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

And Jefferson! Had he not become the voice of the majority?

Great as he was, restrained as he had arduously schooled himself to be, Washington personally resented the brutal assaults upon his character with something of the fury of his unbridled youth: "I had no conception that parties would or even could go to the length I have been witness to; nor did I believe, until lately, that it was within the bounds of probability – hardly within those of possibility – that … every act of my administration would be tortured and the grossest and most insidious misrepresentations of them be made … and that too in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero – a notorious defaulter – or even to a common pickpocket." 453 453 Washington to Jefferson, July 6, 1796; Writings : Ford, xiii, 230-31. This letter is in answer to a letter from Jefferson denying responsibility for the publication of a Cabinet paper in the Aurora . (Jefferson to Washington, June 19, 1796; Works : Ford, viii, 245; and see Marshall, ii, 390-91.) Even in Congress Washington did not escape. In the debate over the last address of the National Legislature to the President, Giles of Virginia declared that Washington had been "neither wise nor firm." He did not think "so much of the President." He "wished him to retire … the government of the United States could go on very well without him." ( Annals , 4th Cong., 2d Sess. (Dec. 14, 1796), 1614-18.) On the three roll-calls and passage of the address Giles voted against Washington. ( Ib. , 1666-68.) So did Andrew Jackson, a new member from Tennessee. ( Ib. ) The unpopularity of Washington's Administration led to the hostile policy of Bache's paper, largely as a matter of business. This provident editor became fiercely "Republican" because, as he explained to his relative, Temple Franklin, in England, he "could not [otherwise] maintain his family," and "he had determined to adopt a bold experiment and to come out openly against the Administration. He thought the public temper would bear it." (Marshall to Pickering, Feb. 28, 1811, relating the statement of Temple Franklin to James M. Marshall while in England in 1793.)

Here, then, once more, we clearly trace the development of that antipathy between Marshall and Jefferson, the seeds of which were sown in those desolating years from 1776 to 1780, and in the not less trying period from the close of the Revolution to the end of Washington's Administration. Thus does circumstance mould opinion and career far more than abstract thinking; and emotion quite as much as reason shape systems of government. The personal feud between Marshall and Jefferson, growing through the years and nourished by events, gave force and speed to their progress along highways which, starting at the same point, gradually diverged and finally ran in opposite directions.

Tall, meagre, emaciated, his muscles relaxed, his joints loosely connected, his head small, his complexion swarthy, his countenance expressing great good humor and hilarity. (William Wirt.)

Mr. Marshall can hardly be regarded as a learned lawyer. (Gustavus Schmidt.)

His head is one of the best organized of any I have known. (Rufus King.)

On a pleasant summer morning when the cherries were ripe, a tall, ungainly man in early middle life sauntered along a Richmond street. His long legs were encased in knee breeches, stockings, and shoes of the period; and about his gaunt, bony frame hung a roundabout or short linen jacket. Plainly, he had paid little attention to his attire. He was bareheaded and his unkempt hair was tied behind in a queue. He carried his hat under his arm, and it was full of cherries which the owner was eating as he sauntered idly along. 454 454 Southern Literary Messenger , 1836, ii, 181-91; also see Howe, 266. Mr. Epps's hotel (The Eagle) faced the street along which this negligently appareled person was making his leisurely way. He greeted the landlord as he approached, cracked a joke in passing, and rambled on in his unhurried walk.

At the inn was an old gentleman from the country who had come to Richmond where a lawsuit, to which he was a party, was to be tried. The venerable litigant had a hundred dollars to pay to the lawyer who should conduct the case, a very large fee for those days. Who was the best lawyer in Richmond, asked he of his host? "The man who just passed us, John Marshall by name," said the tavern-keeper. But the countryman would have none of Marshall. His appearance did not fill the old man's idea of a practitioner before the courts. He wanted, for his hundred dollars, a lawyer who looked like a lawyer. He would go to the court-room itself and there ask for further recommendation. But again he was told by the clerk of the court to retain Marshall, who, meanwhile, had ambled into the court-room.

But no! This searcher for a legal champion would use his own judgment. Soon a venerable, dignified person, solemn of face, with black coat and powdered wig, entered the room. At once the planter retained him. The client remained in the court-room, it appears, to listen to the lawyers in the other cases that were ahead of his own. Thus he heard the pompous advocate whom he had chosen; and then, in astonishment, listened to Marshall.

The attorney of impressive appearance turned out to be so inferior to the eccentric-looking advocate that the planter went to Marshall, frankly told him the circumstances, and apologized. Explaining that he had but five dollars left, the troubled old farmer asked Marshall whether he would conduct his case for that amount. With a kindly jest about the power of a black coat and a powdered wig, Marshall good-naturedly accepted. 455 455 Southern Literary Messenger , ii, 181-91; also Howe, 266. Apparently the older lawyer had been paid the one hundred dollars, for prepayment was customary in Virginia at the time. (See La Rochefoucauld, iii, 76.) This tale, fairly well authenticated, is so characteristic of Marshall that it is important. It visualizes the man as he really was. (See Jefferson's reference, in his letter to Madison, to Marshall's "lax, lounging manners," supra , 139.)

This not too highly colored story is justified by all reports of Marshall that have come down to us. It is some such picture that we must keep before us as we follow this astonishing man in the henceforth easy and giant, albeit accidental, strides of his great career. John Marshall, after he had become the leading lawyer of Virginia, and, indeed, throughout his life, was the simple, unaffected man whom the tale describes. Perhaps consciousness of his own strength contributed to his disregard of personal appearance and contempt for studied manners. For Marshall knew that he carried heavier guns than other men. "No one," says Story, who knew him long and intimately, "ever possessed a more entire sense of his own extraordinary talents … than he." 456 456 Story, in Dillon, iii, 363.

Marshall's most careful contemporary observer, William Wirt, tells us that Marshall was "in his person, tall, meagre, emaciated; his muscles relaxed and his joints so loosely connected, as not only to disqualify him, apparently, for any vigorous exertion of body, but to destroy everything like elegance and harmony in his air and movements.

"Indeed, in his whole appearance, and demeanour; dress, attitudes, gesture; sitting, standing, or walking; he is as far removed from the idolized graces of lord Chesterfield, as any other gentleman on earth.

"To continue the portrait; his head and face are small in proportion to his height; his complexion swarthy; the muscles of his face being relaxed; … his countenance has a faithful expression of great good humour and hilarity; while his black eyes – that unerring index – possess an irradiating spirit which proclaims the imperial powers of the mind that sits enthroned within…