Volume III Part 30 (1/2)

The delay in the publication of Marshall's first volumes and the disfavor with which the public received them when finally they appeared, had, it seems, cooled the ardor of the horseback-and-saddlebag distributor of literary treasures. At all events, he ceases to write his employer about Marshall's ”Life of Was.h.i.+ngton,” but is eager for other books.[678] Twice only, in an interval of two years, he mentions Marshall's biography, but without spirit or enthusiasm.[679] In the autumn of 1806, he querulously refers to Marshall and Was.h.i.+ngton: ”I did not call on _you_ [Wayne] for increase of Diurnal Salary. I spoke to Judge W. I hope and expect that he and Gen. M.[680] will do me something.”

Marshall's third volume, which had now appeared, is an improvement on the first two. In it he continues his narrative of the Revolutionary War until 1779, and his statement of economic and financial conditions[681]

is excellent. The account of the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, in both of which he had taken part,[682] is satisfactory,[683] and his picture of the army in retreat is vivid.[684] He faithfully relates the British sentiment among the people.[685] Curiously enough, he is not comprehensive or stirring in his story of Valley Forge.[686] His descriptions of Lafayette and Baron von Steuben are worthy.[687] Again and again he attacks the militia,[688] and is merciless in his criticism of the slip-shod, happy-go-lucky American military system. These shortcomings were offset, he says, only by the conduct of the enemy.[689] The treatment of American prisoners is set forth in somber words,[690] and he gives almost a half-page of text[691] and two and a half pages of appendix[692] to the murder of Miss McCrea.

The story of the battle of Monmouth in which Marshall took part is told with spirit.[693] Nineteen pages[694] are devoted to the history of the alliance with the French monarch, and no better resume of that event, so fruitful of historic results, ever has been given. The last chapter describes the arrival of the British Commission of Conciliation, the propositions made by them, the American answer, the British attempts to bribe Congress,[695] followed by the Indian atrocities of which the appalling ma.s.sacres at Kingston and Wyoming were the worst.

The long years of writing, the neglect and crudity of his first efforts, and the self-reproval he underwent, had their effect upon Marshall's literary craftsmans.h.i.+p. This is noticeable in his fourth volume, which is less defective than those that preceded it. His delight in verbiage, so justly ridiculed by Callender in 1799,[696] is a little subdued, and his sense of proportion is somewhat improved. He again criticizes the American military system and traces its defects to local regulations.[697] The unhappy results of the conflict of State and Nation are well presented.[698]

The most energetic narrative in the volume is that of the treason of Benedict Arnold. In telling this story, Marshall cannot curb the expression of his intense feeling against this ”traitor, a sordid traitor, first the slave of his rage, then purchased with gold.”

Marshall does not economize s.p.a.ce in detailing this historic betrayal of America,[699] imperative as the saving of every line had become.

He relates clearly the circ.u.mstances that caused the famous compact between Denmark, Sweden, and Russia known as ”The Armed Neutrality,”

formed in order to check Great Britain's power on the seas. This was the first formidable a.s.sertion of the principle of equality among nations on the ocean. Great Britain's declaration of war upon Holland, because that country was about to join ”The Armed Neutrality,” and because Holland appeared to be looking with favor upon a commercial treaty which the United States wished to conclude with her, is told with dispa.s.sionate lucidity.[700]

Marshall gives a compact and accurate a.n.a.lysis--by far the best work he has done in the whole four volumes--of the party beginnings discernible when the clouds of the Revolutionary War began to break. He had now written more than half a million words, and this description was the first part of his work that could be resented by the Republicans. The political division was at bottom economic, says Marshall--those who advocated honest payment of public debts were opposed by those who favored repudiation; and the latter were also against military establishments and abhorred the idea of any National Government.[701]

The fourth volume ends with the mutiny of part of the troops, the suppression of it, Was.h.i.+ngton's farewell to his officers, and his retirement when peace was concluded.

Marshall's final volume was ready for subscribers and the public in the autumn of 1807, just one year before the Federalist campaign for the election of Jefferson's successor--four years later than Jefferson had antic.i.p.ated.[702] It was the only political part of Marshall's volumes, but it had not the smallest effect upon the voters in the Presidential contest.

Neither human events nor Thomas Jefferson had waited upon the convenience of John Marshall. The Federalist Party was being reduced to a grumbling company of out-of-date gentlemen, leaders in a bygone day, together with a scattered following who, from force of party habit, plodded along after them, occasionally encouraged by some local circ.u.mstance or fleeting event in which they imagined an ”issue” might be found. They had become anti-National, and, in their ardor for Great Britain, had all but ceased to be American. They had repudiated democracy and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of insolent superiority, mournful of a glorious past, despairing of a worthy future.[703]

Marshall could not hope to revive the fast weakening Federalist organization. The most that he could do was to state the principles upon which opposing parties had been founded, and the determinative conflicts that had marked the evolution of them and the development of the American Nation. He could only set forth, in plain and simple terms, those antagonistic ideas which had created party divisions; and although the party to which one group of those ideas had given life was now moribund, they were ideas, nevertheless, which would inevitably create other parties in the future.

The author's task was, therefore, to deal not only with the years that had gone; but, through his treatment of the past, with the years that were to come. He must expound the philosophy of Nationalism as opposed to that of Localism, and must enrich his exposition by the unwritten history of the period between the achievement of American Independence and the vindication of it in our conflict with France.

Marshall was infinitely careful that every statement in his last volume should be accurate; and, to make sure of this, he wrote many letters to those who had first-hand knowledge of the period. Among others he wrote to John Adams, requesting permission to use his letters to Was.h.i.+ngton.

Adams readily agreed, although he says, ”they were written under great agitation of mind at a time when a cruel necessity compelled me to take measures which I was very apprehensive would produce the evils which have followed from them. If you have detailed the events of the last years of General Was.h.i.+ngton's Life, you must have run the Gauntlet between two infuriated factions, armed with scorpions.... It is a period which must however be investigated, but I am very confident will never be well understood.”[704]

Because of his lack of a sense of proportion in planning his ”Life of Was.h.i.+ngton,” and the voluminousness of the minor parts of it, Marshall had to compress the vital remainder. Seldom has a serious author been called upon to execute an undertaking more difficult. Marshall accomplished the feat in creditable fas.h.i.+on. Moreover, his fairness, restraint, and moderation, even in the treatment of subjects regarding which his own feelings were most ardent, give to his pages not only the atmosphere of justice, but also something of the artist's touch.

Was.h.i.+ngton's Nationalism is promptly and skillfully brought into the foreground.[705] An excellent account of the Society of the Cincinnati contains the first covert reflection on Jefferson.[706] But the state of the country under the Articles of Confederation is pa.s.sed over with exasperating brevity--only a few lines are given to this basic subject.[707]

The foundation of political parties is stated once more and far better--”The one ... contemplated America as a nation,” while ”the other attached itself to state authorities.” The first of these was made up of ”men of enlarged and liberal minds ... who felt the full value of national honour, and the full obligation of national faith; and who were persuaded of the insecurity of both, if resting for their preservation on the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereignties”; and with these far-seeing and upright persons were united the ”officers of the army”

whose experience in war had weakened ”local prejudices.”[708]

Thus, by mentioning the excellence of the members of one party, and by being silent upon the shortcomings of those of the other party, Marshall imputes to the latter the reverse of those qualities which he praises--a method practiced throughout the book, and one which offended Jefferson and his followers more than a direct attack could have done.

He succinctly reviews the attempts at union,[709] and the disputes between America and Great Britain over the Treaty of Peace;[710] he quickly swings back to the evolution of political parties and, for the third time, reiterates his a.n.a.lysis of debtor and Localist as against creditor and Nationalist.

”The one [party] struggled ... for the exact observance of public and private engagements”; to them ”the faith of a nation, or of a private man was deemed a sacred pledge.” These men believed that ”the distresses of individuals” could be relieved only by work and faith, ”not by a relaxation of the laws, or by a sacrifice of the rights of others.” They thought that ”the imprudent and idle could not be protected by the legislature from the consequences of their indiscretion; but should be restrained from involving themselves in difficulties, by the conviction that a rigid compliance with contracts would be enforced.” Men holding these views ”by a natural a.s.sociation of ideas” were ”in favour of enlarging the powers of the federal government, and of enabling it to protect the dignity and character of the nation abroad, and its interests at home.”[711]

With these principles Marshall sharply contrasts those of the other party: ”Viewing with extreme tenderness the case of the debtor, their efforts were unceasingly directed to his relief”; they were against ”a faithful compliance with contracts”--such a measure they thought ”too harsh to be insisted on ... and one which the people would not bear.”

Therefore, they favored ”relaxing ... justice,” suspending the collection of debts, remitting taxes. These men resisted every attempt to transfer from their own hands into those of Congress all powers that were, in reality, National. Those who held to such ”lax notions of honor,” were, in many States, ”a decided majority of the people,” and were very powerful throughout the country. Wherever they secured control, paper money, delay of justice, suspended taxes ”were the fruits of their rule”; and where they were in the minority, they fought at every election for the possession of the State Governments.

In this fas.h.i.+on Marshall again states those antipodal philosophies from which sprang the first two American political parties. With something like skill he emphasizes the conservative and National idea thus: ”No principle had been introduced [in the State Governments] which could resist the wild projects of the moment, give the people an opportunity to reflect, and allow the good sense of the nation time for exertion.”

The result of ”this instability in principles which ought if possible to be rendered immutable, produced a long train of ills.”[712] The twin spirits of repudiation and Localism on one side, contending for the mastery against the companion spirits of faith-keeping and Nationalism on the other, were from the very first, says Marshall, the source of public ill-being or well-being, as one or the other side prevailed.

Then follows a review of the unhappy economic situation which, as Marshall leaves the reader to infer, was due exclusively to the operation of the principles which he condemns by the mere statement of them.[713] So comes the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that was deemed by many ”an illegitimate meeting.”[714]

Although Was.h.i.+ngton presided over, and was the most powerful influence in, the Const.i.tutional Convention, Marshall allots only one short paragraph to that fact.[715] He enumerates the elements that prepared to resist the Const.i.tution; and brings out clearly the essential fact that the proposed government of the Nation was, by those who opposed it, considered to be ”foreign.” He condenses into less than two pages his narrative of the conflict over ratification, and almost half of these few lines is devoted to comment upon ”The Federalist.”