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

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So, upon his return, Jefferson wrote to Madison: —

      "I learn that he [Hamilton] has expressed the strongest desire that Marshall should come into Congress from Richmond, declaring that there is no man in Virginia whom he wishes so much to see there; and I am told that Marshall has expressed half a mind to come. Hence I conclude that Hamilton has plyed him well with flattery & sollicitation and I think nothing better could be done than to make him a judge."203

      Hamilton's "plying" Marshall with "flattery & solicitation" occurred only in Jefferson's teeming, but abnormally suspicious, mind. Marshall was in Virginia all this time, as his Account Book proves, while Hamilton was in New York, and no letters seem to have passed between them.204 But Jefferson's information that his fellow Secretary wished the Nationalist Richmond attorney in Congress was probably correct. Accounts of Marshall's striking ability and of his fearless zeal in support of the Administration's measures had undoubtedly reached Hamilton, perhaps through Washington himself; and so sturdy and capable a Federalist in Congress from Virginia would have been of great strategic value.

      But Jefferson might have spared his pains to dispose of Marshall by cloistering him on the State bench. Nothing could have induced the busy lawyer to go to Congress at this period. It would have been fatal to his law practice205 which he had built up until it was the largest in Richmond and upon the returns from which his increasing family depended for support. Six years later, Washington himself labored with Marshall for four days before he could persuade him to stand for the National House, and Marshall then yielded to his adored leader only as a matter of duty, at one of the Nation's most critical hours, when war was on the horizon.206

      The break-up of Washington's Cabinet was now approaching. Jefferson was keeping pace with the Anti-Nationalist sentiment of the masses – drilling his followers into a sternly ordered political force. "The discipline of the [Republican] party," wrote Ames, "is as severe as the Prussian."207 Jefferson and Madison had secured an organ in the "National Gazette,"208 edited by Freneau, whom Jefferson employed as translator in the State Department. Through this paper Jefferson attacked Hamilton without mercy. The spirited Secretary of the Treasury keenly resented the opposition of his Cabinet associate which was at once covert and open.

      In vain the President pathetically begged Jefferson for harmony and peace.209 Jefferson responded with a bitter attack on Hamilton. "I was duped," said he, "by the Secretary of the Treasury and made a tool for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood by me."210 To somewhat, but not much, better purpose did Washington ask Hamilton for "mutual forbearances."211 Hamilton replied with spirit, yet pledged his honor that he would "not, directly or indirectly, say or do a thing that shall endanger a feud."212

      The immense speculation, which had unavoidably grown out of the Assumption and Funding Acts, inflamed popular resentment against the whole financial statesmanship of the Federalists.213 More material, this, for the hands of the artificer who was fashioning the Republican Party into a capacious vessel into which the people might pour all their discontent, all their fears, all their woes and all their hopes. And Jefferson, with practical skill, used for that purpose whatever material he could find.

      Still more potter's earth was brought to Jefferson. The National Courts were at work. Creditors were securing judgments for debts long due them. In Virginia the debtors of British merchants, who for many years had been rendered immune from payment, were brought to the bar of this "alien" tribunal. Popular feeling ran high. A resolution was introduced into the House of Delegates requesting the Virginia Senators and Representatives in Congress to "adopt such measures as will tend, not only to suspend all executions and the proceedings thereon, but prevent any future judgments to be given by the Federal Courts in favor of British creditors until" Great Britain surrendered the posts and runaway negroes.214 Thus was the practical overthrow of the National Judiciary proposed.215

      Nor was this all. A State had been haled before a National Court.216 The Republicans saw in this the monster "consolidation." The Virginia Legislature passed a resolution instructing her Senators and Representatives to "unite their utmost and earliest exertions" to secure a constitutional amendment preventing a State from being sued "in any court of the United States."217 The hostility to the National Bank took the form of a resolution against a director or stockholder of the Bank of the United States being a Senator or Representative in Congress.218 But apparently this trod upon the toes of too many ambitious Virginians, for the word "stockholders" was stricken out.219

      The slander that the Treasury Department had misused the public funds had been thoroughly answered;220 but the Legislature of Virginia by a majority of 111 out of a total vote of 124, applauded her Senators and Representatives who had urged the inquiry.221 Such was the developing temper of Republicanism as revealed by the emotionless pages of the public records; but these furnish scarcely a hint of the violence of public opinion.

      Jefferson was now becoming tigerish in his assaults on the measures of the Administration. Many members of Congress had been holders of certificates which Assumption and Funding had made valuable. Most but not all of them had voted for every feature of Hamilton's financial plan.222 Three or four were directors of the Bank, but no dishonesty existed.223 Heavy speculation went on in Philadelphia.224 This, said Republicans, was the fruit which Hamilton's Nationalist financial scheme gathered from the people's industry to feed to "monocrats."

      "Here [Philadelphia]," wrote Jefferson, "the unmonied farmer … his cattle & corps [sic] are no more thought of than if they did not feed us. Script & stock are food & raiment here… The credit & fate of the nation seem to hang on the desperate throws & plunges of gambling scoundrels."225 But Jefferson comforted himself with the prophecy that "this nefarious business" would finally "tumble its authors headlong from their heights."226

      The National law taxing whiskey particularly aroused the wrath of the multitude. Here it was at last! – a direct tax laid upon the universal drink of the people, as the razor-edged Pennsylvania resolutions declared.227 Here it was, just as the patriotic foes of the abominable National Constitution had predicted when fighting the ratification of that "oppressive" instrument. Here was the exciseman at every man's door, just as Henry and Mason and Grayson had foretold – and few were the doors in the back counties of the States behind which the owner's private still was not simmering.228 And why was this tribute exacted? To provide funds required by the corrupt Assumption and Funding laws, asserted the agitators.

      Again it was the National Government that was to blame; in laying the whiskey tax it had invaded the rights of the States, hotly declared the Republicans. "All that powerful party," Marshall bears witness, "which attached itself to the local [State] rather than to the general [National] government … considered … a tax by Congress on any domestic manufacture as the intrusion of a foreign power into their particular concerns which excited serious apprehensions for state importance and for liberty."229 The tariff did not affect most people, especially those in the back country, because they

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