The Life of John Marshall Volume III Part 30

The delay in the publication of Marshall's first volumes and the disfavor with which the public received them when finally they appeared, had, it seems, cooled the ardor of the horseback-and-saddlebag distributor of literary treasures. At all events, he ceases to write his employer about Marshall's "Life of Washington," but is eager for other books.[678] Twice only, in an interval of two years, he mentions Marshall's biography, but without spirit or enthusiasm.[679] In the autumn of 1806, he querulously refers to Marshall and Washington: "I did not call on _you_ [Wayne] for increase of Diurnal Salary. I spoke to Judge W. I hope and expect that he and Gen. M.[680] will do me something."

Marshall's third volume, which had now appeared, is an improvement on the first two. In it he continues his narrative of the Revolutionary War until 1779, and his statement of economic and financial conditions[681]

is excellent. The account of the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, in both of which he had taken part,[682] is satisfactory,[683] and his picture of the army in retreat is vivid.[684] He faithfully relates the British sentiment among the people.[685] Curiously enough, he is not comprehensive or stirring in his story of Valley Forge.[686] His descriptions of Lafayette and Baron von Steuben are worthy.[687] Again and again he attacks the militia,[688] and is merciless in his criticism of the slip-shod, happy-go-lucky American military system. These shortcomings were offset, he says, only by the conduct of the enemy.[689] The treatment of American prisoners is set forth in somber words,[690] and he gives almost a half-page of text[691] and two and a half pages of appendix[692] to the murder of Miss McCrea.

The story of the battle of Monmouth in which Marshall took part is told with spirit.[693] Nineteen pages[694] are devoted to the history of the alliance with the French monarch, and no better resume of that event, so fruitful of historic results, ever has been given. The last chapter describes the arrival of the British Commission of Conciliation, the propositions made by them, the American answer, the British attempts to bribe Congress,[695] followed by the Indian atrocities of which the appalling ma.s.sacres at Kingston and Wyoming were the worst.

The long years of writing, the neglect and crudity of his first efforts, and the self-reproval he underwent, had their effect upon Marshall's literary craftsmanship. This is noticeable in his fourth volume, which is less defective than those that preceded it. His delight in verbiage, so justly ridiculed by Callender in 1799,[696] is a little subdued, and his sense of proportion is somewhat improved. He again criticizes the American military system and traces its defects to local regulations.[697] The unhappy results of the conflict of State and Nation are well presented.[698]

The most energetic narrative in the volume is that of the treason of Benedict Arnold. In telling this story, Marshall cannot curb the expression of his intense feeling against this "traitor, a sordid traitor, first the slave of his rage, then purchased with gold."

Marshall does not economize s.p.a.ce in detailing this historic betrayal of America,[699] imperative as the saving of every line had become.

He relates clearly the circ.u.mstances that caused the famous compact between Denmark, Sweden, and Russia known as "The Armed Neutrality,"

formed in order to check Great Britain's power on the seas. This was the first formidable a.s.sertion of the principle of equality among nations on the ocean. Great Britain's declaration of war upon Holland, because that country was about to join "The Armed Neutrality," and because Holland appeared to be looking with favor upon a commercial treaty which the United States wished to conclude with her, is told with dispa.s.sionate lucidity.[700]

Marshall gives a compact and accurate a.n.a.lysis--by far the best work he has done in the whole four volumes--of the party beginnings discernible when the clouds of the Revolutionary War began to break. He had now written more than half a million words, and this description was the first part of his work that could be resented by the Republicans. The political division was at bottom economic, says Marshall--those who advocated honest payment of public debts were opposed by those who favored repudiation; and the latter were also against military establishments and abhorred the idea of any National Government.[701]

The fourth volume ends with the mutiny of part of the troops, the suppression of it, Washington's farewell to his officers, and his retirement when peace was concluded.

Marshall's final volume was ready for subscribers and the public in the autumn of 1807, just one year before the Federalist campaign for the election of Jefferson's successor--four years later than Jefferson had antic.i.p.ated.[702] It was the only political part of Marshall's volumes, but it had not the smallest effect upon the voters in the Presidential contest.

Neither human events nor Thomas Jefferson had waited upon the convenience of John Marshall. The Federalist Party was being reduced to a grumbling company of out-of-date gentlemen, leaders in a bygone day, together with a scattered following who, from force of party habit, plodded along after them, occasionally encouraged by some local circ.u.mstance or fleeting event in which they imagined an "issue" might be found. They had become anti-National, and, in their ardor for Great Britain, had all but ceased to be American. They had repudiated democracy and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of insolent superiority, mournful of a glorious past, despairing of a worthy future.[703]

Marshall could not hope to revive the fast weakening Federalist organization. The most that he could do was to state the principles upon which opposing parties had been founded, and the determinative conflicts that had marked the evolution of them and the development of the American Nation. He could only set forth, in plain and simple terms, those antagonistic ideas which had created party divisions; and although the party to which one group of those ideas had given life was now moribund, they were ideas, nevertheless, which would inevitably create other parties in the future.

The author's task was, therefore, to deal not only with the years that had gone; but, through his treatment of the past, with the years that were to come. He must expound the philosophy of Nationalism as opposed to that of Localism, and must enrich his exposition by the unwritten history of the period between the achievement of American Independence and the vindication of it in our conflict with France.

Marshall was infinitely careful that every statement in his last volume should be accurate; and, to make sure of this, he wrote many letters to those who had first-hand knowledge of the period. Among others he wrote to John Adams, requesting permission to use his letters to Washington.

Adams readily agreed, although he says, "they were written under great agitation of mind at a time when a cruel necessity compelled me to take measures which I was very apprehensive would produce the evils which have followed from them. If you have detailed the events of the last years of General Washington's Life, you must have run the Gauntlet between two infuriated factions, armed with scorpions.... It is a period which must however be investigated, but I am very confident will never be well understood."[704]

Because of his lack of a sense of proportion in planning his "Life of Washington," and the voluminousness of the minor parts of it, Marshall had to compress the vital remainder. Seldom has a serious author been called upon to execute an undertaking more difficult. Marshall accomplished the feat in creditable fashion. Moreover, his fairness, restraint, and moderation, even in the treatment of subjects regarding which his own feelings were most ardent, give to his pages not only the atmosphere of justice, but also something of the artist's touch.

Washington's Nationalism is promptly and skillfully brought into the foreground.[705] An excellent account of the Society of the Cincinnati contains the first covert reflection on Jefferson.[706] But the state of the country under the Articles of Confederation is pa.s.sed over with exasperating brevity--only a few lines are given to this basic subject.[707]

The foundation of political parties is stated once more and far better--"The one ... contemplated America as a nation," while "the other attached itself to state authorities." The first of these was made up of "men of enlarged and liberal minds ... who felt the full value of national honour, and the full obligation of national faith; and who were persuaded of the insecurity of both, if resting for their preservation on the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereignties"; and with these far-seeing and upright persons were united the "officers of the army"

whose experience in war had weakened "local prejudices."[708]

Thus, by mentioning the excellence of the members of one party, and by being silent upon the shortcomings of those of the other party, Marshall imputes to the latter the reverse of those qualities which he praises--a method practiced throughout the book, and one which offended Jefferson and his followers more than a direct attack could have done.

He succinctly reviews the attempts at union,[709] and the disputes between America and Great Britain over the Treaty of Peace;[710] he quickly swings back to the evolution of political parties and, for the third time, reiterates his a.n.a.lysis of debtor and Localist as against creditor and Nationalist.

"The one [party] struggled ... for the exact observance of public and private engagements"; to them "the faith of a nation, or of a private man was deemed a sacred pledge." These men believed that "the distresses of individuals" could be relieved only by work and faith, "not by a relaxation of the laws, or by a sacrifice of the rights of others." They thought that "the imprudent and idle could not be protected by the legislature from the consequences of their indiscretion; but should be restrained from involving themselves in difficulties, by the conviction that a rigid compliance with contracts would be enforced." Men holding these views "by a natural a.s.sociation of ideas" were "in favour of enlarging the powers of the federal government, and of enabling it to protect the dignity and character of the nation abroad, and its interests at home."[711]

With these principles Marshall sharply contrasts those of the other party: "Viewing with extreme tenderness the case of the debtor, their efforts were unceasingly directed to his relief"; they were against "a faithful compliance with contracts"--such a measure they thought "too harsh to be insisted on ... and one which the people would not bear."

Therefore, they favored "relaxing ... justice," suspending the collection of debts, remitting taxes. These men resisted every attempt to transfer from their own hands into those of Congress all powers that were, in reality, National. Those who held to such "lax notions of honor," were, in many States, "a decided majority of the people," and were very powerful throughout the country. Wherever they secured control, paper money, delay of justice, suspended taxes "were the fruits of their rule"; and where they were in the minority, they fought at every election for the possession of the State Governments.

In this fashion Marshall again states those antipodal philosophies from which sprang the first two American political parties. With something like skill he emphasizes the conservative and National idea thus: "No principle had been introduced [in the State Governments] which could resist the wild projects of the moment, give the people an opportunity to reflect, and allow the good sense of the nation time for exertion."

The result of "this instability in principles which ought if possible to be rendered immutable, produced a long train of ills."[712] The twin spirits of repudiation and Localism on one side, contending for the mastery against the companion spirits of faith-keeping and Nationalism on the other, were from the very first, says Marshall, the source of public ill-being or well-being, as one or the other side prevailed.

Then follows a review of the unhappy economic situation which, as Marshall leaves the reader to infer, was due exclusively to the operation of the principles which he condemns by the mere statement of them.[713] So comes the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that was deemed by many "an illegitimate meeting."[714]

Although Washington presided over, and was the most powerful influence in, the Const.i.tutional Convention, Marshall allots only one short paragraph to that fact.[715] He enumerates the elements that prepared to resist the Const.i.tution; and brings out clearly the essential fact that the proposed government of the Nation was, by those who opposed it, considered to be "foreign." He condenses into less than two pages his narrative of the conflict over ratification, and almost half of these few lines is devoted to comment upon "The Federalist."

Marshall writes not one line or word of Washington's power and activities at this critical moment. He merely observes, concerning ratification, that "the intrinsic merits of the instrument would not have secured" the adoption of the Const.i.tution, and that even in some of the States that accepted it "a majority of the people were in the opposition."[716]

He tells of the pressure on Washington to accept the Presidency. To these appeals and Washington's replies, he actually gives ten times more s.p.a.ce than he takes to describe the formation, submission, and ratification of the Const.i.tution itself.[717] After briefly telling of Washington's election to the Presidency, Marshall employs twenty pages in describing his journey to New York and his inauguration.

Then, with quick, bold strokes, he lays the final color on his picture of the state of the country before the new government was established, and darkens the tints of his portrayal of those who were opposing the Const.i.tution and were still its enemies. In swift contrast he paints the beginnings of better times, produced by the establishment of the new National Government: "The new course of thinking which had been inspired by the adoption of a const.i.tution that was understood to prohibit all laws impairing the obligation of contracts, had in a great measure restored that confidence which is essential to the internal prosperity of nations."[718]

He sets out adequately the debates over the first laws pa.s.sed by Congress,[719] and is generous in his description of the characters and careers of both Jefferson and Hamilton when they accepted places in Washington's first Cabinet.[720] He joyfully quotes Washington's second speech to Congress, in which he declares that "to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace"; and in which the people are adjured "to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness."[721]

An a.n.a.lysis of Hamilton's First Report on the Public Credit follows.

The measures flowing from it "originated the first regular and systematic opposition to the principles on which the affairs of the union were administered."[722] In condensing the momentous debate over the establishment of the American financial system, Marshall gives an excellent summary of the arguments on both sides of that controversy. He states those of the Nationalists, however, more fully than the arguments of those who opposed Hamilton's plan.[723]

While attributing to Hamilton's financial measures most of the credit for improved conditions, Marshall frankly admits that other causes contributed to the new-found prosperity: By "progressive industry, ...

the influence of the const.i.tution on habits of thinking and acting," and especially by "depriving the states of the power to impair the obligation of contracts, or to make any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, the conviction was impressed on that portion of society which had looked to the government for relief from embarra.s.sment, that personal exertions alone could free them from difficulties; and an increased degree of industry and economy was the natural consequence."[724]

Perhaps the most colorful pages of Marshall's entire work are those in which he describes the effect of the French Revolution on America, and the popular hostility to Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality[725]

and to the treaty with Great Britain negotiated by John Jay.[726]

In his treatment of these subjects he reveals some of the sources of his distrust of the people. The rupture between the United States and the French Republic is summarized most inadequately. The greatest of Washington's state papers, the immortal "Farewell Address,"[727] is reproduced in full. The account of the X. Y. Z. mission is provokingly incomplete; that of American preparations for war with France is less disappointing. Washington's illness and death are described with feeling, though in stilted language; and Marshall closes his literary labors with the conventional a.n.a.lysis of Washington's character which the world has since accepted.[728]

Marshall's fifth volume was received with delight by the disgruntled Federalist leaders. A letter of Chancellor James Kent is typical of their comments. "I have just finished ... the last Vol. of Washington's Life and it is worth all the rest. It is an excellent History of the Government and Parties in this country from Vol. 3 to the death of the General."[729]

Although it had appeared too late to do them any harm at the election of 1804, the Republicans and Jefferson felt outraged by Marshall's history of the foundation period of the Government. Jefferson said nothing for a time, but the matter was seldom out of his thoughts. Barlow, it seems, had been laggard in writing a history from the Republican point of view, as Jefferson had urged him to do.

Three years had pa.s.sed since the request had been made, and Barlow was leaving for Paris upon his diplomatic mission. Jefferson writes his congratulations, "yet ... not unmixed with regret. What is to become of our past revolutionary history? Of the antidotes of truth to the misrepresentations of Marshall?"[730]

Time did not lessen Jefferson's bitterness: "Marshall has written libels on one side,"[731] he writes Adams, with whom a correspondence is opening, the approach of old age having begun to restore good relations between these former enemies. Jefferson's mind dwells on Marshall's work with increasing anxiety: "On the subject of the history of the American Revolution ... who can write it?" he asks. He speaks of Botta's "History,"[732] criticizing its defects; but he concludes that "the work is nevertheless a good one, more judicious, more chaste, more cla.s.sical, and more true than the party diatribe of Marshall. Its greatest fault is in having taken too much from him."[733]

Marshall's "party diatribe" clung like a burr in Jefferson's mind and increased his irritation with the pa.s.sing of the years. Fourteen years after Marshall's last volume appeared, Justice William Johnson of the Supreme Court published an account of the period[734] covered by Marshall's work, and it was severely criticized in the _North American Review_. Jefferson cheers the despondent author and praises his "inestimable" history: "Let me ... implore you, dear Sir, to finish your history of parties.... We have been too careless of our future reputation, while our tories will omit nothing to place us in the wrong." For example, Marshall's "Washington," that "five-volumed libel, ... represents us as struggling for office, and not at all to prevent our government from being administered into a monarchy."[735]

In his long introduction to the "Anas," Jefferson explains that he would not have thought many of his notes "worth preserving but for their testimony against the only history of that period which pretends to have been compiled from authentic and unpublished doc.u.ments." Had Washington himself written a narrative of his times from the materials he possessed, it would, of course, have been truthful: "But the party feeling of his biographer, to whom after his death the collection was confided, has culled from it a composition as different from what Genl.

Washington would have offered, as was the candor of the two characters during the period of the war.

"The partiality of this pen is displayed in lavishments of praise on certain military characters, who had done nothing military, but who afterwards, & before he wrote, had become heroes in party, altho' not in war; and in his reserve on the merits of others, who rendered signal services indeed, but did not earn his praise by apostatising in peace from the republican principles for which they had fought in war."

Marshall's frigidity toward liberty "shews itself too," Jefferson continues, "in the cold indifference with which a struggle for the most animating of human objects is narrated. No act of heroism ever kindles in the mind of this writer a single aspiration in favor of the holy cause which inspired the bosom, & nerved the arm of the patriot warrior.

No gloom of events, no lowering of prospects ever excites a fear for the issue of a contest which was to change the condition of man over the civilized globe.

"The sufferings inflicted on endeavors to vindicate the rights of humanity are related with all the frigid insensibility with which a monk would have contemplated the victims of an _auto da fe_. Let no man believe that Gen. Washington ever intended that his papers should be used for the suicide of the cause, for which he had lived, and for which there never was a moment in which he would not have died."

Marshall's "abuse of these materials," Jefferson charges, "is chiefly however manifested in the history of the period immediately following the establishment of the present const.i.tution; and nearly with that my memorandums [the "Anas"] begin. Were a reader of this period to form his idea of it from this history alone, he would suppose the republican party (who were in truth endeavoring to keep the government within the line of the Const.i.tution, and prevent it's being monarchised in practice) were a mere set of grumblers, and disorganisers, satisfied with no government, without fixed principles of any, and, like a British parliamentary opposition, gaping after loaves and fishes, and ready to change principles, as well as position, at any time, with their adversaries."[736]

Jefferson denounces Hamilton and his followers as "monarchists,"

"corruptionists," and other favorite Jeffersonian epithets, and Marshall is again a.s.sailed: "The horrors of the French revolution, then raging, aided them mainly, and using that as a raw head and b.l.o.o.d.y bones they were enabled by their stratagems of X. Y. Z. in which this historian was a leading mountebank, their tales of tub-plots, Ocean ma.s.sacres, b.l.o.o.d.y buoys, and pulpit lyings, and slanderings, and maniacal ravings of their Gardiners, their Osgoods and Parishes, to spread alarm into all but the firmest b.r.e.a.s.t.s."[737]

Criticisms of Marshall's "Life of Washington" were not, however, confined to Jefferson and the Republicans. Plumer thought the plan of the work "preposterous."[738] The Reverend Samuel Cooper Thatcher of Boston reviewed the biography through three numbers of the _Monthly Anthology_.[739] "Every reader is surprized to find," writes Mr.

Thatcher, "the history of North America, instead of the life of an individual.... He [Washington] is always presented ... in the pomp of the military or civil costume, and never in the ease and undress of private life." However, he considers Marshall's fifth volume excellent.

"We have not heard of a single denial of his fidelity.... In this respect ... his work [is] _unique_ in the annals of political history."