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

See infra , chap. iv.

Wharton: State Trials , 692.

Ib. 696-98; and see testimony of Taylor, Chase Trial , 38-39.

Wharton: State Trials , 717-18. Chase's charge to the jury was an argument that the constitutionality of a law could not be determined by a jury, but belonged exclusively to the Judicial Department. For a brief précis of this opinion see chap. iii of this volume. Chase advanced most of the arguments used by Marshall in Marbury vs. Madison.

Ib. 718. When Jefferson became President he immediately pardoned Callender. (See next chapter.)

Wharton: State Trials , footnote to 718.

See testimonies of Gunning Bedford, Nicholas Vandyke, Archibald Hamilton, John Hall, and Samuel P. Moore, Chase Trial , 98-101.

For example, one Charles Holt, publisher of a newspaper, The Bee , of New London, Connecticut, had commented on the uselessness of enlisting in the army, and reflected upon the wisdom of the Administration's policy; for this he was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and the payment of a fine of two hundred dollars. (Randall: Life of Thomas Jefferson , ii, 418.)

When President Adams passed through Newark, New Jersey, the local artillery company fired a salute. One of the observers, a man named Baldwin, idly remarked that "he wished the wadding from the cannon had been lodged in the President's backside." For this seditious remark Baldwin was fined one hundred dollars. (Hammond: History of Political Parties in the State of New York , i, 130-31.)

One Jedediah Peck, Assemblyman from Otsego County, N.Y., circulated among his neighbors a petition to Congress to repeal the Alien and Sedition Laws. This shocking act of sedition was taken up by the United States District Attorney for New York, who procured the indictment of Peck; and upon bench warrant, the offender was arrested and taken to New York for trial. It seems that such were the demonstrations of the people, wherever Peck appeared in custody of the officer, that the case was dropped. (Randall, ii, 420.)

They were supposed to select juries according to the laws of the States where the courts were held. As a matter of fact they called the men they wished to serve.

McMaster: History of the People of the United States , ii, 473; and see speech of Charles Pinckney in the Senate, March 5, 1800, Annals , 6th Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 97.

See speech of Bacon in the Independent Chronicle , Feb. 11-14, 1799; and of Hill, ib. Feb. 25, 1799.

Columbian Centinel , Feb. 16, 1799; also see issue of Jan. 23, 1799. For condensed account of this incident see Anderson in Am. Hist. Rev. v, 60-62, quoting the Centinel as cited. A Federalist mob stoned the house of Dr. Hill the night after he made this speech. ( Ib. ) See also infra , chap. iii.

Independent Chronicle , Feb. 18, 1799.

Columbian Centinel , March 30, 1799. The attorneys for Adams also advanced the doctrines of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, so far, at least, as to assert that any State ought to protest against and resist any act of Congress that the Commonwealth believed to be in violation of the National Constitution. (Anderson, in Am. Hist. Rev. v, 226-27.)

Columbian Centinel , March 27, 1799.

Another instance of intolerant and partisan prosecutions in State courts was the case of Duane and others, indicted and tried for getting signatures to a petition in Congress against the Alien and Sedition Laws. They were acquitted, however. (Wharton: State Trials , 345-89.)

These charges of Judge Addison were, in reality, political pamphlets. They had not the least reference to any business before the court, and were no more appropriate than sermons. They were, however, written with uncommon ability. It is doubtful whether any arguments more weighty have since been produced against what George Cabot called "excessive democracy." These grand jury charges of Addison were entitled: "Causes and Error of Complaints and Jealousy of the Administration of the Government"; "Charges to the Grand Juries of the County Court of the Fifth Circuit of the State of Pennsylvania, at December Session, 1798"; "The Liberty of Speech and of the Press"; "Charge to Grand Juries, 1798"; "Rise and Progress of Revolution," and "A Charge to the Grand Juries of the State of Pennsylvania, at December Session, 1800."

Coulter vs. Moore, for defamation. Coulter, a justice of the peace, sued Moore for having declared, in effect, that Coulter "kept a house of ill fame." ( Trial of Alexander Addison, Esq. : Lloyd, stenographer, 38; also Wharton: State Trials , 32 et seq. )

This judge was John C. B. Lucas. He was a Frenchman speaking broken English, and, judging from the record, was a person of very inferior ability. There seems to be no doubt that he was the mere tool of another judge, Hugh H. Brackenridge, who hated Addison virulently. From a study of the case, one cannot be surprised that the able and erudite Addison held in greatest contempt the fussy and ignorant Lucas.

Wharton: State Trials , 45; Carson: Supreme Court of the United States, Its History , i, 193.

The uprising against the Judiciary naturally began in Pennsylvania where the extravagance of the judges had been carried to the most picturesque as well as obnoxious extremes. For a faithful narrative of these see McMaster: U.S. iii, 153-55.

On the other hand, wherever Republicans occupied judicial positions, the voice from the bench, while contrary to that of the Federalist judges, was no less harsh and absolute.

For instance, the judges of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire refused to listen to the reading of British law reports, because they were from "musty, old, worm-eaten books." One of the judges declared that "not Common Law – not the quirks of Coke and Blackstone – but common sense" controlled American judges. (Warren, 227.)

See next chapter.

See infra , chap. iii, for a résumé of the conditions that forced Marshall to pronounce his famous opinion in the case of Marbury vs. Madison, as well as for a full discussion of that controversy.

The Senate then met in the chamber now occupied by the Supreme Court.

See infra , chap. iii.

Jefferson to Congress, Dec. 8, 1801, Works : Ford, ix, 321 et seq. ; also Messages and Papers of the Presidents : Richardson, i, 331.

Jefferson, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong., partly quoted in Beard: Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy , 454-55.

For full text of this exposition of Constitutional law by Jefferson see Appendix A.

Ames to King, Dec. 20, 1801, King, iv, 40.