Volume II Part 1 (1/2)

The Life of John Marshall.

Volume 2.

by Albert J. Beveridge.

CHAPTER I

INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ON AMERICA

Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it now is. (Jefferson.)

That malignant philosophy which can coolly and deliberately pursue, through oceans of blood, abstract systems for the attainment of some fancied untried good. (Marshall.)

The only genuine liberty consists in a mean equally distant from the despotism of an individual and a million. (”Publicola”: J. Q.

Adams, 1792.)

The decision of the French King, Louis XVI, on the advice of his Ministers, to weaken Great Britain by aiding the Americans in their War for Independence, while it accomplished its purpose, was fatal to himself and to the Monarchy of France. As a result, Great Britain lost America, but Louis lost his head. Had not the Bourbon Government sent troops, fleets, munitions, and money to the support of the failing and desperate American fortunes, it is probable that Was.h.i.+ngton would not have prevailed; and the fires of the French holocaust which flamed throughout the world surely would not have been lit so soon.

The success of the American patriots in their armed resistance to the rule of George III, although brought about by the aid of the French Crown, was, nevertheless, the s.h.i.+ning and dramatic example which Frenchmen imitated in beginning that vast and elemental upheaval called the French Revolution.[1] Thus the unnatural alliance in 1778 between French Autocracy and American Liberty was one of the great and decisive events of human history.

In the same year, 1789, that the American Republic began its career under the forms of a National Government, the curtain rose in France on that tremendous drama which will forever engage the interest of mankind.

And just as the American Revolution vitally influenced French opinion, so the French Revolution profoundly affected American thought; and, definitely, helped to shape those contending forces in American life that are still waging their conflict.

While the economic issue, so sharp in the adoption of the Const.i.tution, became still keener, as will appear, after the National Government was established, it was given a higher temper in the forge of the French Revolution. American history, especially of the period now under consideration, can be read correctly only by the lights that s.h.i.+ne from that t.i.tanic smithy; can be understood only by considering the effect upon the people, the thinkers, and the statesmen of America, of the deeds done and words spoken in France during those inspiring if monstrous years.

The naturally conservative or radical temperaments of men in America were hardened by every episode of the French convulsion. The events in France, at this time, operated upon men like Hamilton on the one hand, and Jefferson on the other hand, in a fas.h.i.+on as deep and lasting as it was antagonistic and antipodal; and the intellectual and moral phenomena, manifested in picturesque guise among the people in America, impressed those who already were, and those who were to become, the leaders of American opinion, as much as the events of the Gallic cataclysm itself.

George Was.h.i.+ngton at the summit of his fame, and John Marshall just beginning his ascent, were alike confirmed in that non-popular tendency of thought and feeling which both avowed in the dark years between our War for Independence and the adoption of our Const.i.tution.[2] In reviewing all the situations, not otherwise to be fully understood, that arose from the time Was.h.i.+ngton became President until Marshall took his seat as Chief Justice, we must have always before our eyes the extraordinary scenes and consider the delirious emotions which the French Revolution produced in America. It must be constantly borne in mind that Americans of the period now under discussion did not and could not look upon it with present-day knowledge, perspective, or calmness.

What is here set down is, therefore, an attempt to portray the effects of that volcanic eruption of human forces upon the minds and hearts of those who witnessed, from across the ocean, its flames mounting to the heavens and its lava pouring over the whole earth.

Unless this portrayal is given, a blank must be left in a recital of the development of American radical and conservative sentiment and of the formation of the first of American political parties. Certainly for the purposes of the present work, an outline, at least, of the effect of the French Revolution on American thought and feeling is indispensable. Just as the careers of Marshall and Jefferson are inseparably intertwined, and as neither can be fully understood without considering the other, so the American by-products of the French Revolution must be examined if we would comprehend either of these great protagonists of hostile theories of democratic government.

At first everybody in America heartily approved the French reform movement. Marshall describes for us this unanimous approbation. ”A great revolution had commenced in that country,” he writes, ”the first stage of which was completed by limiting the powers of the monarch, and by the establishment of a popular a.s.sembly. In no part of the globe was this revolution hailed with more joy than in America. The influence it would have on the affairs of the world was not then distinctly foreseen; and the philanthropist, without becoming a political partisan, rejoiced in the event. On this subject, therefore, but one sentiment existed.”[3]

Jefferson had written from Paris, a short time before leaving for America: ”A complete revolution in this [French] government, has been effected merely by the force of public opinion; ... and this revolution has not cost a single life.”[4] So little did his glowing mind then understand the forces which he had helped set in motion. A little later he advises Madison of the danger threatening the reformed French Government, but adds, rea.s.suringly, that though ”the lees ... of the patriotic party [the French radical party] of wicked principles & desperate fortunes” led by Mirabeau who ”is the chief ... may produce a temporary confusion ... they cannot have success ultimately. The King, the ma.s.s of the substantial people of the whole country, the army, and the influential part of the clergy, form a firm phalanx which must prevail.”[5]

So, in the beginning, all American newspapers, now more numerous, were exultant. ”Liberty will have another feather in her cap.... The ensuing winter [1789] will be the commencement of a Golden Age,”[6] was the glowing prophecy of an enthusiastic Boston journal. Those two sentences of the New England editor accurately stated the expectation and belief of all America.

But in France itself one American had grave misgivings as to the outcome. ”The materials for a revolution in this country are very indifferent. Everybody agrees that there is an utter prostration of morals; but this general position can never convey to an American mind the degree of depravity.... A hundred thousand examples are required to show the extreme rottenness.... The virtuous ... stand forward from a background deeply and darkly shaded.... From such crumbling matter ...

the great edifice of freedom is to be erected here [in France]....

[There is] a perfect indifference to the violation of engagements....

Inconstancy is mingled in the blood, marrow, and very essence of this people.... Consistency is a phenomenon.... The great ma.s.s of the common people have ... no morals but their interest. These are the creatures who, led by drunken curates, are now in the high road _a la liberte_.”[7] Such was the report sent to Was.h.i.+ngton by Gouverneur Morris, the first American Minister to France under the Const.i.tution.

Three months later Morris, writing officially, declares that ”this country is ... as near to anarchy as society can approach without dissolution.”[8] And yet, a year earlier, Lafayette had lamented the French public's indifference to much needed reforms; ”The people ...

have been so dull that it has made me sick” was Lafayette's doleful account of popular enthusiasm for liberty in the France of 1788.[9]

Gouverneur Morris wrote Robert Morris that a French owner of a quarry demanded damages because so many bodies had been dumped into the quarry that they ”choked it up so that he could not get men to work at it.”

These victims, declared the American Minister, had been ”the best people,” killed ”without form of trial, and their bodies thrown like dead dogs into the first hole that offered.”[10] Gouverneur Morris's diary abounds in such entries as ”[Sept. 2, 1792] the murder of the priests, ... murder of prisoners,... [Sept. 3] The murdering continues all day.... [Sept. 4th].... And still the murders continue.”[11]

John Marshall was now the attorney of Robert Morris; was closely connected with him in business transactions; and, as will appear, was soon to become his relative by the marriage of Marshall's brother to the daughter of the Philadelphia financier. Gouverneur Morris, while not related to Robert Morris, was ”entirely devoted” to and closely a.s.sociated with him in business; and both were in perfect agreement of opinions.[12] Thus the reports of the scarlet and revolting phases of the French Revolution that came to the Virginia lawyer were carried through channels peculiarly personal and intimate.