The Life of John Marshall Volume I Part 37

At last the supreme hour is striking. The Virginians, about to a.s.semble in State Convention, will determine the fate of that unauthorized and revolutionary plan for a National Government,[980] the National Const.i.tution. The movement for a second general Convention to have another try at framing a Const.i.tution has made distinct progress by the time the Virginia representatives gather at the State Capital.[981]

There is widespread, positive, and growing resentment at the proposed new form of government; and if Virginia, the largest and most populous of the States, rejects it, the flames of opposition are certain to break out in every part of the country. As Was.h.i.+ngton a.s.serts, there is, indeed, "combustible material" everywhere.

Thus it is that the room where Virginia's Convention is about to meet in June, 1788, will become the "b.l.o.o.d.y angle" in the first great battle for Nationalism. And Marshall will be there, a combatant as he had been at Great Bridge and Brandywine. Not for John Marshall the pallid role of the trimmer, but the red-blooded part of the man of conviction.

FOOTNOTES:

[893] _Writings_: Conway, i, 69 _et seq._

[894] "_Common Sense_ had a prodigious effect." (Franklin to Le Veillard, April 15, 1787; _Writings_: Smyth, ix, 558.) "Its popularity was unexampled.... The author was hailed as our angel sent from Heaven to save all from the horrors of Slavery.... His pen was an appendage [to the army] almost as necessary and formidable as its cannon."

(Cheetenham, 46-47, 55.) In America alone 125,000 copies of _Common Sense_ were sold within three months after the pamphlet appeared.

(Belcher, i, 235.)

"Can nothing be done in our a.s.sembly for poor Paine? Must the merits of _Common Sense_ continue to glide down the stream of time unrewarded by this country? His writings certainly have had a powerful effect upon the public mind. Ought they not, then, to meet an adequate return?"

(Was.h.i.+ngton to Madison, June 12, 1784; _Writings_: Ford, x, 393; and see Tyler, i, 458-62.) In the Virginia Legislature Marshall introduced a bill for Paine's relief. (_Supra_, chap, VI.)

[895] Graydon, 358.

[896] _Common Sense_: Paine; _Writings_: Conway, i, 61. Paine's genius for phrase is ill.u.s.trated in the _Crisis_, which next appeared. "These are the times that try men's souls"; "Tyranny like h.e.l.l, is not easily conquered"; "The summer soldier and the suns.h.i.+ne patriot," are examples of Paine's brilliant gift.

[897] Moore's _Diary_, ii, 143-44. Although this was a British opinion, yet it was entirely accurate.

[898] "They will _rise_ and for lack of argument, say, M^r. Speaker, this measure will never do, the _People_ Sir, will never bear it....

These small Politicians, returned home, ... tell their Const.i.tuents such & such measures are taking place altho' I did my utmost to prevent it--The People must take care of themselves or they are undone. Stir up a County Convention and by Trumpeting lies from Town to Town get one [a convention] collected and Consisting of Persons of small Abilities--of little or no property--embarra.s.s'd in their Circ.u.mstances--and of no great Integrity--and these Geniouses vainly conceiving they are competent to regulate the affairs of State--make some hasty incoherent Resolves, and these end in Sedition, Riot, & Rebellion." (Sewell to Thatcher, Dec., 1787; _Hist. Mag._ (2d Series), vi, 257.)

[899] More than a decade after the slander was set afoot against Colonel Levin Powell of Loudoun County, Virginia, one of the patriot soldiers of the Revolution and an officer of Was.h.i.+ngton, that he favored establis.h.i.+ng a monarchy, one of his const.i.tuents wrote that "detraction & defamation are generally resorted to promote views injurious to you.... Can you believe it, but it is really true that the old & often refuted story of your predilection for Monarchy is again revived."

(Thomas Sims to Colonel Levin Powell, Leesburg, Virginia, Feb. 5 and 20, 1801; _Branch Historical Papers_, i, 58, 61.)

[900] Watson, 262-64. This comic prophecy that the National Capital was to be the fortified home of a standing army was seriously believed by the people. Patrick Henry urged the same objection with all his dramatic power in the Virginia Convention of 1788. So did the scholarly Mason.

(See _infra_, chaps. XI and XII.)

[901] Graydon, 392-93.

[902] _Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati_, 1790, 3-24.

[903] Jefferson to Was.h.i.+ngton, Nov. 14, 1786; _Works_: Ford, v, 222-23; and see Jefferson's denunciation of the Cincinnati in Jefferson to Madison, Dec. 28, 1794; _ib._, viii, 156-57. But see Jefferson's fair and moderate account of the Cincinnati before he had learned of its unpopularity in America. (Jefferson to Meusnier, June 22, 1786; _ib._, V, 50-56.)

[904] The same who broke the quorum in the Continental Congress.

(_Supra_, chap. IV.)

[905] Burke: _Considerations on the Society of the Order of Cincinnati_; 1784.

[906] Mirabeau: _Considerations on the Order of Cincinnati_; 1786.

Mirabeau here refers to the rule of the Cincinnati that the officer's eldest son might become a member of the order, as in the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the present time.

[907] As quoted in Hudson: _Journalism in the United States_, 158.

[908] Madison to James Madison, Nov. 1, 1786; _Writings_: Hunt, ii, 278.

[909] Jay to Jefferson, Oct. 27, 1786; _Jay_: Johnston, iii, 212.

[910] See Weld, i, 114-15, as a fair example of foreign estimate of this American characteristic at that period.

[911] See chap. II, vol. II, of this work.

[912] Private debts which Virginia planters alone owed British merchants were "20 or 30 times the amount of all money in circulation in that state." (Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786; _Works_: Ford, v, 17-18; and see Jefferson to McCaul, April 19, 1786; _ib._, 88.)

[913] "It cannot perhaps be affirmed that there is gold & silver en^o in the Country to pay the next tax." (Madison to Monroe, June 4, 1786; _Writings_: Hunt, ii, 245.)

[914] Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786; _Works_: Ford, v, 27.

[915] Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786: _Works_: Ford, v, 27.

[916] Moore's _Diary_, ii, 425-26. The merchants of Philadelphia shut their shops; and it was agreed that if Congress did not subst.i.tute "solid money" for paper, "all further resistance to" Great Britain "must be given up." (_Ib._)

[917] Jefferson to McCaul, April 19, 1786; _Works_: Ford, v, 90; also to Wm. Jones, Jan. 5, 1787; _ib._, 247.--"Paiment was made me in this money when it was but a shadow."

[918] Livingston to Jay, July 30, 1789; _Jay_: Johnston, iii, 373-74.

[919] Fithian, 91.

[920] Virginia's paper money experiment was the source of many lawsuits in which Marshall was counsel. See, for example, Pickett _vs._ Claiborne (Call, iv, 99-106); Taliaferro _vs._ Minor (Call, i, 456-62).

[921] The House of Delegates toward the end of 1786 voted 84 to 17 against the paper money resolution. (Madison to James Madison, Nov. 1, 1786; _Writings_: Hunt, ii, 277.)

[922] "The advocates for paper money are making the most of this handle.

I begin to fear exceedingly that no efforts will be sufficient to parry this evil." (Madison to Monroe, June 4, 1786; _ib._, 245.)

[923] Madison to Jefferson, Aug. 12, 1786; _ib._, 259.

[924] "Enclosed are one hundred Dollars of new Emmission Money which Col. Steward desires me to have exchanged for Specie. Pray, inform him they are all counterfeit." (Gerry to King, April 7, 1785; King, i, 87.)

[925] Was.h.i.+ngton to Grayson, Aug. 22, 1785; _Writings_: Ford, X, 493-94.

[926] Knox to Was.h.i.+ngton, Oct. 28, 1786; _Writings_: Hunt, ii, footnote to p. 407-08.

[927] Minot: _History of the Insurrections in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1786_ (2d ed.), 1810.

[928] Printed in the first edition (1807) "enormous"--a good example of the haste of the first printing of Marshall's _Life of Was.h.i.+ngton_. (See vol. III of this work.)

[929] Marshall, ii, 117.

[930] _Ib._, 118.

[931] Knox to Was.h.i.+ngton, Oct. 28, 1786; _Writings_: Hunt, ii, footnote to 408.

[932] Shays's Rebellion was only a local outburst of a general feeling throughout the United States. Marshall says, "those causes of discontent ... existed in every part of the union." (Marshall, ii, 117.)

[933] Jay to Jefferson, Oct. 27, 1786; _Jay_: Johnston, iii, 213.