The Life of John Marshall Volume III Part 26

[511] _Maryland Historical Society Fund-Publication No. 24_, p. 20. Burr told Key that "he must not appear as counsel with his loose coat on."

(Plumer, Feb. 11, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)

[512] Adams: _U.S._ II, 227-28. Bayard strongly urged Chase to have no counsel, but to defend himself. (Bayard to Harper, Jan. 30, 1804, _Bayard Papers_: Donnan, 159-60.)

[513] See Story's description of Martin three years later, Story to Fay, Feb. 16, 1808, Story, I, 163-64.

Luther Martin well ill.u.s.trates the fleeting nature of the fame of even the greatest lawyers. For two generations he was "an acknowledged leader of the American bar," and his preeminence in that n.o.ble profession was brightened by fine public service. Yet within a few years after his death, he was totally forgotten, and to-day few except historical students know that such a man ever lived.

Martin began his practice of the law when twenty-three years of age and his success was immediate and tremendous. His legal learning was prodigious--his memory phenomenal.

Apparently, Martin was the heaviest drinker of that period of heavy drinking men. The inexplicable feature of his continuous excesses was that his mighty drinking seldom appeared to affect his professional efficiency. Only once in his long and active career did intoxication interfere with his work in court. (See _infra_, 586.)

Pa.s.sionate in his loves and hates, he abhorred Jefferson with all the ardor of his violent nature; and his favorite denunciation of any bad man was, "Sir! he is as great a scoundrel as Thomas Jefferson."

For thirty years Martin was the Attorney-General of Maryland. He was the most powerful member of his State in the Convention that framed the National Const.i.tution which he refused to sign, opposing the ratification of it in arguments of such signal ability that forty years afterward John C. Calhoun quarried from them the material for his famous Nullification speeches.

When, however, the Const.i.tution was ratified and became the supreme law of the land, Martin, with characteristic wholeheartedness, supported it loyally and championed the Administrations of Was.h.i.+ngton and Adams.

He was the lifelong friend of the impeached justice, to whom he owed his first appointment as Attorney-General of Maryland as well as great a.s.sistance and encouragement in the beginning of his career. Chase and he were also boon companions, each filled with admiration for the talents and attainments of the other, and strikingly similar in their courage and fidelity to friends and principles. So the lawyer threw himself into the fight for the persecuted judge with all his astonis.h.i.+ng strength.

When, in his old age, he was stricken with paralysis, the Maryland Legislature placed a tax of five dollars annually on all lawyers for his support. After Martin's death the bench and bar of Baltimore pa.s.sed a resolution that "we will wear mourning for the s.p.a.ce of thirty days."

(_American Law Review_, I, 279.)

No biography of Martin has ever been written; but there are two excellent sketches of his life, one by Ashley M. Gould in _Great American Lawyers_: Lewis, II, 3-46; and the other by Henry P. G.o.ddard in the _Md. Hist. Soc. Fund. Pub. No. 24._

[514] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 160-61. The case to which Randolph refers was that of the United States _vs._ Thomas Logwood, indicted in April, 1801, for counterfeiting. Logwood was tried in the United States Circuit Court at Richmond during June, 1804. Marshall, sitting with District Judge Cyrus Griffin, presided. Notwithstanding Marshall's liberality, Logwood was convicted and Marshall sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment at hard labor. (Order Book No. 4, 464, Records, U.S.

Circuit Court, Richmond.)

[515] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 163-65; _Chase Trial_, 18. Randolph disgusted the Federalists. "This speech is the most feeble--the most incorrect that I ever heard him make." (Plumer, Feb. 9, 1805, "Diary,"

Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)

[516] Two witnesses to the Baltimore incident, George Reed and John Montgomery, committed their testimony to memory as much "as ever a Presbyterian clergyman did his sermon--or an Episcopalian his prayer."

(Plumer, Feb. 14, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)

[517] See _supra_, chap. I.

[518] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 203-05; _Chase Trial_, 36-37.

[519] Plumer, Feb. 11, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.

[520] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 200; _Chase Trial_, 35.

[521] See _supra_, chap. I.

[522] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 207. John Quincy Adams's description of all of the evidence is important and entertaining:

"Not only the casual expressions dropped in private conversations among friends and intimates, as well as strangers and adversaries, in the recess of a bed-chamber as well as at public taverns and in stage coaches, had been carefully and malignantly laid up and preserved for testimony on this prosecution; not only more witnesses examined to points of _opinion_, and called upon for discrimination to such a degree as to say whether the deportment of the Judge was _imperative_ or _imperious_, but hours of interrogation and answer were consumed in evidence to _looks_, to _bows_, to tones of voice and modes of speech--to prove the insufferable grievance that Mr. Chase had more than once raised a laugh at the expense of Callender's counsel, and to ascertain the tremendous fact that he had accosted the ATTORNEY GENERAL _of Virginia_ by the appellation of _Young Gentleman_!!

"If by thumbscrews, the memory of a witness trace back for a period of five years the features of the Judge's face, it could be darkened with a frown, it was to be construed into rude and contumelious treatment of the Virginia bar; if it was found lightened with a smile, 'tyrants in all ages had been notorious for their pleasantry.'

"In short, sir, Gravity himself could not keep his countenance at the nauseating littlenesses which were resorted to for proof of atrocious criminality, and indignation melted into ridicule at the puerile perseverance with which _nothings_ were acc.u.mulated, with the hope of making _something_ by their mult.i.tude.

"All this, however, was received because Judge Chase would not suffer his counsel to object against it. He indulged his accusers with the utmost licence of investigation which they ever derived [_sic_], and contented himself with observing to the court that he expected to be judged upon the _legal_ evidence in the case." (J. Q. Adams to his father, March 8, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, 112-13.)

[523] This was the fourth member of the Marshall family upon whom offices were bestowed while Marshall was Secretary of State. (See vol.

II, 560, of this work.)

[524] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 251-62; _Chase Trial_, 65-69. "I was unable to give credence to his [Heath's] testimony." (Plumer, Feb. 12, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.) Although Heath's story was entirely false, it has, nevertheless, found a place in serious history.

Marshall's brother made an excellent impression on the Senate. "His answers were both prompt & lucid--There was a frankness, a fairness & I will add a firmness that did him much credit. His testimony was [on certain points] ... a complete defense of the accused." (_Ib._ Feb. 15, 1805.)

[525] Harvie's son, Jacquelin B. Harvie, married Marshall's daughter Mary. (Paxton: _Marshall Family_, 100.)

[526] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 262-67; _Chase Trial_, 71.

[527] Plumer, Feb. 16, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.

[528] Feb. 19, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 354.

Chase did not leave Was.h.i.+ngton, and was in court when some of the arguments were made. (See Chase to Hopkinson, March 10, 1805; Hopkinson MSS. in possession of Edward P. Hopkinson, Phila.)

[529] Feb. 13, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 351.

[530] _Ib._ The motion to admit the public was carried by one vote only.

(Plumer, Feb. 13, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)

[531] Feb. 13, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 353.

[532] Feb. 20, 1805, _ib._ 355.

[533] Cutler, II, 183; also _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 313-29; _Chase Trial_, 101-07.

[534] Plumer, Feb. 20, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.

[535] Cutler, II, 183.

[536] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 329-53; _Chase Trial_, 107 _et seq._

[537] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 355-56.

[538] Plumer, Feb. 21, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.

[539] Adams: _U.S._ II, 231. Even Randolph praised him. (_Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 640.)

[540] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 354-94; _Chase Trial_, 116-49.

[541] Feb. 21, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 356.

"The effect on the auditory [was] prodigiously great." (Cutler, II, 184.)