The Life of John Marshall Volume II Part 10

On the same day that the Minister of the new French Republic landed on American sh.o.r.es, Was.h.i.+ngton proclaimed Neutrality.[255] This action, which to-day all admit to have been wise and far-seeing statesmans.h.i.+p, then caused an outburst of popular resentment against Neutrality and the Administration that had dared to take this impartial stand. For the first time Was.h.i.+ngton was openly abused by Americans.[256]

"A great majority of the American people deemed it criminal to remain unconcerned spectators of a conflict between their ancient enemy [Great Britain] and republican France," declares Marshall. The people, he writes, thought Great Britain was waging war "with the sole purpose of imposing a monarchical government on the French people. The few who did not embrace these opinions, and they were certainly very few, were held up as objects of public detestation; and were calumniated as the tools of Britain and the satellites of despotism."[257]

The National Government was ungrateful, cried the popular voice; it was aiding the tyrants of Europe against a people struggling for freedom; it was cowardly, infamous, base. "Could any friend of his kind be neutral?"

was the question on the popular tongue; of course not! unless, indeed, the miscreant who dared to be exclusively American was a monarchist at heart. "To doubt the holiness of their [the French] cause was the certain road to odium and proscription," testifies an observer.[258]

The Republican press, following Paine's theory, attacked "all governments, including that of the United States, as naturally hostile to the liberty of the people," a.s.serts Marshall.[259] Few were the friends of Neutrality outside of the trading and s.h.i.+pping interests.[260]

Jefferson, although still in Was.h.i.+ngton's Cabinet, spoke of "the pusillanimity of the proclamation"[261] and of "the sneaking neutrality"

it set up.[262] "In every effort made by the executive to maintain the neutrality of the United States," writes Marshall, "that great party [Republican] which denominated itself 'THE PEOPLE' could perceive only a settled hostility to France and to liberty."[263]

And, of course, Was.h.i.+ngton's proclamation of Neutrality was "unconst.i.tutional," shouted the Republican politicians. Hamilton quickly answered. The power to deal with foreign affairs was, he said, lodged somewhere in the National Government. Where, then? Plainly not in the Legislative or Judicial branches, but in the Executive Department, which is "the _organ_ of intercourse between the nation and foreign nations"

and "the _interpreter_ of ... treaties in those cases in which the judiciary is not competent--that is between government and government.... The _executive power_ of the United States is completely lodged in the President," with only those exceptions made by the Const.i.tution, as that of declaring war. But if it is the right of Congress to declare war, "it is the duty of the Executive to preserve peace till the declaration is made."[264]

Was.h.i.+ngton's refusal to take sides in the European war was still more fuel for the Republican furnace. The bill to maintain Neutrality escaped defeat in Congress by a dangerously narrow margin: on amendments and motions in the Senate it was rescued time and again only by the deciding vote of the Vice-President.[265] In the House, resolutions were introduced which, in the perspective of history, were stupid. Public speakers searched for expressions strong enough for the popular taste; the newspapers blazed with denunciation. "The artillery of the press,"

declares Marshall, "was played with unceasing fury on" the supporters of Neutrality; "and the democratic societies brought their whole force into operation. Language will scarcely afford terms of greater outrage, than were employed against those who sought to stem the torrent of public opinion and to moderate the rage of the moment."[266]

At the most effective hour, politically, Jefferson resigned[267] from the Cabinet, as he had declared, two years before, he intended to do.[268] He had prepared well for popular leaders.h.i.+p. His stinging criticism of the Nationalist financial measures, his warm champions.h.i.+p of France, his bitter hostility to Great Britain, and most of all, his advocacy of the popular view of the Const.i.tution, secured him the favor of the people. Had he remained Secretary of State, he would have found himself in a hazardous political situation. But now, freed from restraint, he could openly lead the Republican forces which so eagerly awaited his formal command.[269]

As in the struggle for the Const.i.tution, so now Neutrality was saved by the combined efforts of the mercantile and financial interests who dreaded the effect of the war on business and credit;[270] and by the disinterested support of those who wished the United States to become a nation, distinct from, unconnected with, and unsubservient to any other government.

Among these latter was John Marshall, although he also held the view of the commercial cla.s.ses from which most of his best clients came; and his personal loyalty to Was.h.i.+ngton strengthened his opinions. Hot as Virginia was against the Administration, Marshall was equally hot in its favor. Although he was the most prudent of men, and in Virginia silence was the part of discretion for those who approved Was.h.i.+ngton's course, Marshall would not be still. He made speeches in support of Was.h.i.+ngton's stand, wrote pamphlets, and appealed in every possible way to the solid reason and genuine Americanism of his neighbors. He had, of course, read Hamilton's great defense of Neutrality; and he a.s.serted that sound National policy required Neutrality and that it was the duty of the President to proclaim and enforce it. Over and over again, by tongue and pen, he demonstrated the const.i.tutional right of the Executive to inst.i.tute and maintain the Nation's att.i.tude of aloofness from foreign belligerents.[271]

Marshall rallied the friends of the Administration, not only in Richmond, but elsewhere in Virginia. "The [Administration] party in Richmond was soon set in motion," Monroe reported to Jefferson; "from what I have understood here [I] have reason to believe they mean to produce the most extensive effect they are capable of. M^r. Marshall has written G. Jones[272] on the subject and the first appearances threatened the most furious attack on the French Minister [Genet]."[273]

At last Marshall's personal popularity could no longer save him from open and public attack. The enraged Republicans a.s.sailed him in pamphlets; he was criticized in the newspapers; his character was impugned.[274] He was branded with what, in Virginia, was at that time the ultimate reproach: Marshall, said the Republicans, was the friend and follower of Alexander Hamilton, the monarchist, the financial manipulator, the father of a.s.sumption, the inventor of the rotten Funding system, the designer of the stock-jobbing Bank of the United States, and, worst of all, the champion of a powerful Nationalism and the implacable foe of the sovereignty of the States.

Spiritedly Marshall made reply. He was, indeed, a disciple of Was.h.i.+ngton's great Secretary of the Treasury, he said, and proud of it; and he gloried in his fealty to Was.h.i.+ngton, for which also he had been blamed. In short, Marshall was aggressively for the Administration and all its measures. These were right, he said, and wise and necessary.

Above all, since that was the chief ground of attack, all of them, from a.s.sumption to Neutrality, were plainly const.i.tutional. At a public meeting at Richmond, Marshall offered resolutions which he had drawn up in support of the Administration's foreign policy, spoke in their favor, and carried the meeting for them by a heavy majority.[275]

Marshall's bold course cost him the proffer of an honor. Our strained relations with the Spaniards required an alert, able, and cool-headed representative to go to New Orleans. Jefferson[276] confided to Madison the task of finding such a man in Virginia. "My imagination has hunted thro' this whole state," Madison advised the Secretary of State in reply, "without being able to find a single character fitted for the mission to N. O. Young Marshall seems to possess some of the qualifications, but there would be objections of several sorts to him."[277] Three months later Madison revealed one of these "several objections" to Marshall; but the princ.i.p.al one was his st.u.r.dy, fighting Nationalism. This "objection" was so intense that anybody who was even a close friend of Marshall was suspected and proscribed by the Republicans. The Jacobin Clubs of Paris were scarcely more intolerant than their disciples in America.

So irritated, indeed, were the Republican leaders by Marshall's political efforts in support of Neutrality and other policies of the Administration, that they began to hint at improper motives. With his brother, brother-in-law, and General Henry Lee (then Governor of Virginia) Marshall had purchased the Fairfax estate.[278] This was evidence, said the Republicans, that he was the tool of the wicked financial interests. Madison hastened to inform Jefferson.

"The circ.u.mstances which derogate from full confidence in W[ilson]

N[icholas]," cautioned Madison, "are ... his connection & intimacy with Marshall, of whose _disinterestedness_ as well as understanding he has the highest opinion. It is said that Marshall, who is at the head of the great purchase from Fairfax, has lately obtained pecuniary aids from the bank [of the United States] or people connected with it. I think it certain that he must have felt, in the moment of purchase, an absolute confidence in the monied interests which will explain him to everyone that reflects in the active character he is a.s.suming."[279]

In such fas.h.i.+on do the exigencies of politics generate suspicion and false witness. Marshall received no money from the Bank for the Fairfax purchase and it tied him to "the monied interests" in no way except through business sympathy. He relied for help on his brother's father-in-law, Robert Morris, who expected to raise the funds for the Fairfax purchase from loans negotiated in Europe on the security of Morris's immense real-estate holdings in America.[280] But even the once poised, charitable, and unsuspicious Madison had now acquired that state of mind which beholds in any business transaction, no matter how innocent, something furtive and sinister. His letter proves, however, that the fearless Richmond lawyer was making himself effectively felt as a practical power for Was.h.i.+ngton's Administration, to the serious discomfort of the Republican chieftains.

While Marshall was beloved by most of those who knew him and was astonis.h.i.+ngly popular with the ma.s.ses, jealousy of his ability and success had made remorseless enemies for him. It appears, indeed, that a peculiarly malicious envy had pursued him almost from the time he had gone to William and Mary College. His sister-in-law, with hot resentment, emphasizes this feature of Marshall's career.

"Notwithstanding his amiable and correct conduct," writes Mrs.

Carrington, "there were those who would catch at the most trifling circ.u.mstance to throw a shade over his fair fame." He had little education, said his detractors; "his talents were greatly overrated"; his habits were bad. "Tho' no man living ever had more ardent friends, yet there does not exist one who had at one time more slanderous enemies."[281]

These now a.s.sailed Marshall with all their pent-up hatred. They stopped at no charge, hesitated at no insinuation. For instance, his conviviality was magnified into reports of excesses and the tale was carried to the President. "It was cruelly insinuated to G[eorge]

W[as.h.i.+ngton]," writes Marshall's sister-in-law, "by an after great S[olo?]n that to Mr. M[arsha]lls fondness for play was added an increasing fondness for liquor." Mrs. Carrington loyally defends Marshall, testifying, from her personal knowledge, that "this S----n knew better than most others how Mr. M----ll always played for amus.e.m.e.nt and never, never for gain, and that he was, of all men, the most temperate."[282]

Considering the custom of the time[283] and the habits of the foremost men of that period,[284] Marshall's sister-in-law is entirely accurate.

Certainly this political slander did not impress Was.h.i.+ngton, for his confidence in Marshall grew steadily; and, as we shall presently see, he continued to tender Marshall high honors and confide to him political tasks requiring delicate judgment.

Such petty falsehoods did not disturb Marshall's composure. But he warmly resented the a.s.sault made upon him because of his friends.h.i.+p for Hamilton; and his anger was hot against what he felt was the sheer dishonesty of the attacks on the measures of the National Government. "I wish very much to see you," writes Marshall to Archibald Stuart at this time: "I want to observe [illegible] how much honest men you and I are [illegible] half our acquaintance. Seriously there appears to me every day to be more folly, envy, malice, and d.a.m.n rascality in the world than there was the day before and I do verily begin to think that plain downright honesty and unintriguing integrity will be kicked out of doors."[285]

A picturesque incident gave to the Virginia opponents of Was.h.i.+ngton's Administration more substantial cause to hate Marshall than his pamphlets, speeches, and resolutions had afforded. At Smithfield, not far from Norfolk, the s.h.i.+p Unicorn was fitting out as a French privateer. The people of Isle of Wight County were almost unanimous in their sympathy with the project, and only seven or eight men could be procured to a.s.sist the United States Marshal in seizing and holding the vessel.[286] Twenty-five soldiers and three officers were sent from Norfolk in a revenue cutter;[287] but the Governor, considering this force insufficient to outface resistance and take the s.h.i.+p, dispatched Marshall, with a considerable body of militia, to Smithfield.

Evidently the affair was believed to be serious; "the Particular Orders ... to Brigadier General Marshall" placed under his command forces of cavalry, infantry, and artillery from Richmond and another body of troops from Petersburg. The Governor a.s.sures Marshall that "the executive know that in your hands the dignity and rights of the Commonwealth will ever be safe and they are also sure that prudence, affection to our deluded fellow citizens, and marked obedience to law in the means you will be compelled to adopt, will equally characterize every step of your procedure." He is directed to "collect every information respecting this daring violation of order," and particularly "the conduct of the Lieutenant Colonel Commandant of Isle of Wight," who had disregarded his instructions.[288]

Clad in the uniform of a brigadier-general of the Virginia Militia,[289]

Marshall set out for Smithfield riding at the head of the cavalry, the light infantry and artillery following by boat.[290] He found all thought of resistance abandoned upon his arrival. A "peaceable search"

of Captain Sinclair's house revealed thirteen cannon with ball, grape-shot, and powder. Three more pieces of ordnance were stationed on the sh.o.r.e. Before General Marshall and his cavalry arrived, the United States Marshal had been insulted, and threatened with violence. Men had been heard loading muskets in Sinclair's house, and fifteen of these weapons, fully charged, were discovered. The house so "completely commanded the Deck of the" Unicorn "that ... one hundred men placed in the vessel could not have protected her ten minutes from fifteen placed in the house."[291]

The State and Federal officers had previously been able to get little aid of any kind, but "since the arrival of distant militia," reports Marshall, "those of the County are as prompt as could be wished in rendering any service required of them," and he suggests that the commandant of the county, rather than the men, was responsible for the failure to act earlier. He at once sent messengers to the infantry and artillery detachment which had not yet arrived, with orders that they return to Richmond and Petersburg.[292]

Marshall "had ... frequent conversations with individuals of the Isle of Wight" and found them much distressed at the necessity for calling distant militia "to protect from violence the laws of our common country.... The commanding officers [of the county] ... seem not to have become sufficiently impressed with the importance of maintaining the Sovereignty of the law" says Marshall, but with unwarranted optimism he believes "that a more proper mode of thinking is beginning to prevail."[293]

Thus was the Smithfield defiance of Neutrality and the National laws quelled by strong measures, taken before it had gathered dangerous headway. "I am very much indebted to Brig.-Gen'l Marshall and Major Taylor[294] for their exertions in the execution of my orders," writes Governor Lee to the Secretary of War.[295]

But the efforts of the National Government and the action of Governor Lee in Virginia to enforce obedience to National laws and observance of Neutrality, while they succeeded locally in their immediate purpose, did not modify the public temper toward the Administration. Neutrality, in particular, grew in disfavor among the people. When the congressional elections of 1794 came on, all complaints against the National Government were vivified by that burning question. As if, said the Republicans, there could be such a status as neutrality between "right and wrong," between "liberty" and "tyranny."[296]

Thus, in the campaign, the Republicans made the French cause their own.

Everything that Was.h.i.+ngton's Administration had accomplished was wrong, said the Republicans, but Neutrality was the work of the Evil One. The same National power which had dared to issue this "edict" against American support of French "liberty" had foisted on the people a.s.sumption, National Courts, and taxes on whiskey. This identical Nationalist crew had, said the Republicans, by Funding and National Banks, fostered, nay, created, stock-jobbing and speculation by which the few "monocrats" were made rich, while the many remained poor. Thus every Republican candidate for Congress became a knight of the flaming sword, warring upon all evil, but especially and for the moment against the dragon of Neutrality that the National Government had uncaged to help the monarchs of Europe destroy free government in France.[297]

Chiefly on that question the Republicans won the National House of Representatives.

But if Neutrality lit the flames of public wrath, Was.h.i.+ngton's next act in foreign affairs was powder and oil cast upon fires already fiercely burning. Great Britain, by her war measures against France, did not spare America. She seized hundreds of American vessels trading with her enemy and even with neutrals; in order to starve France[298] she lifted cargoes from American bottoms; to man her wars.h.i.+ps she forcibly took sailors from American s.h.i.+ps, "often leaving scarcely hands enough to navigate the vessel into port";[299] she conducted herself as if she were not only mistress of the seas, but their sole proprietor. And the British depredations were committed in a manner harsh, brutal, and insulting.

Even Marshall was aroused and wrote to his friend Stuart: "We fear, not without reason, a war. The man does not live who wishes for peace more than I do; but the outrages committed upon us are beyond human bearing.

Farewell--pray Heaven we may weather the storm."[300] If the self-contained and cautious Marshall felt a just resentment of British outrage, we may, by that measure, accurately judge of the inflamed and dangerous condition of the general sentiment.

Thus it came about that the deeply rooted hatred of the people for their former master[301] was heated to the point of reckless defiance. This was the same Monarchy, they truly said, that still kept the military and trading posts on American soil which, more than a decade before, it had, by the Treaty of Peace, solemnly promised to surrender.[302] The Government that was committing these savage outrages was the same faithless Power, declared the general voice, that had pledged compensation for the slaves its armies had carried away, but not one s.h.i.+lling of which had been paid.

If ever a country had good cause for war, Great Britain then furnished it to America; and, had we been prepared, it is impossible to believe that we should not have taken up arms to defend our ravaged interests and vindicate our insulted honor. In Congress various methods of justifiable retaliation were urged with intense earnestness, marred by loud and extravagant declamation.[303] "The noise of debate was more deafening than a mill.... We sleep upon our arms," wrote a member of the National House.[304] But these bellicose measures were rejected because any one of them would have meant immediate hostilities.

For we were not prepared. War was the one thing America could not then afford. Our Government was still tottering on the unstable legs of infancy. Orderly society was only beginning and the spirit of unrest and upheaval was strong and active. In case of war, wrote Ames, expressing the conservative fears, "I dread anarchy more than great guns."[305] Our resources had been bled white by the Revolution and the desolating years that followed. We had no real army, no adequate a.r.s.enals,[306] no efficient s.h.i.+ps of war; and the French Republic, surrounded by hostile bayonets and guns and battling for very existence, could not send us armies, fleets, munitions, and money as the French Monarchy had done.

Spain was on our south eager for more territory on the Mississippi, the mouth of which she controlled; and ready to attack us in case we came to blows with Great Britain. The latter Power was on our north, the expelled Loyalists in Canada burning with that natural resentment[307]

which has never cooled; British soldiers held strategic posts within our territory; hordes of Indians, controlled and their leaders paid by Great Britain,[308] and hostile to the United States, were upon our borders anxious to avenge themselves for the defeats we had inflicted on them and their kinsmen in the savage wars incited by their British employers.[309] Worst of all, British wars.h.i.+ps covered the oceans and patrolled every mile of our sh.o.r.es just beyond American waters. Our coast defenses, few, poor, and feeble in their best estate, had been utterly neglected for more than ten years and every American port was at the mercy of British guns.[310]

Evidence was not wanting that Great Britain courted war.[311] She had been cold and unresponsive to every approach for a better understanding with us. She had not even sent a Minister to our Government until eight years after the Treaty of Peace had been signed.[312] She not only held our posts, but established a new one fifty miles south of Detroit; and her entire conduct indicated, and Was.h.i.+ngton believed, that she meant to draw a new boundary line which would give her exclusive possession of the Great Lakes.[313] She had the monopoly of the fur trade[314] and plainly meant to keep it.

Lord Dorchester, supreme representative of the British Crown in Canada, had made an ominous speech to the Indians predicting hostilities against the United States within a year and declaring that a new boundary line would then be drawn "by the warriors."[315] Rumors flew and gained volume and color in their flight. Even the poised and steady Marshall was disturbed.

"We have some letters from Philadelphia that wear a very ugly aspect,"

he writes Archibald Stuart. "It is said that Simcoe, the Governor of Upper Canada, has entered the territory of the United States at the head of about 500 men and has possessed himself of Presque Isle." But Marshall cannot restrain his humor, notwithstanding the gravity of the report: "As this is in Pennsylvania," he observes, "I hope the democratic society of Philadelphia will at once demolish him and if they should fail I still trust that some of our upper brothers [Virginia Republicans] will at one stride place themselves by him and prostrate his post. But seriously," continues Marshall, "if this be true we must bid adieu to all hope of peace and prepare for serious war. My only hope is that it is a mere speculating story."[316]

Powerless to obtain our rights by force or to prevent their violation by being prepared to a.s.sert them with arms, Was.h.i.+ngton had no recourse but to diplomacy. At all hazards and at any cost, war must be avoided for the time being. It was one of Great Britain's critical mistakes that she consented to treat instead of forcing a conflict with us; for had she taken the latter course it is not improbable that, at the end of the war, the southern boundary of British dominion in America would have been the Ohio River, and it is not impossible that New York and New England would have fallen into her hands. At the very least, there can be little doubt that the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence would have become exclusively British waters.[317]

Amid a confusion of counsels, Was.h.i.+ngton determined to try for a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation with Great Britain, a decision, the outcome of which was to bring Marshall even more conspicuously into politics than he ever had been before. Indeed, the result of the President's policy, and Marshall's activity in support of it, was to become one of the important stepping-stones in the latter's career.

Chief Justice Jay was selected for the infinitely delicate task of negotiation. Even the news of such a plan was received with stinging criticism. What! Kiss the hand that smote us! It was "a degrading insult to the American people; a pusillanimous surrender of their honor; and an insidious injury to France."[318] And our envoy to carry out this shameful programme!--was it not that same Jay who once tried to barter away the Mississippi?[319]

It was bad enough to turn our backs on France; but to treat with the British Government was infamous. So spoke the voice of the people. The democratic societies were especially virulent; "Let us unite with France and stand or fall together"[320] was their heroic sentiment. But abhorrence of the mission did not blind the Republicans to the advantages of political craft. While the negotiations were in progress they said that, after all, everything would be gained that America desired, knowing that they could say afterward, as they did and with just cause, that everything had been lost.[321]