Albert Beveridge - The Life of John Marshall, Volume 3 - Conflict and construction, 1800-1815

More than three thousand people drawn hither by the establishment of the seat of government managed to exist in "this desert city." 32 32 Plumer to Lowndes, Dec. 30, 1805, Plumer, 337. One fifth of these were negro slaves. 33 33 Channing: History of the United States , iv, 245. The population was made up of people from distant States and foreign countries 34 34 Bryan, i, 438. – the adventurous, the curious, the restless, the improvident. The "city" had more than the usual proportion of the poor and vagrant who, "so far as I can judge," said Wolcott, "live like fishes by eating each other." 35 35 Wolcott to his wife, July 4, 1800, Gibbs, ii, 377. "The workmen are the refuse of that class and, nevertheless very high in their demands." (La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt: Travels Through the United States of North America , iii, 650.) The sight of Washington filled Thomas Moore, the British poet, with contempt.

Yet some officials managed to distill pleasure from materials which one would not expect to find in so crude a situation. Champagne, it appears, was plentiful. When Jefferson became President, that connoisseur of liquid delights 37 37 See Jefferson to Short, Sept. 6, 1790, Works of Thomas Jefferson : Ford, vi, 146; same to Mrs. Adams, July 7, 1785, ib. iv, 432-33; same to Peters, June 30,1791, ib. vi, 276; same to Short, April 24, 1792, ib. 483; same to Monroe, May 26, 1795, ib. viii, 179; same to Jay, Oct. 8, 1787, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson : Randolph, ii, 249; also see Chastellux: Travels in North America in the Years 1780-81-82 , 299. took good care that the "Executive Mansion" was well supplied with the choicest brands of this and many other wines. 38 38 See Singleton: Story of the White House , i, 42-43. Senator Plumer testifies that, at one of Jefferson's dinners, "the wine was the best I ever drank, particularly the champagne which was indeed delicious." 39 39 Plumer to his wife, Dec. 25, 1802, Plumer, 246. In fact, repasts where champagne was served seem to have been a favorite source of enjoyment and relaxation. 40 40 "Mr. Granger [Jefferson's Postmaster-General] … after a few bottles of champagne were emptied, on the observation of Mr. Madison that it was the most delightful wine when drank in moderation, but that more than a few glasses always produced a headache the next day, remarked with point that this was the very time to try the experiment, as the next day being Sunday would allow time for a recovery from its effects. The point was not lost upon the host and bottle after bottle came in." (S. H. Smith to his wife, April 26, 1803. Hunt, 36.)

Scattered, unformed, uncouth as Washington was, and unhappy and intolerable as were the conditions of living there, the government of the city was torn by warring interests. One would have thought that the very difficulties of their situation would have compelled some harmony of action to bring about needed improvements. Instead of this, each little section of the city fought for itself and was antagonistic to the others. That part which lay near the White House 41 41 At that time it was called "The Executive Mansion" or "The President's Palace." strove exclusively for its own advantage. The same was true of those who lived or owned property about Capitol Hill. There was, too, an "Alexandria interest" and a "Georgetown interest." These were constantly quarreling and each was irreconcilable with the other. 42 42 Bryan, i, 44; also see La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, iii, 642-51.

In all respects the Capital during the first decades of the nineteenth century was a representation in miniature of the embryo Nation itself. Physical conditions throughout the country were practically the same as at the time of the adoption of the Constitution; and popular knowledge and habits of thought had improved but slightly. 43 43 See vol. i, chaps. vi and vii, of this work.

A greater number of newspapers, however, had profoundly affected public sentiment, and democratic views and conduct had become riotously dominant. The defeated and despairing Federalists viewed the situation with anger and foreboding. Of all Federalists John Marshall and George Cabot were the calmest and wisest. Yet even they looked with gloom upon the future. "There are some appearances which surprize me," wrote Marshall on the morning of Jefferson's inauguration to his intimate friend, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.

"I wish, however, more than I hope that the public prosperity & happiness will sustain no diminution under Democratic guidance. The Democrats are divided into speculative theorists & absolute terrorists. With the latter I am disposed to class Mr. Jefferson. If he ranges himself with them it is not difficult to foresee that much difficulty is in store for our country – if he does not, they will soon become his enemies and calumniators." 44 44 Marshall to Pinckney, March 4, 1801, MS. furnished by Dr. W. S. Thayer of Baltimore.

After Jefferson had been President for four months, Cabot thus interpreted the Republican victory of 1800: "We are doomed to suffer all the evils of excessive democracy through the United States… Maratists and Robespierrians everywhere raise their heads… There will be neither justice nor stability in any system, if some material parts of it are not independent of popular control" 45 45 Cabot to Wolcott, Aug. 3, 1801, Lodge: Life and Letters of George Cabot , 322. George Cabot was the ablest, most moderate and far-seeing of the New England Federalists. He feared and detested what he called "excessive democracy" as much as did Ames, or Pickering, or Dwight, but, unlike his brother partisans, did not run to the opposite extreme himself and never failed to assert the indispensability of the democratic element in government. Cabot was utterly without personal ambition and was very indolent; otherwise he surely would have occupied a place in history equal to that of men like Madison, Gallatin, Hamilton, and Marshall. – an opinion which Marshall, speaking for the Supreme Court of the Nation, was soon to announce.

Joseph Hale wrote to King that Jefferson's election meant the triumph of "the wild principles of uproar & misrule" which would produce "anarchy." 46 46 Hale to King, Dec. 19, 1801, King, iv, 39. Sedgwick advised our Minister at London: "The aristocracy of virtue is destroyed." 47 47 Sedgwick to King, Dec. 14, 1801, ib. 34-35. In the course of a characteristic Federalist speech Theodore Dwight exclaimed: "The great object of Jacobinism is … to force mankind back into a savage state… We have a country governed by blockheads and knaves; our wives and daughters are thrown into the stews… Can the imagination paint anything more dreadful this side of hell." 48 48 Dwight's oration as quoted in Adams: U.S. i, 225.

The keen-eyed and thoughtful John Quincy Adams was of the opinion that "the basis of it all is democratic popularity… There never was a system of measures [Federalist] more completely and irrevocably abandoned and rejected by the popular voice… Its restoration would be as absurd as to undertake the resurrection of a carcass seven years in its grave." 49 49 J. Q. Adams to King, Oct. 8,1802, Writings of John Quincy Adams : Ford, iii, 8-9. Within six years Adams abandoned a party which offered such feeble hope to aspiring ambition. (See infra , chap, ix.) A Federalist in the Commercial Gazette of Boston, 50 50 J. Russell's Gazette-Commercial and Political , January 28, 1799. in an article entitled "Calm Reflections," mildly stated that "democracy teems with fanaticism." Democrats "love liberty … and, like other lovers, they try their utmost to debauch … their mistress."