Albert Beveridge - The Life of John Marshall (Volume 2 of 4)

Marshall was appointed on the committee to bring in bills for proceeding against absent debtors; 135 135 Ib. (Nov. 13, 1789), 12. on another to amend the penal code; 136 136 Ib. (Nov. 16, 1789), 14. and he was made chairman of the special committee to examine the James River Company, 137 137 Ib. (Nov. 27, 1789), 49. The James River Company was formed in 1784. Washington was its first president. (Randolph to Washington, Aug. 8, 1784; Conway, 58.) Marshall's Account Book shows many payments on stock in this company. of which he was a stockholder. Such are examples of his routine activities in the Legislature of 1789.

The Legislature instructed the Virginia Senators in Congress "to use their utmost endeavors to procure the admission of the citizens of the United States to hear the debates of their House, whenever they are sitting in their legislative capacity." 138 138 Journal, H.D. (1789), 117, 135. For many years after the Constitution was adopted the United States Senate sat behind closed doors. The Virginia Legislature continued to demand public debate in the National Senate until that reform was accomplished. (See Journal, H.D. (Oct. 25, 1791), 14; (Nov. 8, 1793), 57, etc.) In 1789 the Nationalists were much stronger in the Legislatures of the other States than they had been in the preceding year. Only three States had answered Virginia's belated letter proposing a new Federal Convention to amend the Constitution. Disgusted and despondent, Henry quitted his seat in the House of Delegates in the latter part of November and went home in a sulk. (Henry, ii, 448-49; Conway, 131.)

An address glowing with love, confidence, and veneration was sent to Washington. 139 139 Journal, H.D. (1789), 17, 19, 98. Then Jefferson came to Richmond; and the Legislature appointed a committee to greet him with polite but coldly formal congratulations. 140 140 Ib. , 107-12. No one then foresaw that a few short years would turn the reverence and affection for Washington into disrespect and hostility, and the indifference toward Jefferson into fiery enthusiasm.

The first skirmish in the engagement between the friends and foes of a stronger National Government soon came on. On November 30, 1789, the House ratified the first twelve amendments to the Constitution, 141 141 Ib. , 90-91. which the new Congress had submitted to the States; but three days later it was proposed that the Legislature urge Congress to reconsider the amendments recommended by Virginia which Congress had not adopted. 142 142 Journal, H.D. (1789), 96. An attempt to make this resolution stronger was defeated by the deciding vote of the Speaker, Marshall voting against it. 143 143 Ib. , 102.

The Anti-Nationalist State Senate refused to concur in the House's ratification of the amendments proposed by Congress; 144 144 Ib. , 119. The objections were that the liberty of the press, trial by jury, freedom of speech, the right of the people to assemble, consult, and "to instruct their representatives," were not guaranteed; and in general, that the amendments submitted "fall short of affording security to personal rights." (Senate Journal, December 12, 1789; MS., Va. St. Lib.) and Marshall was one of the committee to hold a conference with the Senate committee on the subject.

After Congress had passed the laws necessary to set the National Government in motion, Madison had reluctantly offered his summary of the volume of amendments to the Constitution recommended by the States "in order," as he said, "to quiet that anxiety which prevails in the public mind." 145 145 Annals , 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 444; and see entire debate. The amendments were offered as a measure of prudence to mollify the disaffected. (Rives, iii, 38-39.) The debate is illuminating. The amendments, as agreed to, fell far short of the radical and extensive alterations which the States had asked and were understood to be palliatives to popular discontent. 146 146 The House agreed to seventeen amendments. But the Senate reduced these to twelve, which were submitted to the States. The first of these provided for an increase of the representation in the House; the second provided that no law "varying" the salaries of Senators or Representatives "shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." ( Annals , 1st Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix to ii, 2033.) The States ratified only the last ten. (For good condensed treatment of the subject see Hildreth, iv, 112-24.) Thus the Tenth Amendment, as ratified, was the twelfth as submitted and is sometimes referred to by the latter number in the documents and correspondence of 1790-91, as in Jefferson's "Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States." (See infra .) New York, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Rhode Island accepted the twelve amendments as proposed. The other States rejected one or both of the first two amendments.

Randolph in Richmond wrote that the amendments were "much approved by the strong federalists … being considered as an anodyne to the discontented. Some others … expect to hear, … that a real amelioration of the Constitution was not so much intended, as a soporific draught to the restless. I believe, indeed," declared Randolph, "that nothing – nay, not even the abolishment of direct taxation – would satisfy those who are most clamorous." 147 147 Randolph to Madison, June 30, 1789; Conway, 126.

The amendments were used by many, who changed from advocates to opponents of broad National powers, as a pretext for reversed views and conduct; but such as were actually adopted were not a sufficient justification for their action. 148 148 See Beard: Econ. O. J. D. , 76.

The great question, however, with which the First Congress had to deal, was the vexed and vital problem of finance. It was the heart of the whole constitutional movement. 149 149 Ib. , 86. Without a solution of it the National Government was, at best, a doubtful experiment. The public debt was a chaos of variegated obligations, including the foreign and domestic debts contracted by the Confederation, the debts of the various States, the heavy accumulation of interest on all. 150 150 Ib. , 132-33. Public and private credit, which had risen when the Constitution finally became an accomplished fact, was now declining with capital's frail timidity of the uncertain.

In his "First Report on the Public Credit," Hamilton showed the way out of this maddening jungle. Pay the foreign debt, said Hamilton, assume as a National obligation the debts of the States and fund them, together with those of the Confederation. All had been contracted for a common purpose in a common cause; all were "the price of liberty." Let the owners of certificates, both State and Continental, be paid in full with arrears of interest, without discrimination between original holders and those who had purchased from them. And let this be done by exchanging for the old certificates those of the new National Government bearing interest and transferable. These latter then would pass as specie; 151 151 Marshall, ii, 192. the country would be supplied with a great volume of sound money, so badly needed, 152 152 Money was exceedingly scarce. Even Washington had to borrow to travel to New York for his inauguration, and Patrick Henry could not attend the Federal Constitutional Convention for want of cash. (Conway, 132.) and the debt be in the process of extinguishment. 153 153 "First Report on the Public Credit"; Works : Lodge, ii, 227 et seq. The above analysis, while not technically precise, is sufficiently accurate to give a rough idea of Hamilton's plan. (See Marshall's analysis; Marshall, ii, 178-80.)