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

The keen-eyed and thoughtful John Quincy Adams was of the opinion that "the basis of it all is democratic popularity… There never was a system of measures [Federalist] more completely and irrevocably abandoned and rejected by the popular voice… Its restoration would be as absurd as to undertake the resurrection of a carcass seven years in its grave."49 A Federalist in the Commercial Gazette of Boston,50 in an article entitled "Calm Reflections," mildly stated that "democracy teems with fanaticism." Democrats "love liberty … and, like other lovers, they try their utmost to debauch … their mistress."

There was among the people a sort of diffused egotism which appears to have been the one characteristic common to Americans of that period. The most ignorant and degraded American felt himself far superior to the most enlightened European. "Behold the universe," wrote the chronicler of Congress in 1802. "See its four quarters filled with savages or slaves. Out of nine hundred millions of human beings but four millions [Americans] are free."51

William Wirt describes the contrast of fact to pretension: "Here and there a stately aristocratick palace, with all its appurtenances, strikes the view: while all around for many miles, no other buildings are to be seen but the little smoky huts and log cabins of poor, laborious, ignorant tenants. And what is very ridiculous, these tenants, while they approach the great house, cap in hand, with all the fearful trembling submission of the lowest feudal vassals, boast in their court-yards, with obstreperous exultation, that they live in a land of freemen, a land of equal liberty and equal rights."52

Conservatives believed that the youthful Republic was doomed; they could see only confusion, destruction, and decline. Nor did any nation of the Old World at that particular time present an example of composure and constructive organization. All Europe was in a state of strained suspense during the interval of the artificial peace so soon to end. "I consider the whole civilized world as metal thrown back into the furnace to be melted over again," wrote Fisher Ames after the inevitable resumption of the war between France and Great Britain.53 "Tremendous times in Europe!" exclaimed Jefferson when cannon again were thundering in every country of the Old World. "How mighty this battle of lions & tygers! With what sensations should the common herd of cattle look upon it? With no partialities, certainly!"54

Jefferson interpreted the black forebodings of the defeated conservatives as those of men who had been thwarted in the prosecution of evil designs: "The clergy, who have missed their union with the State, the Anglo men, who have missed their union with England, the political adventurers who have lost the chance of swindling & plunder in the waste of public money, will never cease to bawl, on the breaking up of their sanctuary."55

Of all the leading Federalists, John Marshall was the only one who refused to "bawl," at least in the public ear; and yet, as we have seen and shall again find, he entertained the gloomy views of his political associates. Also, he held more firmly than any prominent man in America to the old-time Federalist principle of Nationalism – a principle which with despair he watched his party abandon.56 His whole being was fixed immovably upon the maintenance of order and constitutional authority. Except for his letter to Pinckney, Marshall was silent amidst the clamor. All that now went forward passed before his regretful vision, and much of it he was making ready to meet and overcome with the affirmative opinions of constructive judicial statesmanship.

Meanwhile he discharged his duties – then very light – as Chief Justice. But in doing so, he quietly began to strengthen the Supreme Court. He did this by one of those acts of audacity that later marked the assumptions of power which rendered his career historic. For the first time the Chief Justice disregarded the custom of the delivery of opinions by the Justices seriatim, and, instead, calmly assumed the function of announcing, himself, the views of that tribunal. Thus Marshall took the first step in impressing the country with the unity of the highest court of the Nation. He began this practice in Talbot vs. Seeman, familiarly known as the case of the Amelia,57 the first decided by the Supreme Court after he became Chief Justice.

During our naval war with France an armed merchant ship, the Amelia, owned by one Chapeau Rouge of Hamburg, while homeward bound from Calcutta, was taken by the French corvette, La Diligente. The Amelia's papers, officers, and crew were removed to the French vessel, a French crew placed in charge, and the captured ship was sent to St. Domingo as a prize. On the way to that French port, she was recaptured by the American frigate, Constitution, Captain Silas Talbot, and ordered to New York for adjudication. The owner demanded ship and cargo without payment of the salvage claimed by Talbot for his rescue. The case finally reached the Supreme Court.

In the course of a long and careful opinion the Chief Justice held that, although there had been no formal declaration of war on France, yet particular acts of Congress had authorized American warships to capture certain French vessels and had provided for the payment of salvage to the captors. Virtually, then, we were at war with France. While the Amelia was not a French craft, she was, when captured by Captain Talbot, "an armed vessel commanded and manned by Frenchmen," and there was "probable cause to believe" that she was French. So her capture was lawful.

Still, the Amelia was not, in fact, a French vessel, but the property of a neutral; and in taking her from the French, Talbot had, in reality, rescued the ship and rendered a benefit to her owners for which he was entitled to salvage. For a decree of the French Republic made it "extremely probable" that the Amelia would be condemned by the French courts in St. Domingo; and that decree, having been "promulgated" by the American Government, must be considered by American courts "as an authenticated copy of a public law of France interesting to all nations." This, said Marshall, was "the real and only question in the case." The first opinion delivered by Marshall as Chief Justice announced, therefore, an important rule of international law and is of permanent value.

Marshall's next case58 involved complicated questions concerning lands in Kentucky. Like nearly all of his opinions, the one in this case is of no historical importance except that in it he announced for the second time the views of the court. In United States vs. Schooner Peggy,59 Marshall declared that, since the Constitution makes a treaty a "supreme law of the land," courts are as much bound by it as by an act of Congress. This was the first time that principle was stated by the Supreme Court. Another case60 concerned the law of practice and of evidence. This was the last case in which Marshall delivered an opinion before the Republican assault on the Judiciary was made – the causes of which assault we are now to examine.

At the time of his inauguration, Jefferson apparently meant to carry out the bargain61 by which his election was made possible. "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," were the reassuring words with which he sought to quiet those who already were beginning to regret that they had yielded to his promises.62 Even Marshall was almost favorably impressed by the inaugural address. "I have administered the oath to the Presdt.," he writes Pinckney immediately after Jefferson had been inducted into office. "His inauguration speech … is in general well judged and conciliatory. It is in direct terms giving the lie to the violent party declamation which has elected him, but it is strongly characteristic of the general cast of this political theory."63

It is likely that, for the moment, the President intended to keep faith with the Federalist leaders. But the Republican multitude demanded the spoils of victory; and the Republican leaders were not slow or soft-spoken in telling their chieftain that he must take those measures, the assurance of which had captivated the popular heart and given "the party of the people" a majority in both House and Senate.

Thus the Republican programme of demolition was begun. Federalist taxes were, of course, to be abolished; the Federalist mint dismantled; the Federalist army disbanded; the Federalist navy beached. Above all, the Federalist system of National courts was to be altered, the newly appointed Federalist National judges ousted and their places given to Republicans; and if this could not be accomplished, at least the National Judiciary must be humbled and cowed. Yet every step must be taken with circumspection – the cautious politician at the head of the Government would see to that. No atom of party popularity64 must be jeopardized; on the contrary, Republican strength must be increased at any cost, even at the temporary sacrifice of principle.65 Unless these facts are borne in mind, the curious blending of fury and moderation – of violent attack and sudden quiescence – in the Republican tactics during the first years of Jefferson's Administration are inexplicable.

Jefferson determined to strike first at the National Judiciary. He hated it more than any other of the "abominations" of Federalism. It was the only department of the Government not yet under his control. His early distrust of executive authority, his suspicion of legislative power when his political opponents held it, were now combined against the National courts which he did not control.

Impotent and little respected as the Supreme Court had been and still was, Jefferson nevertheless entertained an especial fear of it; and this feeling had been made personal by the thwarting of his cherished plan of appointing his lieutenant, Spencer Roane of Virginia, Chief Justice of the United States.66 The elevation of his particular aversion, John Marshall, to that office, had, he felt, wickedly robbed him of the opportunity to make the new regime harmonious; and, what was far worse, it had placed in that station of potential, if as yet undeveloped, power, one who, as Jefferson had finally come to think, might make the high court of the Nation a mighty force in the Government, retard fundamental Republican reforms, and even bring to naught measures dear to the Republican heart.

It seems probable that, at this time, Jefferson was the only man who had taken Marshall's measure correctly. His gentle manner, his friendliness and conviviality, no longer concealed from Jefferson the courage and determination of his great relative; and Jefferson doubtless saw that Marshall, with his universally conceded ability, would find means to vitalize the National Judiciary, and with his fearlessness, would employ those means.

"The Federalists," wrote Jefferson, "have retired into the judiciary as a stronghold … and from that battery all the works of republicanism are to be beaten down and erased."67 Therefore that stronghold must be taken. Never was a military plan more carefully devised than was the Republican method of capturing it. Jefferson would forthwith remove all Federalist United States marshals and attorneys;68 he would get rid of the National judges whom Adams had appointed under the Judiciary Act of 1801.69 If this did not make those who remained on the National Bench sufficiently tractable, the sword of impeachment would be held over their obstinate heads until terror of removal and disgrace should render them pliable to the dominant political will. Thus by progressive stages the Supreme Court would be brought beneath the blade of the executioner and the obnoxious Marshall decapitated or compelled to submit.

To this agreeable course, so well adapted to his purposes, the President was hotly urged by the foremost leaders of his party. Within two weeks after Jefferson's inauguration, the able and determined William Branch Giles of Virginia, faithfully interpreting the general Republican sentiment, demanded "the removal of all its [the Judiciary's] executive officers indiscriminately." This would get rid of the Federalist marshals and clerks of the National courts; they had been and were, avowed Giles, "the humble echoes" of the "vicious schemes" of the National judges, who had been "the most unblushing violators of constitutional restrictions."70 Again Giles expressed the will of his party: "The revolution [Republican success in 1800] is incomplete so long as that strong fortress [the Judiciary] is in possession of the enemy." He therefore insisted upon "the absolute repeal of the whole judiciary system."71

The Federalist leaders quickly divined the first part of the Republican purpose: "There is nothing which the [Republican] party more anxiously wish than the destruction of the judicial arrangements made during the last session," wrote Sedgwick.72 And Hale, with dreary sarcasm, observed that "the independence of our Judiciary is to be confirmed by being made wholly subservient to the will of the legislature & the caprice of Executive visions."73

The judges themselves had invited the attack so soon to be made upon them.74 Immediately after the Government was established under the Constitution, they took a position which disturbed a large part of the general public, and also awakened apprehensions in many serious minds. Persons were haled before the National courts charged with offenses unknown to the National statutes and unnamed in the Constitution; nevertheless, the National judges held that these were indictable and punishable under the common law of England.75

This was a substantial assumption of power. The Judiciary avowed its right to pick and choose among the myriad of precedents which made up the common law, and to enforce such of them as, in the opinion of the National judges, ought to govern American citizens. In a manner that touched directly the lives and liberties of the people, therefore, the judges became law-givers as well as law-expounders. Not without reason did the Republicans of Boston drink with loud cheers this toast: "The Common Law of England! May wholesome statutes soon root out this engine of oppression from America."76

The occasions that called forth this exercise of judicial authority were the violation of Washington's Neutrality Proclamation, the violation of the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, and the numberless threats to disregard both. From a strictly legal point of view, these indeed furnished the National courts with plausible reasons for the position they took. Certainly the judges were earnestly patriotic and sincere in their belief that, although Congress had not authorized it, nevertheless, that accumulation of British decisions, usages, and customs called "the common law" was a part of American National jurisprudence; and that, of a surety, the assertion of it in the National tribunals was indispensable to the suppression of crimes against the United States. In charging the National grand jury at Richmond, May 22, 1793, Chief Justice John Jay first announced this doctrine, although not specifically naming the common law.77 Two months later, Justice James Wilson claimed the same inclusive power in his address to the grand jury at Philadelphia.78

In 1793, Joseph Ravara, consul for Genoa, was indicted in the United States District Court of Pennsylvania for sending an anonymous and threatening letter to the British Minister and to other persons in order to extort money from them. There was not a word in any act of Congress that referred even indirectly to such a misdemeanor, yet Justices Wilson and Iredell of the Supreme Court, with Judge Peters of the District Court, held that the court had jurisdiction,79 and at the trial Chief Justice Jay and District Judge Peters held that the rash Genoese could be tried and punished under the common law of England.80

Three months later Gideon Henfield was brought to trial for the violation of the Neutrality Proclamation. The accused, a sailor from Salem, Massachusetts, had enlisted at Charleston, South Carolina, on a French privateer and was given a commission as an officer of the French Republic. As such he preyed upon the vessels of the enemies of France. One morning in May, 1793, Captain Henfield sailed into the port of Philadelphia in charge of a British prize captured by the French privateer which he commanded.

Upon demand of the British Minister, Henfield was seized, indicted, and tried in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania.81 In the absence of any National legislation covering the subject, Justice Wilson instructed the grand jury that Henfield could, and should, be indicted and punished under British precedents.82 When the case was heard the charge of the court to the trial jury was to the same effect.83

The jury refused to convict.84 The verdict was "celebrated with extravagant marks of joy and exultation," records Marshall in his account of this memorable trial. "It was universally asked," he says, "what law had been offended, and under what statute was the indictment supported? Were the American people already prepared to give to a proclamation the force of a legislative act, and to subject themselves to the will of the executive? But if they were already sunk to such a state of degradation, were they to be punished for violating a proclamation which had not been published when the offense was committed, if indeed it could be termed an offense to engage with France, combating for liberty against the combined despots of Europe?"85

In this wise, political passions were made to strengthen the general protest against riveting the common law of England upon the American people by judicial fiat and without authorization by the National Legislature.

Isaac Williams was indicted and tried in 1799, in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut, for violating our treaty with Great Britain by serving as a French naval officer. Williams proved that he had for years been a citizen of France, having been "duly naturalized" in France, "renouncing his allegiance to all other countries, particularly to America, and taking an oath of allegiance to the Republic of France." Although these facts were admitted by counsel for the Government, and although Congress had not passed any statute covering such cases, Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth practically instructed the jury that under the British common law Williams must be found guilty.

No American could cease to be a citizen of his own country and become a citizen or subject of another country, he said, "without the consent … of the community."86 The Chief Justice announced as American law the doctrine then enforced by European nations – "born a subject, always a subject."87 So the defendant was convicted and sentenced "to pay a fine of a thousand dollars and to suffer four months imprisonment."88

These are examples of the application by the National courts of the common law of England in cases where Congress had failed or refused to act. Crime must be punished, said the judges; if Congress would not make the necessary laws, the courts would act without statutory authority. Until 1812, when the Supreme Court put an end to this doctrine,89 the National courts, with one exception,90 continued to apply the common law to crimes and offenses which Congress had refused to recognize as such, and for which American statutes made no provision.

Practically all of the National and many of the State judges were highly learned in the law, and, of course, drew their inspiration from British precedents and the British bench. Indeed, some of them were more British than they were American.91 "Let a stranger go into our courts," wrote Tyler, "and he would almost believe himself in the Court of the King's Bench."92

This conduct of the National Judiciary furnished Jefferson with another of those "issues" of which that astute politician knew how to make such effective use. He quickly seized upon it, and with characteristic fervency of phrase used it as a powerful weapon against the Federalist Party. All the evil things accomplished by that organization of "monocrats," "aristocrats," and "monarchists" – the bank, the treaty, the Sedition Act, even the army and the navy – "have been solitary, inconsequential, timid things," avowed Jefferson, "in comparison with the audacious, barefaced and sweeping pretension to a system of law for the U.S. without the adoption of their legislature, and so infinitely beyond their power to adopt."93

But if the National judges had caused alarm by treating the common law as though it were a statute of the United States without waiting for an act of Congress to make it so, their manners and methods in the enforcement of the Sedition Act94 aroused against them an ever-increasing hostility.

Stories of their performances on the bench in such cases – their tones when speaking to counsel, to accused persons, and even to witnesses, their immoderate language, their sympathy with one of the European nations then at war and their animosity toward the other, their partisanship in cases on trial before them – tales made up from such material flew from mouth to mouth, until finally the very name and sight of National judges became obnoxious to most Americans. In short, the assaults upon the National Judiciary were made possible chiefly by the conduct of the National judges themselves.95

The first man convicted under the Sedition Law was a Representative in Congress, the notorious Matthew Lyon of Vermont. He had charged President Adams with a "continual grasp for power … an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation and selfish avarice." Also, Lyon had permitted the publication of a letter to him from Joel Barlow, in which the President's address to the Senate and the Senate's response96 were referred to as "the bullying speech of your President" and "the stupid answer of your Senate"; and expressed wonder "that the answer of both Houses had not been an order to send him [Adams] to the mad house."97

Lyon was indicted under the accusation that he had tried "to stir up sedition and to bring the President and Government of the United States into contempt." He declared that the jury was selected from his enemies.98 Under the charge of Justice Paterson of the Supreme Court he was convicted. The court sentenced him to four months in jail and the payment of a fine of one thousand dollars.99

In the execution of the sentence, United States Marshal Jabez G. Fitch used the prisoner cruelly. On the way to the jail at Vergennes, Vermont, he was repeatedly insulted. He was finally thrown into a filthy, stench-filled cell without a fireplace and with nothing "but the iron bars to keep the cold out." It was "the common receptacle for horse-thieves … runaway negroes, or any kind of felons." He was subjected to the same kind of treatment that was accorded in those days to the lowest criminals.100 The people were deeply stirred by the fate of Matthew Lyon. Quick to realize and respond to public feeling, Jefferson wrote: "I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things."101

One Anthony Haswell, editor of the Vermont Gazette published at Bennington, printed an advertisement of a lottery by which friends of Lyon, who was a poor man, hoped to raise enough money to pay his fine. This advertisement was addressed "to the enemies of political persecutions in the western district of Vermont." It was asserted that Lyon "is holden by the oppressive hand of usurped power in a loathsome prison, deprived almost of the right of reason, and suffering all the indignities which can be heaped upon him by a hard-hearted savage, who has, to the disgrace of Federalism, been elevated to a station where he can satiate his barbarity on the misery of his victims."102 The "savage" referred to was United States Marshal Fitch. In the same paper an excerpt was reprinted from the Aurora which declared that "the administration publically notified that Tories … were worthy of the confidence of the government."103

Haswell was indicted for sedition. In defense he established the brutality with which Lyon had been treated and proposed to prove by two witnesses not then present (General James Drake of Virginia, and James McHenry, President Adams's Secretary of War) that the Government favored the occasional appointment of Tories to office. Justice Paterson ruled that such evidence was inadmissible, and charged the jury that if Haswell's intent was defamatory, he should be found guilty. Thereupon he was convicted and sentenced to two months' imprisonment and the payment of a fine of two hundred dollars.104