Volume IV Part 2 (1/2)

”On my return to day from my farm where I pa.s.s a considerable portion of my time in _laborious relaxation_, I found a copy of the message of the President of the 1^{st} inst accompanied by the report of the Committee of foreign relations & the declaration of war against Great Britain, under cover from you.

”Permit me to subjoin to my thanks for this mark of your attention my fervent wish that this momentous measure may, in its operation on the interest & honor of our country, disappoint only its enemies. Whether my prayer be heard or not I shall remain with respectful esteem,” etc.[118]

Cold as this letter was, and capable as it was of double interpretation, to the men sorely pressed by the immediate exigencies of combat, it gave no inkling that the Chief Justice of the United States was at that very moment not only in close sympathy with the peace party, but was actually encouraging that party in its efforts to end the war.[119]

Just at this time, Marshall must have longed for seclusion, and, by a lucky chance, it was afforded him. One of the earliest and most beneficial effects of the Non-Importation, Embargo, and Non-Intercourse laws that preceded the war, was the heavily increased migration from the seaboard States to the territories beyond the Alleghanies. The dramatic story of Burr's adventures and designs had reached every ear and had turned toward the Western country the eyes of the poor, the adventurous, the aspiring; already thousands of settlers were taking up the new lands over the mountains. Thus came a practical consideration of improved means of travel and transportation. Fresh interest in the use of waterways was given by Fulton's invention, which seized upon the imagination of men. The possibilities of steam navigation were in the minds of all who observed the expansion of the country and the growth of domestic commerce.

Before the outbreak of war, the Legislature of Virginia pa.s.sed an act appointing commissioners ”for the purpose of viewing certain rivers within this Commonwealth,”[120] and Marshall was made the head of this body of investigators. Nothing could have pleased him more. It was practical work on a matter that interested him profoundly, and the renewal of a subject which he had entertained since his young manhood.[121]

This tour of observation promised to be full of variety and adventure, tinged with danger, into forests, over mountains, and along streams and rivers not yet thoroughly explored. For a short time Marshall would again live over the days of his boyhood. Most inviting of all, he would get far away from talk or thought of the detested war. Whether the Presidential scheming in his behalf bore fruit or withered, his absence in the wilderness was an ideal preparation to meet either outcome.

In his fifty-seventh year Marshall set out at the head of the expedition, and a thorough piece of work he did. With chain and spirit level the route was carefully surveyed from Lynchburg to the Ohio.

Sometimes progress was made slowly and with the utmost labor. In places the scenes were ”awful and discouraging.”

The elaborate report which the commission submitted to the Legislature was written by Marshall. It reads, says the surveyor of this division of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway,[122] ”as an account of that survey of 1869, when I pulled a chain down the rugged banks of New River.”

Practicable sections were accurately pointed out and the methods by which they could best be utilized were recommended with particular care.

Marshall's report is alive with far-seeing and statesmanlike suggestions. He thinks, in 1812, that steamboats can be run successfully on the New River, but fears that the expense will be too great. The velocity of the current gives him some anxiety, but ”the currents of the Hudson, of the Mohawk, and of the Mississippi, are very strong; and ...

a practice so entirely novel as the use of steam in navigation, will probably receive great improvement.”

The expense of the undertaking must, he says, depend on the use to be made of the route. Should the intention be only to a.s.sist the local traffic of the ”upper country down the James river,” the expense would not be great. But, ”if the views of the legislature shall extend to a free commercial intercourse with the western states,” the route must compete with others then existing ”or that may be opened.” In that case ”no improvement ought to be undertaken but with a determination to make it complete and effectual.” If this were done, the commerce of Kentucky, Ohio, and even a part of Southwestern Pennsylvania would pour through Virginia to the Atlantic States. This was a rich prize which other States were exerting themselves to capture. Moreover, such ”commercial intercourse” would bind Virginia to the growing West by ”strong ties” of ”friendly sentiments,” and these were above price. ”In that mysterious future which is in reserve, and is yet hidden from us, events may occur to render” such a community of interest and mutual regard ”too valuable to be estimated in dollars and cents.”

Marshall pictures the growth of the West, ”that extensive and fertile country ... increasing in wealth and population with a rapidity which baffles calculation.” Not only would Virginia profit by opening a great trade route to the West, but the Nation would be vastly benefited.

”Every measure which tends to cement more closely the union of the eastern with the western states” would be invaluable to the whole country. The military uses of ”this central channel of communication”

were highly important: ”For the want of it, in the course of the last autumn, government was reduced to the necessity of transporting arms in waggons from Richmond to the falls of the Great Kanawha,” and ”a similar necessity may often occur.”[123]

When Marshall returned to Richmond, he found the country depressed and in turmoil. The war had begun dismally for the Americans. Our want of military equipment and training was incredible and a.s.sured those disasters that quickly fell upon us. The Federalist opposition to the war grew ever bolder, ever more bitter. The Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives issued an ”Address” to the people, urging the organization of a ”_peace party_,” adjuring ”loud and deep ...

disapprobation of this war,” and demanding that n.o.body enlist in the army.[124] Pamphlets were widely circulated, abusing the American Government and upholding the British cause. The ablest of these, ”Mr.

Madison's War,” was by John Lowell of Boston.

The President, he said, ”impelled” Congress to declare an ”offensive”

war against Great Britain. Madison was a member of ”the _French_ party.”

British impressment was the pursuance of a sound policy; the British doctrine--once a British subject, always a British subject--was una.s.sailable. The Orders in Council were just; the execution of them ”moderation” itself. On every point, in short, the British Government was right; the French, diabolical; the American, contemptible and wrong.

How trivial America's complaints, even if there was a real basis for them, in view of Great Britain's unselfish struggle against ”the gigantic dominion of France.”

If that Power, ”swayed” by that satanic genius, Napoleon, should win, would she not take Nova Scotia, Canada, Louisiana, the Antilles, Florida, South America? After these conquests, would not the United States, ”the only remaining republic,” be conquered. Most probably. What then ought America to do?” In war offensive and unjust, the citizens are not only obliged not to take part, but by the laws of G.o.d, and of civil society, they are bound to abstain.” What were the rights of citizens in war-time? To oppose the war by tongue and pen, if they thought the war to be wrong, and to refuse to serve if called ”contrary to the Const.i.tution.”[125]

Such was the Federalism of 1812-15, such the arguments that would have been urged for the election of Marshall had he been chosen as the peace candidate. But the peace Republicans of New York nominated the able, cunning, and politically corrupt De Witt Clinton; and this man, who had a.s.sured the Federalists that he favored an ”honourable peace” with England,[126] was endorsed by a Federalist caucus as the anti-war standard-bearer,[127] though not without a swirl of acrimony and dissension.

But for the immense efforts of Clinton to secure the nomination, and the desire of the Federalists and all conservatives that Marshall should continue as Chief Justice,[128] it is possible that he might have been named as the opponent of Madison in the Presidential contest of 1812. ”I am far enough from desiring Clinton for President of the United States,”

wrote Pickering in the preceding July; ”I would infinitely prefer another Virginian--if Judge Marshall could be the man.”[129]

Marshall surely would have done better than Clinton, who, however, carried New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and all the New England States except Vermont. The mercantile cla.s.ses would have rallied to Marshall's standard more enthusiastically than to Clinton's. The lawyers generally would have worked hard for him. The Federalists, who accepted Clinton with repugnance, would have exerted themselves to the utmost for Marshall, the ideal representative of Federalism. He was personally very strong in North Carolina; the capture of Pennsylvania might have been possible;[130] Vermont might have given him her votes.

The Federalist resistance to the war grew more determined as the months wore on. Throughout New England the men of wealth, nearly all of whom were Federalists, declined to subscribe to the Government loans.[131]