indictments and convictions also met with public condemnation. In many States the United States Marshals selected what persons they pleased as members of the grand juries and trial juries.

These officers of the National courts were, without exception, Federalists; in many cases Federalist politicians. When making up juries they selected only persons of the same manner of thinking as that of the marshals and judges themselves.[132] So it was that the juries were nothing more than machines that registered the will, opinion, or even inclination of the National judges and the United States District Attorneys. In short, in these prosecutions, trial by jury in any real sense was not to be had.[133]

Certain State judges of the rabid Federalist type, apostles of "the wise, the rich, and the good" political religion, were as insulting in their bearing, as immoderate in their speech, and as intolerant in their conduct as some of the National judges; and prosecutions in some State courts were as bad as the worst of those in the National tribunals.

In Boston, when the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts was considering the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, John Bacon of Berks.h.i.+re, a Republican State Senator, and Dr. Aaron Hill of Cambridge, the leader of the Republicans in the House, resisted the proposed answer of the Federalist majority. Both maintained the ground upon which Republicans everywhere now stood--that any State might disregard an act of Congress which it deemed unconst.i.tutional.[134] Bacon and Hill were supported by the solid Republican members.h.i.+p of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature, which the _Columbian Centinel_ of Boston, a Federalist organ, called a "contemptible minority," every member of which was "worse than an infidel."[135]

The _Independent Chronicle_, the Republican newspaper of Boston, observed that "It is difficult for the common capacities to conceive of a sovereignty so situated that the _Sovereign shall have no right to decide on any invasion of his const.i.tutional powers_." Bacon's speech, said the _Chronicle_, "has been read with delight by all true Republicans, and will always stand as a monument of his firmness, patriotism, and integrity.... The name of an _American_ Bacon will be handed down to the latest generations of freemen with high respect and grat.i.tude, while the names of such as have aimed a _death wound_ to the Const.i.tution of the United States will rot _above ground_ and be unsavoury to the nostrils of every lover of Republican freedom."[136]

The _Ma.s.sachusetts Mercury_ of February 22, 1799, reports that "On Tuesday last ... Chief Justice Dana ... commented on the contents of the _Independent Chronicle_ of the preceding day. He properly stated to the Jury that though he was not a subscriber to the paper, he obtained _that one_ by accident, that if he was, his conscience would charge him with a.s.sisting to support a traitorous enmity to the Government of his Country."

Thereupon Thomas Adams, the publisher, and Abijah Adams, a younger brother employed in the office, were indicted under the common law for attempting "to bring the government into disrespect, hatred, and contempt," and for encouraging sedition. Thomas Adams was fatally ill and Abijah only was brought to trial. Under the instructions of the court he was convicted. In p.r.o.nouncing sentence Chief Justice Dana delivered a political lecture.

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, he said, had attempted "to establish the monstrous position" that the individual States had the right to pa.s.s upon the const.i.tutionality of acts of Congress. He then gave a resume of the reply of the majority of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature to the Virginia Resolutions. This reply a.s.serted that the decisions of all questions arising under the Const.i.tution and laws of the United States "are exclusively vested in the Judicial Courts of the United States," and that the Sedition Act was "wise and necessary, as an audacious and unprincipled spirit of falsehood and abuse had been too long unremittingly exerted for the purpose of _perverting_ public opinion, and threatened to undermine the whole fabric of government."

The irate judge declared that the _Chronicle's_ criticism of this action of the majority of the Legislature and its praise of the Republican minority of that body was an "indecent and outrageous calumny."

"Censurable as the libel may be in itself," Dana continued, the principles stated by Adams's counsel in conducting his defense were equally "dangerous to public tranquility." These daring lawyers had actually maintained the principle of the liberty of the press. They had denied that an American citizen could be punished under the common law of England. "Novel and disorganizing doctrines," exclaimed Dana in the midst of a long argument to prove that the common law was operative in the United States.[137]

In view of the fact that Abijah Adams was not the author of the libel, nor even the publisher or editor of the _Chronicle_, but was "the only person to whom the public can look for retribution," the court graciously sentenced him to only one month's imprisonment, but required him to find sureties for his good behavior for a year, and to pay the costs of the trial.[138]

Alexander Addison, the presiding judge of one of the Pennsylvania State courts, was another Federalist State judge whose judicial conduct and a.s.saults from the bench upon democracy had helped to bring courts into disrepute. Some of his charges to grand juries were nothing but denunciations of Republican principles.[139]

His manner on the bench was imperious; he bullied counsel, browbeat witnesses, governed his a.s.sociate judges, ruled juries. In one case,[140] Addison forbade the a.s.sociate Judge to address the jury, and prevented him from doing so.[141]

Nor did the judges stop with lecturing everybody from the bench.

Carrying with them the authority of their exalted positions, more than one of them, notably Justice Chase and Judge Addison, took the stump in political campaigns and made partisan speeches.[142]

So it fell out that the manners, language, and conduct of the judges themselves, together with their use of the bench as a political rostrum, their partisans.h.i.+p as to the European belligerents, their merciless enforcement of the common law--aroused that public fear and hatred of the courts which gave Jefferson and the Republicans their opportunity.