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

607

Bushrod Washington to Wayne, Nov. 19, 1802, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

608

Wayne to Marshall, Feb. 17, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

609

Weems is one of the most entertaining characters in American history. He was born in Maryland, and was one of a family of nineteen children. He was educated in London as a physician, but abandoned medicine for the Church, and served for several years as rector of two or three little Episcopal churches in Maryland and ministered occasionally at Pohick Church, in Truro Parish (sometimes called Mount Vernon Parish), Virginia. In this devout occupation he could not earn enough to support his very large family. So he became a professional book agent – the greatest, perhaps, of that useful fraternity.

On horseback he went wherever it seemed possible to sell a book, his samples in his saddlebags. He was a natural orator, a born entertainer, an expert violinist; and these gifts he turned to good account in his book-selling activities.

If a political meeting was to be held near any place he happened upon, Weems would hurry to it, make a speech, and advertise his wares. A religious gathering was his joy; there he would preach and exhort – and sell books. Did young people assemble for merrymaking, Weems was in his element, and played the fiddle for the dancing. If he arrived at the capital of a State when the Legislature was in session, he would contrive to be invited to address the Solons – and procure their subscriptions.

610

Weems probably knew more of the real life of the country, from Pennsylvania southward, than any other one man; and he thoroughly understood American tastes and characteristics. To this is due the unparalleled success of his Life of Washington. In addition to this absurd but engaging book, Weems wrote the Life of Gen. Francis Marion (1805); the Life of Benjamin Franklin (1817); and the Life of William Penn (1819). He was also the author of several temperance pamphlets, the most popular of which was the Drunkard's Looking Glass. Weems died in 1825.

Weems's Life of Washington still enjoys a good sale. It has been one of the most widely purchased and read books in our history, and has profoundly influenced the American conception of Washington. To it we owe the grotesque and wholly imaginary stories of young Washington and the cherry tree, the planting of lettuce by his father to prove to the boy the designs of Providence, and other anecdotes that make that intensely human founder of the American Nation an impossible and intolerable prig.

The only biography of Weems is Parson Weems, by Lawrence C. Wroth, a mere sketch, but trustworthy and entertaining.

611

Weems to Wayne, Dec. 10, 1802, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

612

Same to same, Dec. 14, 1802, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

613

Weems to Wayne, Dec. 17, 1802, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

614

Same to same, Dec. 22, 1802, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

615

Same to same, April 2, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

616

Wayne to Bushrod Washington, Jan. 23, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

617

Weems to Wayne, April 8, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

618

Same to same, April 18, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

619

Bushrod Washington, like the other Federalists, would not call his political opponents by their true party name, Republicans: he styled them "democrats," the most opprobrious term the Federalists could then think of, excepting only the word "Jacobins." (See vol. ii, 439, of this work.)

620

Washington to Wayne, March 1, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

621

Same to same. March 23, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

622

Wayne to Washington, Oct. 23, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

An interesting sidelight on the commercial methods of the times is displayed by a circular which Wayne sent to his agents calling for money from subscribers to Marshall's Life of Washington: "The remittance may be made through the Post Office, and should any danger be apprehended, you can cut a Bank note in two parts and send each by separate mails." (Wayne's Circular, Feb. 17, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.)

623

This list was published in the first edition. It is a good directory of the most prominent Federalists and of the leading Republican politicians of the time. "T. Jefferson, P.U.S." and each member of his Cabinet subscribed; Marshall himself was a subscriber for his own book, and John C. Calhoun, a student at Yale College at the time, was another. In the cities most of the lawyers took Marshall's book.

624

Wayne to Bushrod Washington, Nov. 3, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

It would seem from this letter that Marshall and Washington had reduced their lump cash price from $100,000 to $70,000. In stating his expenses, Wayne says that the painter "Gilbert Stuart demanded a handsome sum for the privilege of Engraving from his Original" portrait of Washington.

625

See letter last cited.

626

Wayne to Bushrod Washington, Dec. 16, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

627

Marshall to Wayne, Dec. 23, 1803, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

628

Marshall to Wayne, Jan. 10, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

629

Marshall to Bushrod Washington, March 25, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

630

Same to same, April, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

631

Same to same, April 29, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

632

Marshall to Wayne, June 1, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

633

Same to same, June 6, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

634

Marshall to Wayne, June 10, July 5, July 8, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

635

Wayne to Bushrod Washington, Aug. 20, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

636

Marshall to Wayne, July 20, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

637

Marshall to Wayne, Aug. 10, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

638

Literary Magazine and American Register of Philadelphia, July, 1804. The reviewer makes many of the criticisms that appeared on the completion of the biography. (See infra, 261-79.)

639

Wayne to Marshall, Aug. 20, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

640

The affair at Little Meadows and the defeat of Braddock. (Marshall: Life of George Washington, 1st ed. i, 356-58, 368-71.)

641

These were: Belknap, Belsham, Chalmers, Dodsley, Entick or Entinck, Gordon, Hutchinson, Minot, Ramsay, Raynal, Robertson, Russell, Smith, Stedman, Stith, Trumbull.

642

For example, Marshall's description of Sir William Berkeley, who was, the reader is informed, "distinguished … by the mildness of his temper, the gentleness of his manners and … popular virtues." (Marshall, 1st ed. i, 72.)

643

Ib. 188-92; and see vol. i, 6, of this work.

644

Ib. 1st ed. i, 86-89.

645

Ib. 111-12.

646

Ib.; see Notes, 9-18.

647

Ib. x.

648

Ib. 1st ed. ii, 14-20.

649

Ib. 67.

650

Marshall, 1st ed. ii, 82-83; and see vol. i, 66, of this work.

651

See vol. i, 74-79, of this work.

652

Marshall, 1st ed. ii, 193.

653

Ib. 160-69.

654

Ib. 374-75.

655

Ib. 377-78.

656

Marshall, 1st ed. ii, 377.

657

Ib. 386-89.

658

Ib. 390-94.

659

Ib. 417-18, 445-46; and see vol. i, 83-86, of this work.

660

Marshall, 1st ed. ii, 259-61.

661

Marshall to Wayne, Aug. 10, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

662

Marshall to Wayne from Front Royal, Virginia, Sept. 3, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

663

Marshall spent many years preparing this second edition of his Washington, which appeared in 1832, three years before Marshall's death. See infra, 272-73.

664

Marshall to Wayne, Sept. 8, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

665

The amount of this draft is not stated.

666

This would seem to indicate that Wayne had been able to collect payment on the first two volumes, from only two thousand five hundred subscribers, since, by the contract, Marshall and Washington together were to receive one dollar for each book sold.

667

Washington to Wayne, Dec. 25, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

668

Same to same, Jan. 15, 1805, Dreer MSS loc. cit.

669

Same to same, Dec. 30, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

670

Marshall to Wayne, Feb. 27, 1805, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

671

Marshall to Wayne, March 16, 1805, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

672

Same to same, June 29, 1805, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

673

Wayne to Washington, July 4, 1804, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

674

Marshall to Wayne, Oct. 5, 1805, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

675

Washington to Wayne, April 1, 1806, Dreer MSS. loc. cit. It was in this year that the final payments for the Fairfax estate were made and the deed executed to John and James M. Marshall and their brother-in-law Rawleigh Colston. See vol. ii, footnote to 211, and vol. iv, chap. iii, of this work.

676

Same to same, July 14, 1806, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

677

Weems's orders for books are trustworthy first-hand information concerning the literary tastes of the American people at that time, and the extent of education among the wealthy. Writing from Savannah, Georgia, August, 1806, he asks for "Rippons hymns, Watts Dọ, Newton's Dọ, Methodist Dọ, Davies Sermons, Massillons Dọ, Villiage Dọ, Whitfields Dọ, Fuller [the eminent Baptist divine,] Works, viz. His Gospel its own evidence, Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation, Pilgrim's progress, Baxter's Stṣ Rest, Call to the Unconverted, Alarm, by Allein, Hervey's Works, Rushe's Medical Works; All manner of School Books, Novels by the cart load, particularly Charlotte Temple … 2 or 300 of Charlotte Temple … Tom Paines Political Works, Johnson's Poets bound in green or in any handsome garb, particularly Miltons Paradise lost, Tompsons Seasons, Young's N. Thoughts wou'd do well." (Weems to Wayne, Aug. 1806, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.)

Another order calls for all the above and also for "Websters Spellg book, Universal Dọ, Fullers Backslider, Booths reign of Grace, Looking Glass for the mind, Blossoms of Morality, Columbian Orator, Enticks Dictionary, Murrays Grammar, Enfield's Speaker, Best Books on Surveying, Dọ on Navigation, Misses Magazine, Vicar of Wakefield, Robinson Crusoe, Divine Songs for Children, Pamela Small." In this letter forty-four different titles are called for.

678

Weems to Wayne, Jan. 28, 1804, and Aug. 25, 1806, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

679

Same to same, Sept. 20, 1806, Wayne MSS. loc. cit. This letter is written from Augusta, Georgia. Among other books ordered in it, Weems names twelve copies each of "Sallust, Corderius, Eutropius, Nepos, Caesar's Commentaries, Virgil Delph., Horace Delphini, Cicero Dọ, Ovid Dọ"; and nine copies each of "Greek Grammar, Dọ Testament, Lucian, Xenophon."

680

Marshall, iii, 28-42.

681

See vol. i, 93-98, 102, of this work.

682

Marshall, iii, chaps. iii and iv.

683

See vol. i, 98-101, of this work.

684

Marshall, iii, 43-48, 52.

685

Ib. 319, 330, 341-50; and see vol. i, 110-32, of this work.

686

Marshall, iii, 345, 347-49.

687

Ib. 50-53, 62.

688

Marshall, iii, 59. "No species of licentiousness was unpracticed. The plunder and destruction of property was among the least offensive of the injuries sustained." The result "could not fail to equal the most sanguine hopes of the friends of the revolution. A sense of personal wrongs produced a temper, which national considerations had been found too weak to excite… The great body of the people flew to arms."

689

Ib. 20, 22, 24, 27, 386. See also vol. i, 115-16, of this work, and authorities there cited.

690

Marshall, iii, 246-47.

691

Ib. Notes, 4-6.

692

Ib. chap. 8; and see vol. i, 134-38, of this work.

693

Marshall, iii, 366-85.

694

Ib. 486-96.

695

See vol. ii, 405, of this work.

696

Marshall, iv, 114-15.

697

Ib. 188.

698

Ib. 247-65; see vol. i, 143-44, of this work.

699

Marshall, iv, 284-88.

700

Marshall, iv, 530-31.

701

See Jefferson's letter to Barlow, supra.

702

See supra, chap. iii, and infra, chap. vi; and see especially vol. iv, chap. i, of this work.

703

Adams to Marshall, July 17, 1806, MS.

This letter is most important. Adams pictures his situation when President: "A first Magistrate of a great Republick with a General officer under him, a Commander in Chief of the Army, who had ten thousand times as much Influence Popularity and Power as himself, and that Commander in Chief so much under the influence of his Second in command [Hamilton], … the most treacherous, malicious, insolent and revengeful enemy of the first Magistrate is a Picture which may be very delicate and dangerous to draw. But it must be drawn…

"There is one fact … which it will be difficult for posterity to believe, and that is that the measures taken by Senators, Members of the House, some of the heads of departments, and some officers of the Army to force me to appoint General Washington … proceeded not from any regard to him … but merely from an intention to employ him as an engine to elevate Hamilton to the head of affairs civil as well as military."

704

He was "accustomed to contemplate America as his country, and to consider … the interests of the whole." (Marshall, v, 10.)

705

Ib. 24-30.

706

Ib. 31-32.

707

Ib. 33-34.

708

Ib. 45-47.

709

Marshall, v, 65.

710

Ib. 85-86.

711

Marshall, v, 85-87.

712

Ib. 88-89.

713

Marshall, v, 105. Marshall's account of the causes and objects of Shays's Rebellion is given wholly from the ultra-conservative view of that important event. (Ib. 123.)

714

Ib. 128-29.

715

Ib. 132.

716

Ib. 133-50.

717

Marshall, v, 178-79. Thus Marshall, writing in 1806, states one of the central principles of the Constitution as he interpreted it from the Bench years later in three of the most important of American judicial opinions – Fletcher vs. Peck, Sturgis vs. Crowninshield, and the Dartmouth College case. (See infra, chap. x; also vol. iv, chaps. iv and v, of this work.)

718

Marshall, v, 198-210.

719

Ib. 210-13. At this point Marshall is conspicuously, almost ostentatiously impartial, as between Jefferson and Hamilton. His description of the great radical is in terms of praise, almost laudation; the same is true of his analysis of Hamilton's work and character. But he gives free play to his admiration of John Adams. (Ib. 219-20.)

720

Ib. 230-32.

721

Marshall, v, 241.

722

Ib. 243-58.

723

Ib. 271.

724

"That system to which the American government afterwards inflexibly adhered, and to which much of the national prosperity is to be ascribed." (Ib. 408.)

725

See vol. ii, chaps. i to iv, of this work.

726

Marshall, v, 685-709.

727

Ib. 773.

728

James Kent to Moss Kent, July 14, 1807, Kent MSS. Lib. Cong.

729

Jefferson to Barlow, April 16, 1811, Works: Ford, xi, 205.

730

Jefferson to Adams, June 15, 1813, ib. 296.

731

Botta: History of the War of the Independence of the United States of America. This work, published in Italian in 1809, was not translated into English until 1820; but in 1812-13 a French edition was brought out, and that is probably the one Jefferson had read.

732

Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 10, 1815, Works: Ford, xi, 485.

733

Johnson: Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of General Nathanael Greene. This biography was even a greater failure than Marshall's Washington. During this period literary ventures by judges seem to have been doomed.

734

Jefferson to Johnson, March 4, 1823, Works: Ford, xii, 277-78.

735

Works: Ford, i, 165-67.

736

Ib. 181-82.

737

Plumer, March 11, 1808, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.

738

May, June, and August numbers, 1808, Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, v, 259, 322, 434. It appears from the minutes of the Anthology Society, publishers of this periodical, that they had a hard time in finding a person willing to review Marshall's five volumes. Three persons were asked to write the critique and declined. Finally, Mr. Thatcher reluctantly agreed to do the work.

739

Flint, in London Athenæum for 1835, 803.

740

North American Review, xlvi, 483.

741

New York Evening Post, as quoted in Allibone: Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors, ii, 1227.

742

Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1808, as quoted in Randall, ii, footnote to 40.

743

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, xvii, 179.

744

Marshall to Eliot, Sept. 20, 1809, MSS. of the Mass. Hist. Soc.

745

Marshall to Murphey, Oct. 6, 1827, Papers of Archibald D. Murphey: Hoyt, i, 365-66.

746

Washington to Wayne, Nov. 26, 1816, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.

747

Marshall to Washington, Dec. 27, 1821, MS.

748

So popular did this second edition become that, three years after Marshall's death, a little volume, The Life of Washington, was published for school-children. The publisher, James Crissy of Philadelphia, states that this small volume is "printed from the author's own manuscript," thus intimating that Marshall had prepared it. (See Marshall, school ed.)

749

Talbot vs. Seeman, United States vs. Schooner Peggy, Marbury vs. Madison, and Little vs. Barreme.

750

The first three in above note.

751

"We were all deeply affected, and many shed tears." (Plumer to his wife, March 2, 1805, Plumer, 331; and see Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, i, 367.)

"Tears did flow abundantly." (Burr to his daughter, March 13, 1805, Davis, ii, 360.)

752

"There was nothing written or prepared… It was the solemnity, the anxiety, the expectation, and the interest which I saw strongly painted in the countenances of the auditors, that inspired whatever was said." (Ib. 360.)

753

The speech, records the Washington Federalist, which had been extremely abusive of Burr, "was said to be the most dignified, sublime and impressive that ever was uttered."

"His address … was delivered with great force and propriety." (Plumer to his wife, March 2, 1805, Plumer, 331.)

"His speech … was delivered with great dignity… It was listened to with the most earnest and universal attention." (Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, i, 367.) Burr made a profound impression on John Quincy Adams. "There was not a member present but felt the force of this solemn appeal to his sense of duty." (J. Q. Adams to his father, March 14, 1805, Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, iii, 119.)

The franking privilege was given Burr for life, a courtesy never before extended except to a President of the United States and Mrs. Washington. (See Hillhouse's speech, Annals, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 272.)

754

His father was the President of Princeton. His maternal grandfather was Jonathan Edwards.

755

Hamilton's pursuit of Burr was lifelong and increasingly venomous. It seems incredible that a man so transcendently great as Hamilton – easily the foremost creative mind in American statesmanship – should have succumbed to personal animosities such as he displayed toward John Adams, and toward Aaron Burr.