Volume I Part 25 (1/2)
It is surprising that gentlemen cannot dismiss their private animosities but will bring them in the a.s.sembly. (Marshall.)
In 1783, a small wooden building stood among the two or three hundred little frame houses[614] which, scattered irregularly from the river to the top of the hill, made up the town of Richmond at the close of the Revolution. It was used for ”b.a.l.l.s,” public banquets, and other functions which the merriment or inclination of the miniature Capital required. But its chief use was to house the legislative majesty of Virginia. In this building the General a.s.sembly of the State held its bi-yearly sessions. Here met the representatives of the people after their slow and toilsome journey on horseback through the dense forests and all but impa.s.sable roads from every county of the Commonwealth.[615]
The twenty years that had pa.s.sed since Marshall's father entered the House of Burgesses had brought changes in the appearance and deportment of Virginia's legislative body corresponding to those in the government of the newly established State. But few elegancies of velvet coat, fine lace, silk stocking, and silver buckle were to be seen in the Virginia Legislature of 1783. Later these were to reappear to some extent; but at the close of the Revolution democracy was rampant, and manifested itself in clothing and manners as well as in curious legislation and strange civil convulsions.
The visitor at a session of the Old Dominion's lawmakers beheld a variegated array--one member in homespun trousers thrust into high boots; still another with the fringed Indian leggings and hunting-s.h.i.+rt of the frontier. Some wore great-coats, some jackets, and, in general, an ostentatious disregard of fas.h.i.+onable apparel prevailed, which occasional silk knee-breeches and stockings emphasized.
The looker-on would have thought this gathering of Virginia lawmakers to be anything but a deliberative body enacting statutes for the welfare of over four hundred thousand people. An eye-witness records that movement, talk, laughter went on continuously; these Solons were not quiet five minutes at a time.[616] All debating was done by a very few men.[617]
The others ”for most part ... without clear ... ideas, with little education or knowledge ... merely ... give their votes.”[618]
Adjoining the big room where this august a.s.sembly sat, was an anteroom; and at the entrance between these two rooms stood a burly doorkeeper, who added to the quiet and gravity of the proceedings by frequently calling out in a loud voice the names of members whom const.i.tuents or visitors wanted to see; and there was a constant running back and forth. The anteroom itself was a scene of conversational tumult.
Horse-racing, runaway slaves, politics, and other picturesque matters were the subjects discussed.[619] Outsiders stood in no awe of these lawgivers of the people and voiced their contempt, ridicule, or dislike quite as freely as their approval or admiration.[620]
Into this a.s.sembly came John Marshall in the fall of 1782. Undoubtedly his father had much to do with his son's election as one of Fauquier County's representatives. His predominant influence, which had made Thomas Marshall Burgess, Sheriff, and Vestryman before the Revolution, had been increased by his admirable war record; his mere suggestion that his son should be sent to the House of Delegates would have been weighty. And the embryo attorney wanted to go, not so much as a step in his career, but because the Legislature met in the town where Mary Ambler lived. In addition to his father's powerful support, his late comrades, their terms of enlistment having expired, had returned to their homes and were hotly enthusiastic for their captain.[621] He was elected almost as a matter of course.
No one in that motley gathering called the House of Delegates was dressed more negligently than this young soldier-lawyer and politician from the backwoods of Fauquier County. He probably wore the short ”round about” jacket, which was his favorite costume. And among all that free-and-easy crowd no one was less constrained, less formal or more sociable and ”hail-fellow, well-met” than this black-eyed, laughter-loving representative from the up country.
But no one had a sounder judgment, a more engaging personality, or a broader view of the drift of things than John Marshall. And notable men were there for him to observe; vast forces moving for him to study.
Thomas Jefferson had again become a member of the House after his vindication from threatened impeachment. Patrick Henry was a member, too, and William Cabell, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, and other men whose names have become historic. During Marshall's later years in the Legislature, James Madison, George Mason, William Grayson, Edmund Randolph, George Nicholas, and others of like stature became Marshall's colleagues.
It took eighteen days to organize the House at the first session John Marshall attended.[622] The distance that members had to come was so great, traveling so hard and slow, that not until November 9 had enough members arrived to make a quorum.[623] Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were two of the absent and several times were ordered to be taken into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms.[624] The Journal for Friday, November 8, gravely announces that ”it was ordered that Mr. Thomas Jefferson, one of the members for Albemarle county who was taken into the custody of a special messenger by Mr. Speaker's warrant, agreeable to an order of the 28th ult., be discharged out of custody; it appearing to the House that he has good cause for his present non-attendance.”[625]
Marshall must have favorably impressed the Speaker; for he was immediately appointed a member of the important Committee for Courts of Justice;[626] and two days later a member of a special committee ”To form a plan of national defense against invasions”; to examine into the state of public arms, accouterments, and ammunition, and to consult with the Executive ”on what a.s.sistance they may want from the Legislature for carrying the plan into execution.”[627] Two days afterwards Marshall was appointed on a special committee to frame a bill to amend the ordinance of Convention.[628]
His first vote was for a bill to permit John M'Lean, who, because of illness, went to England before the outbreak of the war, and who had returned, to remain in Virginia and live with his family.[629]
Marshall's next two votes before taking his place as a member of the Council of State are of no moment except as indicating the bent of his mind for honest business legislation and for a strong and efficient militia.[630] During November, Marshall was appointed on several other committees.[631] Of these, the most important was the select committee to bring in a bill for the reorganization of the militia,[632] which reported a comprehensive and well-drawn measure that became a law.[633]
He was also on the Standing Committee of Privileges and Elections.[634]
The Virginia Legislature, during these years, was not a body to inspire respect.[635] Madison had a great contempt for it and spoke with disgust of the ”temper of the Legislature & the wayward course of its proceedings.”[636] Indeed, the entire government of the State was an absurd medley of changing purposes and inefficiency. ”Nothing,” wrote Madison to Jefferson, ”can exceed the confusion which reigns throughout our Revenue department.... This confusion indeed runs through all of our public affairs, and must continue as long as the present mode of legislating continues”; the method of drawing bills ”must soon bring our laws and our Legislature into contempt among all orders of Citizens.”[637]
Nor did Virginia's lawmakers improve for several years. Madison in 1787 advised Was.h.i.+ngton that ”The proceedings of the a.s.sembly are, as usual, rapidly degenerating with the progress of the session.”[638] And the irritated soldier at Mount Vernon responded with characteristic heat that ”Our a.s.sembly has been ... employed ... chiefly in rectifying some of the mistakes of the last, and committing new ones for emendations at the next.”[639] Was.h.i.+ngton, writing to Lafayette of American affairs in 1788, said, with disgust, that ”Virginia in the very last session ...
was about to pa.s.s some of the most extravagant and preposterous edicts ... that ever stained the leaves of a legislative code.”[640]
Popular as he was with the members of the Legislature, Marshall shared Madison's opinion of their temper and conduct. Of the fall session of the a.s.sembly of 1783, he writes to Colonel Levin Powell: ”This long session has not produced a single bill of Public importance except that for the readmission of Commutables.[641] ... It ought to be perfect as it has twice pa.s.sed the House. It fell the first time (after an immensity of labor and debate) a sacrifice to the difference of opinion subsisting in the House of Delegates and the Senate with respect to a money bill. A bill for the regulation of elections and inforcing the attendance of members is now on the Carpet and will probably pa.s.s.[642]... It is surprising that Gentlemen of character cannot dismiss their private animosities, but will bring them in the a.s.sembly.”[643]
Early in the session Marshall in a letter to Monroe describes the leading members and the work of the House.
”The Commutable bill,”[644] writes he, ”has at length pa.s.s'd and with it a suspension of the collections of taxes till the first of January next.... Colo. Harry Lee of the Legionary corps” is to take the place of ”Col^o. R. H. Lee” whose ”services are lost to the a.s.sembly forever”; and Marshall does not know ”whether the public will be injur'd by the change.” Since the pa.s.sage of the ”Commutable bill ... the attention of the house has been so fix'd on the Citizen bill that they have scarcely thought on any other subject.... Col. [George] Nicholas (politician not fam'd for hitting a medium) introduced one admitting into this country every species of Men except Natives who had borne arms against the state.... Mr. Jones introduc'd by way of amendment, one totally new and totally opposite to that which was the subject of deliberation. He spoke with his usual sound sense and solid reason. Mr. Henry opposed him.
”The Speaker replied with some degree of acrimony and Henry retorted with a good deal of tartness but with much temper; 'tis his peculiar excellence when he altercates to appear to be drawn unwillingly into the contest and to throw in the eyes of others the whole blame on his adversary. His influence is immense.”[645]
Marshall's strange power of personality which, in after years, was so determining an influence on the destiny of the country, together with the combined influence of his father and of the State Treasurer, Jacquelin Ambler, Marshall's father-in-law, now secured for the youthful legislator an unusual honor. Eleven days after the House of Delegates had organized, Marshall was elected by joint ballot of the Senate and the House a member of the Council of State,[646] commonly called the Executive Council. The Journal of the Council for November 20, 1782, records: ”John Marshall esquire having been elected a Member of the Privy Council or Council of State in the room of John Bannister esquire who hath resigned and producing a Certificate from under the hand of Jaq. Ambler esq^r of his having qualified according to law; he took his seat at the board.”[647]
Marshall had just turned his twenty-seventh year, and the Council of State was supposed to be made up of men of riper years and experience.
Older men, and especially the judges of the courts, resented the bestowal of this distinction upon so youthful a member serving his first term. Edmund Pendleton, Judge of the High Court of Chancery and President of the Court of Appeals, wrote to Madison that: ”Young Mr.
Marshall is elected a Councillor.... He is clever, but I think too young for that department, which he should rather have earned as a retirement and reward, by ten or twelve years hard service in the a.s.sembly.”[648]
The Council consisted of eight members elected by the Legislature either from the delegates or from the people at large. It was the Governor's official cabinet and a const.i.tutional part of the executive power. The Governor consulted the Council on all important matters coming before him; and he appointed various important officers only upon its advice.[649]