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

"We … arriv'd safe at our first stage, Ross's, having gone at a rate rather exceeding two miles & an half per hour… In case of a break Down or other accident, … I should be sorry to stick and freeze in over night ( as I have seen happen to twenty waggons ) for without an extraordinary thaw I could not be dug out in any reasonable dinner-time the next day."

Of course conditions were much worse in all parts of the country, except the longest and most thickly settled sections.

Parton: Life of Thomas Jefferson , 622.

Plumer to his wife, Jan. 25, 1807, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.

Memoirs of John Quincy Adams : Adams, iv, 74; and see Quincy: Life of Josiah Quincy , 186.

Bayard wrote to Rodney: "four months [in Washington] almost killed me." (Bayard to Rodney, Feb. 24, 1804, N. Y. Library Bulletin, iv, 230.)

Margaret Smith to Susan Smith, Dec. 26, 1802, Hunt, 33; also Mrs. Smith to her husband, July 8, 1803, ib. 41; and Gallatin to his wife, Aug. 17, 1802, Adams: Gallatin , 304-05.

King to Gore, Aug. 20, 1803, Life and Correspondence of Rufus King : King, iv, 294; and see Adams: History of the United States , iv, 31.

Gallatin to his wife, Jan. 15, 1801, Adams: Gallatin , 253.

Wharton: Social Life , 60.

See infra , chap. iv.

Plumer to Lowndes, Dec. 30, 1805, Plumer: Life of William Plumer , 244.

"The wilderness, alias the federal city." (Plumer to Tracy, May 2, 1805, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)

Story to Fay, Feb. 16, 1808, Life and Letters of Joseph Story : Story, i, 161.

This was a little Presbyterian church building, which was abandoned after 1800. (Bryan, i, 232; and see Hunt, 13-14.)

Memoirs of Lieut. – General Scott , 9-10. Among the masses of the people, however, a profound religious movement was beginning. (See Semple: History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia ; and Cleveland: Great Revival in the West .)

A year or two later, religious services were held every Sunday afternoon in the hall of the House of Representatives, which always was crowded on these occasions. The throng did not come to worship, it appears; seemingly, the legislative hall was considered to be a convenient meeting-place for gossip, flirtation, and social gayety. The plan was soon abandoned and the hall left entirely to profane usages. (Bryan, i, 606-07.)

Gallatin to his wife, Jan. 15, 1801, Adams: Gallatin , 253.

Wharton: Social Life , 72.

Hunt, 12.

See Merry to Hammond, Dec. 7, 1803, as quoted in Adams: U.S. ii, 362.

Public men seldom brought their wives to Washington because of the absence of decent accommodations. (Mrs. Smith to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Dec. 6, 1805, Hunt, 48.)

"I do not perceive how the members of Congress can possibly secure lodgings, unless they will consent to live like scholars in a college or monks in a monastery, crowded ten or twenty in a house; and utterly excluded from society." (Wolcott to his wife, July 4, 1800, Gibbs, ii, 377.)

Plumer to Thompson, March 19,1804, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong. And see Annals , 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 282-88. The debate is instructive. The bill was lost by 9 yeas to 19 nays.

Hildreth: History of the United States , v, 516-17.

Plumer to Lowndes, Dec. 30, 1805, Plumer, 337.

Channing: History of the United States , iv, 245.

Bryan, i, 438.

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.)

"To Thomas Hume, Esq., M.D.," Moore: Poetical Works , ii, 83.

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.

See Singleton: Story of the White House , i, 42-43.

Plumer to his wife, Dec. 25, 1802, Plumer, 246.

"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.)

At that time it was called "The Executive Mansion" or "The President's Palace."

Bryan, i, 44; also see La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, iii, 642-51.

See vol. i, chaps. vi and vii, of this work.

Marshall to Pinckney, March 4, 1801, MS. furnished by Dr. W. S. Thayer of Baltimore.

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.

Hale to King, Dec. 19, 1801, King, iv, 39.

Sedgwick to King, Dec. 14, 1801, ib. 34-35.

Dwight's oration as quoted in Adams: U.S. i, 225.

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.)

J. Russell's Gazette-Commercial and Political , January 28, 1799.

History of the Last Session of Congress Which Commenced 7th Dec. 1801 (taken from the National Intelligencer ). Yet at that time in America manhood suffrage did not exist excepting in three States, a large part of the people could not read or write, imprisonment for debt was universal, convicted persons were sentenced to be whipped in public and subjected to other cruel and disgraceful punishments. Hardly a protest against slavery was made, and human rights as we now know them were in embryo, so far as the practice of them was concerned.