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

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So the Virginia Anti-Nationalists rejected it by a majority of 41 votes out of a total of 135.

      Marshall and his determined band of Nationalists labored hard to retrieve this crushing defeat. On Henry's original resolution, they slightly increased their strength, but were again beaten by a majority of 23 out of 127 voting.172

      Finally, the triumphant opposition reported a protest and remonstrance to Congress. This brilliant Anti-Nationalist State paper – the Magna Charta of States' Rights – sounded the first formal call to arms for the doctrine that all powers not expressly given in the Constitution were reserved to the States. It also impeached the Assumption Act as an effort "to erect and concentrate and perpetuate a large monied interest in opposition to the landed interests," which would prostrate "agriculture at the feet of commerce" or result in a "change in the present form of Federal Government, fatal to the existence of American liberty."173

      But the unconstitutionality of Assumption was the main objection. The memorial declared that "during the whole discussion of the federal constitution by the convention of Virginia, your memorialists were taught to believe 'that every power not expressly granted was retained' … and upon this positive condition" the Constitution had been adopted. But where could anything be found in the Constitution "authorizing Congress to express terms or to assume the debts of the states?" Nowhere! Therefore, Congress had no such power.

      "As the guardians, then, of the rights and interests of their constituents; as sentinels placed by them over the ministers of the Federal Government, to shield it from their encroachments," the Anti-Nationalists in the Virginia Legislature sounded the alarm.174 It was of this jealous temper of the States that Ames so accurately wrote a year later: "The [National] government is too far off to gain the affections of the people… Instead of feeling as a Nation, a State is our country. We look with indifference, often with hatred, fear, and aversion, to the other states."175

      Marshall and his fellow Nationalists strove earnestly to extract from the memorial as much venom as possible, but were able to get only three or four lines left out;176 and the report was adopted practically as originally drafted.177 Thus Marshall was in the first skirmish, after the National Government had been established, of that constitutional engagement in which, ultimately, Nationalism was to be challenged on the field of battle. Sumter and Appomattox were just below the horizon.

      The remainder of Hamilton's financial plan was speedily placed upon the statute books of the Republic, though not without determined resistance which, more and more, took on a grim and ugly aspect both in Congress and throughout the country.

      When Henry's resolution, on which the Virginia remonstrance was based, reached Hamilton, he instantly saw its logical result. It was, he thought, the major premise of the syllogism of National disintegration. "This," exclaimed Hamilton, of the Virginia resolution, "is the first symptom of a spirit which must either be killed or it will kill the Constitution of the United States."178

      The Anti-Nationalist memorial of the Legislature of Virginia accurately expressed the sentiment of the State. John Taylor of Caroline two years later, in pamphlets of marked ability, attacked the Administration's entire financial system and its management. While he exhaustively analyzed its economic features, yet he traced all its supposed evils to the Nationalist idea. The purpose and result of Hamilton's whole plan and of the manner of its execution was, declared Taylor, to "Swallow up … the once sovereign … states… Hence all assumptions and … the enormous loans." Thus "the state governments will become only speculative commonwealths to be read for amusement, like Harrington's Oceana or Moore's Utopia."179

      The fight apparently over, Marshall declined to become a candidate for the Legislature in the following year. The Administration's financial plan was now enacted into law and the vital part of the National machinery thus set up and in motion. The country was responding with a degree of prosperity hitherto unknown, and, for the time, all seemed secure.180 So Marshall did not again consent to serve in the House of Delegates until 1795. But the years between these periods of his public life brought forth events which were determinative of the Nation's future. Upon the questions growing out of them, John Marshall was one of the ever-decreasing Virginia minority which stanchly upheld the policies of the National Government.

      Virginia's declaration of the unconstitutionality of the Assumption Act had now thundered in Jefferson's ears. He himself was instrumental in the enactment of this law and its unconstitutionality never occurred to him181 until Virginia spoke. But, faithful to the people's voice,182 Jefferson was already publicly opposing, through the timid but resourceful Madison183 and the fearless and aggressive184 Giles, the Nationalist statesmanship of Hamilton.185

      Thus it came about that when Washington asked his Cabinet's opinion upon the bill to incorporate the Bank of the United States, Jefferson promptly expressed with all his power the constitutional theory of the Virginia Legislature. The opposition had reached the point when, if no other objection could be found to any measure of the National Government, its "unconstitutionality" was urged against it. "We hear, incessantly, from the old foes of the Constitution 'this is unconstitutional and that is,' and, indeed, what is not? I scarce know a point which has not produced this cry, not excepting a motion for adjourning."186 Jefferson now proceeded "to produce this cry" against the Bank Bill.

      Hamilton's plan, said Jefferson, violated the Constitution. "To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress [the Twelfth Amendment]187 is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." Even if the bank were "convenient" to carry out any power specifically granted in the Constitution, yet it was not "necessary," argued Jefferson; all powers expressly given could be exercised without the bank. It was only indispensable powers that the Constitution permitted to be implied from those definitely bestowed on Congress – "convenience is not necessity."188

      Hamilton answered with his argument for the doctrine of implied powers.189 Banks, said he, are products of civilized life – all enlightened commercial nations have them. He showed the benefits and utility of banks; answered all the objections to these financial agencies; and then examined the disputed constitutionality of the bill for the incorporation of the Bank of the United States.

      All the powers of the National Government were not set down in words in the Constitution and could not be. For instance, there are the "resulting powers," as over conquered territory. Nobody could deny the existence of such powers – yet they were not granted by the language of the fundamental law. As to Jefferson's argument based on the word "necessary," his contention meant, said Hamilton, that "no means are to be considered necessary without which the power would be nugatory" – which was absurd. Jefferson's reasoning would require that an implied power should be "absolutely or indispensably necessary."

      But this was not the ordinary meaning of the word and it was by this usual and customary understanding of terms that the Constitution must be interpreted. If Jefferson was right, Congress could act only in "a case of extreme necessity." Such a construction of the Constitution would prevent the National Government even from erecting lighthouses, piers, and other conveniences of commerce which could be carried on without them. These illustrations revealed the paralysis of government concealed in Jefferson's philosophy.

      The true test of implied powers, Hamilton showed, was the "natural relation [of means] to the … lawful ends

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