The Life of John Marshall Volume III Part 28

[586] Cutler, II, 185.

[587] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1213; and see J. Q. Adams to his father, March 14, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, 117.

[588] Jan. 30, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 341.

[589] See Adams: _U.S._ II, 243.

[590] See _infra_, chap. X.

[591] Plumer, 325. Jefferson soon took Plumer into the Republican fold.

CHAPTER V

BIOGRAPHER

Marshall has written libels on one side. (Jefferson.)

What seemed to him to pa.s.s for dignity, will, by his reader, be p.r.o.nounced dullness. (Edinburgh Review.)

That work was hurried into the world with too much precipitation. It is one of the most desirable objects I have in this life to publish a corrected edition. (Marshall.)

Although the collapse of the Chase impeachment made it certain that Marshall would not be removed from office, and he was thus relieved from one source of sharp anxiety, two other causes of worry served to make this period of his life harried and laborious. His heavy indebtedness to Denny Fairfax[592] continuously troubled him; and, worse still for his peace of mind, he was experiencing the agonies of the literary composer temperamentally unfitted for the task, wholly unskilled in the art, and dealing with a subject sure to arouse the resentment of Jefferson and all his followers. Marshall was writing the "Life of Was.h.i.+ngton."

In a sense it is fortunate for us that he did so, since his long and tiresome letters to his publishers afford us an intimate view of the great Chief Justice and reveal him as very human. But the biography itself was to prove the least satisfactory of all the labors of Marshall's life.

Not long after the death of Was.h.i.+ngton, his nephew, Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton, had induced Marshall to become the biographer of "the Father of his Country." Was.h.i.+ngton's public and private papers were in the possession of his nephew. Although it was advertised that these priceless original materials were to be used in this work exclusively, many of Was.h.i.+ngton's writings had already been used by other authors.

Marshall needed little urging to undertake this monumental labor.

Totally unfamiliar with the exhausting toil required of the historian, he deemed it no great matter to write the achievements of his idolized leader. Moreover, he was in pressing need of money with which to pay the remaining $31,500[593] which his brother and he still owed on the Fairfax purchase, as well as the smaller but yet annoying sum due their brother-in-law, Rawleigh Colston, for his share of the estate which the Marshall brothers had bought of him.[594] To discharge these obligations, Marshall had nothing but his salary and the income from his lands, which were wholly insufficient to meet the demands upon him. Some of his plantations, in fact, were "productive only of expense & vexation."[595]

Marshall and Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton made extravagant estimates of the prospective sales of the biography and of the money they would receive.

Everybody, they thought, would be eager to buy the true story of the life of America's "hero and sage." Perhaps the mult.i.tude could not afford volumes so expensive as those Marshall was to write, but there would be tens of thousands of prosperous Federalists who could be depended upon to purchase at a generous price a definitive biography of George Was.h.i.+ngton.[596]

Nor was the color taken from these rosy expectations by the enthusiasm of those who wished to publish the biography. When it became known that the book was to be produced, many printers applied to Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton "to purchase the copyright,"[597] among them C. P. Wayne, a successful publisher of Philadelphia, who made two propositions to bring out the work. After a consultation with Marshall, Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton wrote Wayne: "Being ignorant of such matters ... we shall therefore decline any negotiation upon the subject for the present."[598]

After nearly two years of negotiation, Marshall and his a.s.sociate decided that the biography would require four or five volumes, and arrived at the modest opinion that there would be "30,000 subscribers in America.... Less than a dollar a volume cannot be thought of," and this price should yield to the author and his partner "$150,000, supposing there to be five volumes. This ... would content us, whilst it would leave a very large profit" to the publisher. But, since the number of subscribers could not be foretold with exactness, Marshall and Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton decided to "consent to receive $100,000 for the copyright in the United States"; and they sternly announced that, "less than this sum we will not take."[599]

Wayne sought to reduce the optimism of Marshall and Was.h.i.+ngton by informing them that "the greatest number of subscribers ever obtained for any one publication in this country was ... 2000 and the highest sum ever paid in for the copyright of any one work ... was 30,000 Dollars."

Wayne thinks that Marshall's work may sell better, but is sure that more than ten thousand sets cannot be disposed of for many years. He gives warning that, if the biography should contain anything objectionable to the British Government, the sale of it would be prevented in England, as was the case with David Ramsay's "History of the Revolution."[600]

Marshall and Was.h.i.+ngton also "rec^d propositions for the purchase of the right to sell in G^{t.} Britain," and so informed Wayne, calling upon him to "say so" if he wished to acquire British, as well as American rights, "knowing the grounds upon which we calculate the value in the United States."[601]

So we find Marshall counting on fifty thousand dollars[602] at the very least from his adventure in the field of letters. His financial reckoning was expansive; but his idea of the time within which he could write so important a history was grotesque. At first he counted on producing "4 or 5 volumes in octavos of from 4 to 500 pages each" in less than one year, provided "the present order of the Courts be not disturbed or very materially changed."[603]

It thus appears that Marshall expected the Federalist Judiciary Act of 1801 to stand; that he would not be called upon to ride the long, tiresome, time-consuming Southern circuit; and that, with no great number of cases to be disposed of by the Supreme Court, he would have plenty of leisure to write several large volumes of history in a single year.

But the Republican repeal of the act gave the disgusted Chief Justice "duties to perform," as John Randolph expressed it. Marshall was forthwith sent upon his circuit riding, and his fondly antic.i.p.ated relief from official labors vanished. Although he had engaged to write the biography during the winter following Was.h.i.+ngton's death, not one line of it had he penned at the time the contract for publication was made in the autumn of 1802. He had, of course, done some reading of the various histories of the period; but he had not even begun the examination of Was.h.i.+ngton's papers, the subsequent study of which proved so irksome to him.

After almost two years of bartering, a contract was made with Wayne to print and sell the biography. This agreement, executed September 22, 1802, gave to the publisher the copyright in the United States and all rights of the authors "in any part of North and South America and in the West India Islands." The probable extent of the work was to be "four or five volumes in Octavo, from four to five hundred pages" each; and it was "supposed" that these would "be compleated in less than two years"--Marshall's original estimate of time having now been doubled.

Wayne engaged to pay "one dollar for every volume of the aforesaid work which may be subscribed for or which may be sold and paid for." It was further covenanted that the publisher should "not demand" of the public "a higher price than three dollars per volume in boards."[604] This disappointed Marshall, who had insisted that the volumes must be sold for four dollars each, a price which Wayne declared the people would not pay.[605]

It would seem that for a long time Marshall tried to conceal the fact that he was to be the author; and, when the first volume was about to be issued, strenuously objected to the use of his name on the t.i.tle-page.

However, Jefferson soon got wind of the project. The alert politician took swift alarm and promptly suggested measures to counteract the political poison with which he was sure Marshall's pen would infect public opinion. He consulted Madison, and the two picked out the brilliant and versatile Joel Barlow, then living in Paris, as the best man to offset the evil labor in which Marshall was engaged.

"Mr. Madison and myself have cut out a piece of work for you," Jefferson wrote Barlow, "which is to write the history of the United States, from the close of the War downwards. We are rich ourselves in materials, and can open all the public archives to you; but your residence here is essential, because a great deal of the knowledge of things is not on paper, but only within ourselves for verbal communication."

Then Jefferson states the reason for the "piece of work" which he and Madison had "cut out" for Barlow: "John Marshall is writing the life of Gen. Was.h.i.+ngton from his papers. It is intended to come out just in time to influence the next presidential election." The imagination of the party manager pictured Marshall's work as nothing but a political pamphlet. "It is written therefore," Jefferson continues, "princ.i.p.ally with a view to electioneering purposes; but it will consequently be out in time to aid you with information as well as to point out the perversions of truth necessary to be rectified."[606]

Thus Marshall's book was condemned before a word of it had been written, and many months before the contract with Wayne was signed--a circ.u.mstance that was seriously to interfere with subscriptions to the biography. Jefferson's abnormal sensitiveness to even moderate criticism finally led him to the preparation of the most interesting and untrustworthy of all his voluminous papers, as a reply to Marshall's "Was.h.i.+ngton."[607]

News was sent to Republicans all over the country that Marshall's book was to be an attack upon their party. Wayne tells Marshall and Was.h.i.+ngton of the danger, but Was.h.i.+ngton testily a.s.sures the nervous publisher that he need have no fear: "The democrats may say what they please and I have expected they would say a great deal, but this is at least not intended to be a party work nor will any candid man have cause to make this charge."[608]

The contract signed, Wayne quickly put in motion the machinery to procure subscribers. Of this mechanism, the most important part should have been the postmasters, of whom Wayne expected to make profitable use. There were twelve hundred of them, "each acquainted with all the gentlemen of their respective neighborhoods ... and their neighbors would subscribe at request, when they would not to a stranger.... All letters to and from these men go free of postage," Wayne advised Marshall, while a.s.suring the anxious author that "every Post Master in the United States holds a subscription paper."[609] But, thanks to Jefferson, the postmasters were to prove poor salesmen of the product of Marshall's pen.

Other solicitors, however, were also put to work: among them the picturesque Mason Locke Weems, part Whitefield, part Villon, a delightful mingling of evangelist and vagabond, lecturer and politician, writer and musician.[610] Weems had himself written a "Life of Was.h.i.+ngton" which had already sold extensively among the common people.[611] He had long been a professional book agent with every trick of the trade at his fingers' ends, and was perfectly acquainted with the popular taste.

First, the parson-subscription agent hied himself to Baltimore.

"I average 12 sub^s pr day. _Thank G.o.d for that_," he wrote to his employer. He is on fire with enthusiasm: "If the Work be done handsomely, you will sell at least 20,000," he brightly prophesies.

Within a week Weems attacks the postmasters and insists that he be allowed to secure sub-agents from among the gentry: "The Ma.s.s of Riches and of Population in America lie in the Country. There is the wealthy Yeomanry; and there the ready Thousands who w^{d.} instantly second you were they but duly stimulated."[612]

Almost immediately Weems discovered a popular distrust of Marshall's forthcoming volumes: "The People are very fearful that it will be prost.i.tuted to party purposes," he informs Wayne. "_For Heaven's Sake, drop now and then a cautionary Hint to John Marshall Esq._ Your all is at stake with respect to this work. If it be done in a generally acceptable manner you will make your fortune. Otherwise the work will fall an Abortion from the press."[613]

Weems's apprehension grew. Wayne had written that the cities would yield more subscribers than the country. "For a moment, admit it," argues Weems: "Does it follow that the Country is a mere blank, a cypher not worth your notice? Because there are 30,000 wealthy families in the City and but 20,000 in the Country, must nothing be tried to enlist 5000, at least of these 20,000??? If the _Fed^s sh^d be disappointed_, and the Demo^s disgusted with Gen^{l.} Marshals performance, will it not be very convenient to have 4 to 5000 good Rustic Blades to lighten your shelves & to shovel in the Dol^$."[614]

The dean of book agents evidently was having a hard time, but his resourcefulness kept pace with his discouragement: "Patriotic Orations--Gazetter Puffs--Was.h.i.+ngtonian Anecdotes, Sentimental, Moral Military and Wonderful--All sh^d be Tried," he advises Wayne.[615]

Again, he notes the failure of the postmasters to sell Marshall's now much-talked-of book. "In six months," he writes from Martinsburg, Virginia, "the P. Master here got 1. In 1/2 day. _I thank G.o.d_, I've got 13 sub^s."[616]

The outlook for subscriptions was even worse in New England. Throughout the whole land, there was, it seems, an amazing indifference to Was.h.i.+ngton's services to the Nation. "I am sorry to inform you," Wayne advised Marshall and his a.s.sociate, "that the Prospect of an extensive Subscription is gloomy in N. England, particularly they argue it is too Expensive and wait for a cheaper Edition--'tis like Americans, Mr.

Wolcott and Mr. Pickering say they are loud in their professions, but attempt to touch their purses and they shut them in a moment."[617]

Writing from Fredericksburg, Virginia, Weems at last mingles cheer with warning: "Don't indulge a fear--let no sigh of thine arise. Give _Old Was.h.i.+ngton fair play_ and all will be well. Let but the _Interior_ of the Work be Liberal & the _Exterior Elegant_, and a Town House & a Country House, a Coach and Sideboard and Ma.s.sy Plate shall be thine."

Still, he declared, "I sicken when I think how much may be marr^d."[618]

A week later found the reverend solicitor at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and here the influence of politics on the success of Marshall's undertaking again crops out: "The place had been represented to me," records Weems, "as a Nest of Anti Was.h.i.+ngtonian Hornets who w^d draw their Stings at mention of his name--and the Fed [torn] Lawyers are all gone to York--However, I dash^d in among them and _thank G.o.d_ have obtain^d already 17 good names."[619]

By now even the slow-thinking Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton had become suspicious of Jefferson's postmasters: "The postmasters being (I believe) Democrats.[620] Are you sure they will feel a disposition to advance the work?"[621] Later he writes: "I would not give one honest soliciting agent for 1250 quiescent postmasters."[622]

A year pa.s.sed after the first subscriptions were made, and not even the first volume had appeared. Indeed, no part of the ma.n.u.script had been finished and sent to the publisher. Wayne was exasperated. "I am extremely anxious on this subject," he complains to Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton, "as the Public evince dissatisfaction at the delay. Each hour I am questioned either verbally or by letter relative to it & its procrastination. The subscription seems to have received a check in consequence of an opinion that it is uncertain when the work will go to press. _Twelve thousand_ dollars is the Total Cash yet rece^d--not quite 4,000 subscribers."[623]

By November, 1803, many disgusted subscribers are demanding a refund of the money, and Wayne wants the contract changed to the payment of a lump sum. The "Public [are] exclaiming against the price of 3 Doll^s per vol.," and his sanguine expectations have evaporated: "I did hope that I should realize _half_ the number of subscribers you contemplated, _thirty thousand_; ... but altho' _two active_, and twelve hundred other agents have been employed 12 months, the list of names _does_ not amount to _one seventh_ of the contemplated number."[624]

Wayne insists on purchasing the copyright "for a _moderate, specifick_ sum" so that he can save himself from loss and "that the Publick disgust may be removed." He has heard, he says, and quite directly, that the British rights have been sold "at two thousand doll^s!!!"--and this in spite of the fact that, only the previous year, Marshall and Was.h.i.+ngton "expected _Seventy_ Thousand."[625]