Volume IV Part 6 (1/2)

[121] A practicable route for travel and transportation between Virginia and the regions across the mountains had been a favorite project of Was.h.i.+ngton. The Potomac and James River Company, of which Marshall when a young lawyer had become a stockholder (vol. I, 218, of this work), was organized partly in furtherance of this project. The idea had remained active in the minds of public men in Virginia and was, perhaps, the one subject upon which they substantially agreed.

[122] Much of the course selected by Marshall was adopted in the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. In 1869, Collis P.

Huntington made a trip of investigation over part of Marshall's route.

(Nelson: _Address--The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway_, 15.)

[123] _Report of the Commissioners appointed to view Certain Rivers within the Commonwealth of Virginia_, 38-39.

[124] Niles: _Weekly Register_, II, 418.

[125] Lowell: _Mr. Madison's War_: by ”A New England Farmer.”

A still better ill.u.s.tration of Federalist hostility to the war and the Government is found in a letter of Ezekiel Webster to his brother Daniel: ”Let gamblers be made to contribute to the support of this war, which was declared by men of no better principles than themselves.”

(Ezekiel Webster to Daniel Webster, Oct. 29, 1814, Van Tyne, 53.) Webster here refers to a war tax on playing-cards.

[126] Harper to Lynn, Sept. 25, 1812, Steiner, 584.

[127] See McMaster, IV, 199-200.

[128] Morison: _Otis_, I, 399.

[129] Pickering to Pennington, July 22, 1812, _N.E. Federalism_: Adams, 389.

[130] The vote of Pennsylvania, with those cast for Clinton, would have elected Marshall.

[131] Babc.o.c.k, 157; and see Dewey: _Financial History of the United States_, 133.

[132] For an excellent statement of the conduct of the Federalists at this time see Morison: _Otis_, II, 53-66. ”The militia of Ma.s.sachusetts, seventy thousand in enrolment, well-drilled, and well-equipped, was definitely withdrawn from the service of the United States in September, 1814.” (Babc.o.c.k, 155.) Connecticut did the same thing. (_Ib._ 156.)

[133] _Annals_, 13th Cong. 1st Sess. 302.

[134] See McMaster, IV, 213-14.

[135] _Annals_, 13th Cong. 1st Sess. 302

[136] _Am. State Papers, For. Rel._ III, 609-12.

[137] The Republican victory was caused by the violent British partisans.h.i.+p of the Federalist leaders. In spite of the distress the people suffered from the Embargo, they could not, for the moment, tolerate Federalist opposition to their own country. (See Adams: _U.S._ V, 215.)

[138] Marshall to Pickering, Dec. 11, 1813, Pickering MSS. Ma.s.s. Hist Soc.

[139] Morison: _Otis_, II, 54-56.

[140] ”CURSE THIS GOVERNMENT! I would march at 6 days notice for Was.h.i.+ngton ... and I would swear upon the _altar_ never to return till Madison was buried under the ruins of the capitol.” (Herbert to Webster, April 20, 1813, Van Tyne, 27.)

[141] The Federalists frantically opposed conscription. Daniel Webster, especially, denounced it. ”Is this [conscription] ... consistent with the character of a free Government?... No, Sir.... The Const.i.tution is libelled, foully libelled. The people of this country have not established ... such a fabric of despotism....

”Where is it written in the Const.i.tution ... that you may take children from their parents ... & compel them to fight the battles of any war, in which the folly or the wickedness of Government may engage it?... Such an abominable doctrine has no foundation in the Const.i.tution.”