Volume III Part 21 (1/2)
”The other charges except the 1st & 4th which I suppose to be altogether unfounded, seem still less to furnish cause for impeachment. But the little finger of [blotted out--probably ”democracy”] is heavier than the loins of ----.[492]
”Farewell--With much respect and esteem....
”J. MARSHALL.”[493]
Marshall thus suggested the most radical method for correcting judicial decisions ever advanced, before or since, by any man of the first cla.s.s.
Appeals from the Supreme Court to Congress! Senators and Representatives to be the final judges of any judicial decision with which a majority of the House was dissatisfied! Had we not the evidence of Marshall's signature to a letter written in his well-known hand, it could not be credited that he ever entertained such sentiments. They were in direct contradiction to his reasoning in Marbury _vs._ Madison, utterly destructive of the Federalist philosophy of judicial control of legislation.
The explanation is that Marshall was seriously alarmed. By his own pen he reveals to us his state of mind before and on that dismal February day when he beheld Samuel Chase arraigned at the bar of the Senate of the United States. During the trial Marshall's bearing as a witness[494]
again exhibited his trepidation. And, as we have seen, he had good cause for sharp anxiety.[495]
The avowed Republican purpose to remove him and his Federalist a.s.sociates from the Supreme Bench, the settled and well-known intention of Jefferson to appoint Spencer Roane as Chief Justice when Marshall was ousted, and the certainty that this would be fatal to the execution of those fundamental principles of government to which Marshall was so pa.s.sionately devoted--these important considerations fully warranted the apprehension which the Chief Justice felt and now displayed.
Had he been indifferent to the peril that confronted him and the whole National Judiciary, he would have exhibited a woeful lack of sense and feeling. He was more than justified in resorting to any honorable expedient to save the great office he held from occupancy by a resolute and resourceful foe of those Const.i.tutional theories, the application of which, Marshall firmly believed, was indispensable to the sound development of the American Nation.
The arrangements for the trial were as dramatic as the event itself was momentous.[496] The scenes of the impeachment prosecution of Warren Hastings were still vivid in the minds of all, and in imitation of that spectacle, the Senate Chamber was now bedecked with impressive splendor.
It was aglow with theatrical color, and the placing of the various seats was as if a tragic play were to be performed.
To the right and left of the President's chair were two rows of benches with desks, the whole covered with crimson cloth. Here sat the thirty-four Senators of the United States. Three rows of benches, arranged in tiers, extended from the wall toward the center of the room; these were covered with green cloth and were occupied by the members of the House of Representatives. Upon their right an enclosure had been constructed, and in it were the members of Jefferson's Cabinet.
Beneath the permanent gallery to which the general public was admitted, a temporary gallery, supported by pillars, ran along the wall, and faced the crimson-covered places of the Senators. At either end of it were boxes. Comfortable seats had been provided in this enclosure; and these were covered with green cloth, which also was draped over the bal.u.s.trade.
This sub-gallery and the boxes were filled with ladies dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on. A pa.s.sageway was left from the President's chair to the doorway. On either side of this aisle were two stalls covered with blue cloth, as were also the chairs within them. They were occupied by the managers of the House of Representatives and by the lawyers who conducted the defense.[497]
A short, slender, elegantly formed man, with pallid face and steady black eyes, presided over this Senatorial Court. He was carefully dressed, and his manners and deportment were meticulously correct. Aaron Burr, fresh from his duel with Hamilton, and under indictment in two States, had resumed his duties as Vice-President. Nothing in the bearing of this playwright character indicated in the smallest degree that anything out of the ordinary had happened to him. The circ.u.mstance of his presence, however, dismayed even the most liberal of the New England Federalists. ”We are indeed fallen on evil times,” wrote Senator Plumer.
”The high office of President is filled by an _infidel_, that of Vice-President by a _murderer_.”[498]
For the first time since the Republican victory of 1800, which, but for his skill, courage, and energy in New York, would not have been achieved,[499] Burr now found himself in favor with the Administration and the Republican chieftains.[500] Jefferson determined that Aaron Burr must be captured--at least conciliated. He could not be displaced as the presiding officer at the Chase impeachment trial; his rulings would be influential, perhaps decisive; the personal friends.h.i.+p and admiration of several Senators for him were well known; the emergency of the Republican Party was acute. Chase must be convicted at all hazards; and while n.o.body but Jefferson then doubted that this would be the result, no chances were to be taken, no precaution overlooked.
The President had rewarded the three princ.i.p.al witnesses against Pickering with important and lucrative offices[501] after the insane judge had been removed from the bench. Indeed he had given the vacated judges.h.i.+p to one of these witnesses. But such an example Jefferson well knew would have no effect upon Burr; even promises would avail nothing with the man who for nearly three years had suffered indignity and opposition from an Administration which he, more than any one man except Jefferson himself, had placed in power.
So it came about that Vice-President Aaron Burr, with only four weeks of official life left him, with the whole North clamorous against him because of his killing of Hamilton and an indictment of murder hanging over him in New Jersey, now found himself showered with favors by those who owed him so much and who, for nearly four years, had so grossly insulted him.
Burr's stepson, his brother-in-law, his most intimate friend, were forthwith appointed to the three most valuable and commanding offices in the new government of the Louisiana Territory, at the attractive city of New Orleans.[502] The members of the Cabinet became attentive to Burr.
The President himself exercised his personal charm upon the fallen politician. Time after time Burr was now invited to dine with Jefferson at the Executive Mansion.
Nor were Presidential dinners, the bestowal of patronage hitherto offensively refused, and attentions of the Cabinet, the limit of the efforts to win the cooperation of the man who was to preside over the trial of Samuel Chase. Senator Giles drew a pet.i.tion to the Governor of New Jersey begging that the prosecution of Burr for murder be dropped, and to this paper he secured the signature of nearly all the Republican Senators.[503]
Burr accepted these advances with grave and reserved dignity; but he understood the purpose that inspired them, did not commit himself, and remained uninfluenced and impartial. Throughout the momentous trial the Vice-President was a model presiding officer. ”He conducted with the dignity and impartiality of an angel, but with the rigor of a devil,”
records a Was.h.i.+ngton newspaper that was bitterly hostile to Burr personally and politically.[504]
When Chase took his place in the box, the Sergeant-at-Arms brought him a chair; but Burr, adhering to the English custom, which required prisoners to stand when on trial in court, ordered it to be taken away.[505] Upon the request of the elderly Justice, however, Burr quickly relented and the desired seat was provided.[506]
Chase was, in appearance, the opposite of the diminutive and graceful Vice-President. More than six feet tall, with thick, broad, burly shoulders, he was a picture of rugged and powerful physical manhood, marred by an acc.u.mulation of fat which his generous manner of living had produced. Also he was afflicted with an agonizing gout, with which it seems so many of ”the fathers” were cursed. His face was broad and ma.s.sive, his complexion a brownish red.[507] ”Bacon face” was a nickname applied to him by the Maryland bar.[508] His head was large, his brow wide, and his hair was thick and white with the snows of his sixty-four winters.[509]
The counsel that surrounded the impeached Justice were brilliant and learned.[510] They were Joseph Hopkinson, who six years before, upon Marshall's return from France, had written ”Hail Columbia; or, The President's March”; Philip Barton Key, brother of the author of ”The Star-Spangled Banner”;[511] Robert Goodloe Harper, one of the Federalist leaders in Congress during the ascendancy of that party; and Charles Lee, Attorney-General under President Adams when Marshall was Secretary of State, and one of Marshall's most devoted friends.[512]
But in the chair next to Chase sat a man who, single-handed and alone, was more than a match for all the managers of the House put together.
Luther Martin of Maryland--of medium height, broad-shouldered, near-sighted, absent-minded, shabbily attired, harsh of voice, now sixty-one years old, with gray hair beginning to grow thin and a face crimsoned by the brandy which he continually imbibed--was the dominating figure of this historic contest.[513]