Volume I Part 20 (1/2)

When John Marshall married Miss Ambler, his father gave him one negro and three horses.[549] The following year (1784) the t.i.thable Book shows but five t.i.thable negroes, eight young negroes, eight horses, and eighteen head of cattle in Thomas Marshall's name. He evidently sold his other slaves and personal property or took them with him to Kentucky. So it is likely that the slaves, horses, and cattle left behind were given to his son, together with a part of Thomas Marshall's Fauquier County farm.[550]

During the Revolution Thomas Marshall was, like most other Continental officers, in sore need of money. He tried to sell his land to Was.h.i.+ngton for cash. Was.h.i.+ngton was anxious to buy ”Lands in my own Neck at (almost) any price ... in ye way of Barter ... for Negroes ... or ...

for any thing else (except Breeding Mares and Stock).” But he could not pay money. He estimated, by memory, Thomas Marshall's land at 3000, at a time when, because of depreciated money and inflated prices, ”a Barrl.

of Corn which used to sell for 10/ will now fetch 40--when a Barl. of Porke that formerly could be had for 3 sells for 15.” So Was.h.i.+ngton in 1778 thought that ”Marshall is not a necessitous man.” When it came to trading, the father of his country was keen and suspicious, and he feared, it would seem, that his boyhood friend and comrade in arms would ”practice every deception in his power in order to work me ... up to his price.”[551]

Soon after John Marshall met Mary Ambler at the ”ball” at Yorktown, and just before he went to William and Mary College, his father sold this very land that Was.h.i.+ngton had refused to purchase. On March 28, 1780, Thomas Marshall conveyed to Major Thomas Ma.s.sey [Ma.s.sie] one thousand acres in Fauquier County for ”thirty thousand pounds Currency.”[552]

This was a part of the seventeen hundred acres for which the elder Marshall had paid ”nine hundred and twelve pounds ten s.h.i.+llings” seven years before.[553] The change shows the startling depreciation of Virginia currency as well as Continental paper, both of which in 1780 had reached a very low point and were rapidly going down.[554]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Mary Ambler Marshall_]

It reveals, too, the Marshall family's extreme need of cash, a want sorely felt by nearly everybody at this period; and the familiar fact that owners.h.i.+p of land did not mean the ready command of money. The year after John Marshall's marriage he wrote to James Monroe: ”I do not know what to say to your scheme of selling out. If you can execute it you will have made a very capital sum, if you can retain your lands you will be poor during life unless you remove to the western country, but you have secured for posterity an immense fortune”; and Marshall tells Monroe that the latter can avail himself of the knowledge of Kentucky lands possessed by the members of the Marshall family who were on the ground.[555]

Writing twenty years later of economic conditions during the period now under review, Marshall says: ”Real property was scarcely vendible; and sales of any article for ready money could be made only at a ruinous loss.... In every quarter were found those who a.s.serted it to be impossible for the people to pay their public or private debts.”[556]

So, although his father was a very well-to-do man when John Marshall began married life, he had little or no ready money, and the son could not expect much immediate paternal a.s.sistance. Thomas Marshall had to look out for the bringing-up of a large number of other children and to consider their future; and it is this fact which probably induced him to seek fortune anew in the Kentucky wilderness after he was fifty years of age. Legend has it that Thomas Marshall made his venture on Was.h.i.+ngton's advice. At any rate, he settled, permanently, in Kentucky in the fall of 1783.[557]

The fledgling lawyer evidently expected to start upon a legal career in the county of his birth; but immediately after marrying Miss Ambler, he established himself at Richmond, where her family lived, and there began the practice of the law. While his marriage into the Ambler family was inspired exclusively by an all-absorbing love, the alliance was a fortunate one for John Marshall from the practical point of view. It gave him the support of a powerful State official and one of the best-liked men in all Virginia. A favor asked by Jacquelin Ambler was always granted if possible; and his recommendation of any one was final.

The Ambler household soon became the most attractive in Richmond, as it had been in Yorktown; and Marshall's marriage to Mary Ambler gave him a social standing which, in the Virginia of that day, was a very great a.s.set in business and politics.

The house to which he took his bride was a tiny one-story affair of wood, with only two rooms; the best house the Amblers themselves could secure, as we have seen, was so small that the ”whole family” could scarcely crowd into it. Three years before John Marshall and his young wife set up housekeeping, Richmond could ”scarce afford one comfort in life.”[558] According to Mrs. Carrington the dwelling-houses had no curtains for the windows.[559] The streets were open s.p.a.ces of earth, unpaved and without sidewalks. Many years after Marshall established himself at the new and raw Virginia Capital, Main Street was still unpaved, deep with dust when dry and so muddy during a rainy season that wagons sank up to the axles. Footways had been laid only at intervals along the town's chief thoroughfare; and piles of ashes and cinders were made to serve as street-crossings, from which, if one misstepped on a dark and rainy night, he found himself deep in the mire. A small stream flowed diagonally across Main Street, flooding the surface; and the street itself ended in gullies and swamps.[560] In 1783 the little town was, of course, still more primitive.

There were no brick or stone buildings in Richmond when Marshall was married. The Capitol, itself, was an ugly structure--”a mere wooden barn”--on an unlovely site at the foot of a hill.[561] The private dwellings, scattered about, were the poor, mean, little wooden houses already described by Eliza Ambler.

Trade was in the hands of British merchants who managed to retain their commercial hold in spite of the Revolution.[562] Rough, heavy wagons drawn by four or six horses brought in the produce of the country, which included ”deer and bear skins, furs, ginseng, snake-root,” and even ”dried rattlesnakes ... used to make a viper broth for consumptive patients.”[563] These clumsy vehicles were sometimes a month in covering less than two hundred miles.[564] Specie was the money chiefly used in the back country and the frontier tradesmen made remittances to Richmond by placing a ”bag of gold or silver in the centre of a cask of melted wax or tallow ... or [in a] bale of hemp.”[565]

There was but one church building and attendance was scanty and infrequent.[566] The princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nt was card-playing, in which everybody indulged,[567] and drinking was the common practice.[568] The town sustained but one tavern which was kept by a Neapolitan named Farmicola. This hostelry had two large rooms downstairs and two above.

The beds were under the roof, packed closely together and unseparated by part.i.tions. When the Legislature met, the inn was crowded; and ”Generals, Colonels, Captains, Senators, a.s.sembly-men, Judges, Doctors, Clerks, and crowds of Gentlemen of every weight and calibre and every hue of dress, sat altogether about the fire, drinking, smoking, singing, and talking ribaldry.”[569]

Such were conditions in the town of Richmond when John Marshall hazarded his adventure into the legal profession there in 1783. But it was the seat of the State Government, and the place where the General Court of Appeals and the High Court of Chancery were located. Yet small, poor, and mean as was the Virginia Capital of that day, not even Philadelphia, New York, or Boston could boast of a more brilliant bar.

Randolph and Wickham, Innes and Ronald, Campbell and Call, and others whose distinction has made the bar of the Old Dominion historic, practiced at Richmond. And the court around which this extraordinary constellation gathered was equally eminent. Pendleton, whose intellect and industry more than supplied early defects in education, was president of the Court of Appeals; Wythe was one of the judges of the High Court of Chancery, of which he afterwards became sole chancellor; Paul Carrington and others of almost equal stature sat with Pendleton on the Supreme Bench. Later on appeared the erudite, able, and commanding Roane, who, long afterwards, when Marshall came into his own, was to be his most formidable antagonist in the clash of courts.

Among such lawyers and before a court of this high quality the young attorney from the backwoods of Fauquier County began his struggle for a share of legal business. He had practically no equipment except his intellect, his integrity, and his gift for inspiring confidence and friends.h.i.+p. Of learning in the law, he had almost none at all. He had read Blackstone, although not thoroughly;[570] but the only legal training that Marshall had received was acquired during his few weeks at William and Mary College. And in this romantic interval, as we have seen, he was thinking a good deal more about Mary Ambler than about preparing himself for his career.

We know exactly to which of Wythe's lectures Marshall had listened; for he took notes of them. He procured a thick, blank book strongly bound in calf. In this he wrote in a large, firm hand, at the top of the page, the topics of lectures which Wythe had announced he would give, leaving after each headline several pages for notes.[571] Since these notes are a full record of Marshall's only formal instruction in the law, a complete list of the subjects, together with the s.p.a.ce allotted to each, is as important as it is interesting.

On the subject of Abatement he wrote three pages; on Accounts, two pages; on Accord and Satisfaction, one page; Actions in General, one and a half pages; Actions Local and Transitory, one fourth page; Actions Qui Tam, one and one fourth pages; Actions on the Case, three and one half pages; Agreements, three pages; Annuity and Rent Charge, two pages; Arbitrament and Award, one and one half pages; a.s.sault and Battery, two thirds of a page; a.s.signment, one half page; a.s.sumpsit, one and a half pages; Attachment, one half page; Audita Querela, one fourth page; Authority, one fourth page; Bail in Civil Causes, one half page; Bail in Criminal Causes, one and two thirds pages; Bailment, two pages; Bargain and Sale, one half page; Baron and Feme, four pages; b.a.s.t.a.r.dy, three quarters page; Bills of Sale, one half page; Bills of Exceptions, one half page; Burglary, one page; Carriers, one page; Certiorari, one half page; Commitments, one half page; Condition, five and one half pages; Coparceners, one and one half pages; Costs, one and one fourth pages; Covenant, three pages; Curtesy of England, one half page; Damages, one and one half pages; Debt, one and one half pages; Descent, one and one half pages; Detinue, one half page; Devises, six and one half pages; Disseisin, two lines; Distress, one and two thirds pages; Dower, two pages; Duress, one third page; Ejectment, two and two thirds pages; Election, two thirds page; Error, two and one third pages; Escape in Civil Cases, one and one fifth pages; Estates in Fee Simple, three fourths page; Estate for Life and Occupancy, one and four fifths pages; Evidence, four pages, two lines; Execution, one and five sixths pages; Executors and Administrators, eleven pages; Extinguishment, two thirds page; Extortion, one half page; Felony, three and one sixth pages; Forcible Entry and Detainer, three fourths page; Forgery, three pages; Forfeiture, two and four fifths pages; Fraud, three pages, one line; Grants, three and three fourths pages; Guardian, two and five sixths pages; Heir and Ancestor, five pages, two lines; Idiots and Lunatics, three pages; Indictments, four pages, three lines; Infancy and Age, nine and one half pages; Information, one and one fifth pages; Injunction, one and two thirds pages; Inns and Innkeepers, two and two thirds pages; Joint Tenants and Tenants in Common, nine and one sixth pages; Jointure, three pages.

We find six pages he had reserved for notes on the subject of Juries left blank, and two blank pages follow the caption, ”Justice of the Peace.” But he made seventeen and two thirds pages of notes on the subjects of Leases and Terms for Years, and twelve and one half pages on the subject of Legacies. This ended his formal legal studies; for he made no notes under the remaining lecture subjects.[572]

Not an ideal preparation to attract clients, we must admit, nor to serve them well when he got them. But slender and elementary as was his store of learning, his apparel, manners, and habits were even less likely to bring business to this meagerly equipped young advocate.

Marshall made practically no money as a lawyer during his first year in Richmond. Most of his slender income seems to have been from his salary as a member of the Legislature.[573] He enters in his Account Book in 1783 (where it begins) several receipts ”by my civil list warrants,”

and several others, ”Rec^d. from Treasury.” Only four fees are entered for the whole year--one for three pounds, another for two pounds, eleven s.h.i.+llings, one for two pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings, and a fourth for two pounds, eight s.h.i.+llings.

On the contrary, he paid one pound, two s.h.i.+llings, sixpence for ”advice fee given the attorney for opinion on surveyors fees.” He bought ”one pair Spectacles” for three s.h.i.+llings and ninepence. His sociable nature is revealed at the beginning of his career by entries, ”won at Whist 24-1-4” and ”won at Whist 22/”; and again ”At Backgammon 30/-1-10.” Also the reverse entry, ”Lost at Whist 3 14/.”[574]

The cost of living in Richmond at the close of the Revolution is shown by numerous entries. Thirty-six bushels of oats cost Marshall three pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings, sixpence. He paid one pound for ”one pair stockings”; and one pound, eighteen s.h.i.+llings, sixpence for a hat. In 1783 a tailor charged him one pound, eight s.h.i.+llings, sixpence for ”making a Coat.” He enters ”stockings for P.[olly][575] 6 dollars.” A stove ”Dutch Oven” cost fourteen s.h.i.+llings and eightpence; and ”150 bushels coal for self 7-10” (seven pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings).

In October of the year of his marriage he paid six s.h.i.+llings for wine and ”For rum 9-15.” His entries for household expenditures for these months give an idea of the housekeeping: ”Given Polly 6 dollars 4-10-6; ... a coffe pot 4/; 1 yd. Gauze 3/6; 2 Sugar boxes 1-7-6; Candlestick &c. 3/6 1 y^{d}. Linnen for P. 2/6; 2 pieces of bobbin 1/6; Tea pot 3/; Edging 3/6; Sugar pot 1/6; Milk 1/; Thimble 4/2; Irons 9/,... Tea 20/.”[576]

The entries in Marshall's Account Book for the first year and a half of his married life are indiscriminately and poorly made, without dates of receipts and expenditures. Then follows a period up to June, 1785, where the days of the month are stated. Then come entries without dates; and later, the dates sometimes are given and sometimes not. Marshall was as negligent in his bookkeeping as he was in his dress. Entries in the notebook show on their face his distaste for such details. The Account Book covers a period of twelve years, from 1783 to 1795.