The Life of John Marshall, Volume 1: Frontiersman, soldier, lawmaker, 1755-1788

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Title: The Life of John Marshall, Volume 1: Frontiersman, soldier, lawmaker, 1755-1788

Author: Albert J. Beveridge

Release date: August 1, 2012 [eBook #40388]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL, VOLUME 1: FRONTIERSMAN, SOLDIER, LAWMAKER, 1755-1788 ***

THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL

Standard Library Edition

IN FOUR VOLUMES

VOLUME I

[Illustration: JOHN MARSHALL AT 43
From a miniature painted in Paris]

THE LIFE
OF
JOHN MARSHALL

BY
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE

VOLUME I

FRONTIERSMAN, SOLDIER
LAWMAKER

1755-1788

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

PREFACE

The work of John Marshall has been of supreme importance in the
development of the American Nation, and its influence grows as time
passes. Less is known of Marshall, however, than of any of the great
Americans. Indeed, so little has been written of his personal life, and
such exalted, if vague, encomium has been paid him, that, even to the
legal profession, he has become a kind of mythical being, endowed with
virtues and wisdom not of this earth.

He appears to us as a gigantic figure looming, indistinctly, out of the
mists of the past, impressive yet lacking vitality, and seemingly
without any of those qualities that make historic personages
intelligible to a living world of living men. Yet no man in our history
was more intensely human than John Marshall and few had careers so full
of movement and color. His personal life, his characteristics and the
incidents that drew them out, have here been set forth so that we may
behold the man as he appeared to those among whom he lived and worked.

It is, of course, Marshall's public work with which we are chiefly
concerned. His services as Chief Justice have been so lauded that what
he did before he ascended the Supreme Bench has been almost entirely
forgotten. His greatest opinions, however, cannot be fully understood
without considering his previous life and experience. An account of
Marshall the frontiersman, soldier, legislator, lawyer, politician,
diplomat, and statesman, and of the conditions he faced in each of these
capacities, is essential to a comprehension of Marshall the constructive
jurist and of the problems he solved.

In order to make clear the significance of Marshall's public activities,
those episodes in American history into which his life was woven have
been briefly stated. Although to the historian these are twice-told
tales, many of them are not fresh in the minds of the reading public. To
say that Marshall took this or that position with reference to the
events and questions of his time, without some explanation of them,
means little to any one except to the historical scholar.

In the development of his career there must be some clear understanding
of the impression made upon him by the actions and opinions of other
men, and these, accordingly, have been considered. The influence of his
father and of Washington upon John Marshall was profound and
determinative, while his life finally became so interlaced with that of
Jefferson that a faithful account of the one requires a careful
examination of the other.

Vitally important in their effect upon the conduct and attitude of
Marshall and of the leading characters of his time were the state of the
country, the condition of the people, and the tendency of popular
thought. Some reconstruction of the period has, therefore, been
attempted. Without a background, the picture and the figures in it lose
much of their significance.

The present volumes narrate the life of John Marshall before his epochal
labors as Chief Justice began. While this was the period during which
events prepared him for his work on the bench, it was also a distinctive
phase of his career and, in itself, as important as it was picturesque.
It is my purpose to write the final part as soon as the nature of the
task permits.

For reading one draft of the manuscript of these volumes I am indebted
to Professor Edward Channing, of Harvard University; Dr. J. Franklin
Jameson, of the Carnegie Foundation for Historical Research; Professor
William E. Dodd, of Chicago University; Professor James A. Woodburn, of
Indiana University; Professor Charles A. Beard, of Columbia University;
Professor Charles H. Ambler, of Randolph-Macon College; Professor
Clarence W. Alvord, of the University of Illinois; Professor D. R.
Anderson, of Richmond College; Dr. H. J. Eckenrode, of Richmond College;
Dr. Archibald C. Coolidge, Director of the Harvard University Library;
Mr. Worthington C. Ford, of the Massachusetts Historical Society; and
Mr. Lindsay Swift, Editor of the Boston Public Library. Dr. William G.
Stanard, of the Virginia Historical Society, has read the chapters which
touch upon the colonial period. I have availed myself of the many
helpful suggestions made by these gentlemen and I gratefully acknowledge
my obligations to them.

Mr. Swift and Dr. Eckenrode, in addition to reading early drafts of the
manuscript, have read the last draft with particular care and I have
utilized their criticisms. The proof has been read by Mr. Swift and the
comment of this finished critic has been especially valuable.

I am indebted in the highest possible degree to Mr. Worthington C. Ford,
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, who has generously aided me
with his profound and extensive knowledge of manuscript sources and of
the history of the times of which this work treats. His sympathetic
interest and whole-hearted helpfulness have not only assisted me, but
encouraged and sustained me in the prosecution of my labors.

In making these acknowledgments, I do not in the least shift to other
shoulders the responsibility for anything in these volumes. That burden
is mine alone.

I extend my thanks to Mr. A. P. C. Griffin, Assistant Librarian, and Mr.
Gaillard Hunt, Chief of the Manuscripts Division, of the Library of
Congress, who have been unsparing in their efforts to assist me with all
the resources of that great library. The officers and their assistants
of the Virginia State Library, the Boston Public Library, the Library of
Harvard University, the Manuscripts Division of the New York Public
Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Pennsylvania
Historical Society, and the Virginia Historical Society have been most
gracious in affording me all the sources at their command.

I desire to express my appreciation for original material furnished me
by several of the descendants and collateral relatives of John Marshall.
Miss Emily Harvie, of Richmond, Virginia, placed at my disposal many
letters of Marshall to his wife. For the use of the book in which
Marshall kept his accounts and wrote notes of law lectures, I am
indebted to Mrs. John K. Mason, of Richmond. A large number of original
and unpublished letters of Marshall were furnished me by Mr. James M.
Marshall, of Front Royal, Virginia, Mr. Robert Y. Conrad, of Winchester,
Virginia; Mrs. Alexander H. Sands, of Richmond, Virginia; Miss Sallie
Marshall, of Leeds, Virginia; Mrs. Claudia Jones, and Mrs. Fannie G.
Campbell of Washington, D.C.; Judge J. K. M. Norton, of Alexandria,
Virginia; Mr. A. Moore, Jr., of Berryville, Virginia; Dr. Samuel Eliot
Morison, of Boston, Massachusetts, and Professor Charles William Dabney,
of Cincinnati, Ohio. Complete copies of the highly valuable
correspondence of Mrs. Edward Carrington were supplied by Mr. John B.
Minor, of Richmond, Virginia, and by Mr. Carter H. FitzHugh, of Lake
Forest, Illinois. Without the material thus generously opened to me,
this narrative of Marshall's life would have been more incomplete than
it is and many statements in it would, necessarily, have been based on
unsupported tradition.

Among the many who have aided me, Judge James Keith, of Richmond,
Virginia, until recently President of the Court of Appeals of Virginia;
Judge J. K. M. Norton and the late Miss Nannie Burwell Norton of
Alexandria, Virginia; Mr. William Marshall Bullitt, of Louisville,
Kentucky; Mr. Thomas Marshall Smith, of Baltimore, Maryland; Mr. and
Mrs. Alexander H. Sands; Mr. W. P. Taylor and Dr. H. Norton Mason, of
Richmond, Virginia; Mr. Lucien Keith, Mr. William Horgan, and Mr.
William C. Marshall, of Warrenton, Virginia; Judge Henry H. Downing and
Mr. Aubrey G. Weaver, of Front Royal, Virginia, have rendered notable
assistance in the gathering of data.

I am under particular obligations to Miss Emily Harvie for the use of
the striking miniature of Marshall, the reproduction of which appears as
the frontispiece to the first volume; to Mr. Roland Gray, of Boston, for
the right to reproduce the portrait by Jarvis as the frontispiece of the
second volume; to Mr. Douglas H. Thomas of Baltimore, Maryland, for
photographs of the portraits of William Randolph, Mary Isham, and Mary
Randolph Keith; and to Mr. Charles Edward Marshall, of Glen Mary,
Kentucky, for permission to photograph the portrait of Colonel Thomas
Marshall.

The large number of citations has made abbreviations necessary. At the
end of each volume will be found a careful explanation of references,
giving the full title of the work cited, together with the name of the
author or editor, and a designation of the edition used.

The index has been made by Mr. David Maydole Matteson, of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and his careful work has added to whatever of value these
volumes possess.

ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE

CONTENTS

I. ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT 1

The defeat of Braddock--Influence on American opinion--
Washington's heroism--Effect on Marshall's parents--
Marshall's birth--American solidarity the first lesson
taught him--Marshall's ancestry--Curious similarity to
that of Jefferson, to whom he was related--The paternal
line: the "Marshall legend"--Maternal line: the Randolphs,
the Ishams, and the Keiths--Character of Marshall's
parents--Colonial Virginia society--Shiftless agriculture
and abundant land--Influence of slavery--Jefferson's
analysis--Drinking heavy and universal--Education of the
gentry and of the common people--The social divisions--
Causes of the aristocratic tone of Virginia society--
The backwoodsmen--Their character--Superiority of an
occasional frontier family--The Marshalls of this class--
The illustrious men produced by Virginia just before the
Revolution.

II. A FRONTIER EDUCATION 33

Marshall's wilderness birthplace--His father removes to
the Blue Ridge--The little house in "The Hollow"--Neighbors
few and distant--Daily life of the frontier family--
Marshall's delight in nature--Effect on his physical and
mental development--His admiration for his father--The
father's influence over and training of his son--Books:
Pope's Poems--Marshall commits to memory at the age of
twelve many passages--The "Essay on Man"--Marshall's father
an assistant of Washington in surveying the Fairfax grant--
Story of Lord Fairfax--His influence on Washington and on
Marshall's father--Effect on Marshall--His father elected
Burgess from Fauquier County--Vestryman, Sheriff, and
leading man of his county--He buys the land in "The
Hollow"--John Thompson, deacon, teaches Marshall for a
year--His father buys more land and removes to Oak Hill--
Subscribes to the first American edition of Blackstone--
Military training interferes with Marshall's reading of
Blackstone--He is sent to Campbell's Academy for a few
months--Marshall's father as Burgess supports Patrick
Henry, who defeats the tidewater aristocracy in the Robinson
loan-office contest--Henry offers his resolutions on the
Stamp Act: "If this be treason, make the most of it"--
Marshall's father votes with Henry--1775 and Henry's
"Resolutions for Arming and Defense"--His famous speech:
"Give me liberty or give me death"--Marshall's father again
supports Henry--Marshall learns from his father of these
great events--Father and son ready to take the field against
the British.

III. A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION 69

The "Minute Men" of Virginia--Lieutenant John Marshall
drills his company and makes a war speech--His appearance
in his nineteenth year--Uniforms of the frontier--The
sanguinary fight at Great Bridge--Norfolk--The Marshalls
in the Continental service, the father as major, the son as
lieutenant--Condition of the army--Confusion of authority--
Unreliability of militia "who are here to-day and gone
to-morrow"--Fatal effect of State control--Inefficiency
and powerlessness of Congress--Destitution of the troops:
"our sick naked and well naked"--Officers resign, privates
desert--The harsh discipline required: men whipped, hanged,
and shot--Impression on Marshall--He is promoted to
be captain-lieutenant--The march through disaffected
Philadelphia--Marshall one of picked men forming the
light infantry--Iron Hill--The battle of the Brandywine--
Marshall's father and his Virginians prevent entire
disaster--Marshall's part in the battle--The retreat--
The weather saves the Americans--Marshall one of rear guard
under Wayne--The army recovers and tries to stop the British
advance--Confused by false reports of the country people who
are against the patriots "almost to a man"--Philadelphia
falls--The battle of Germantown--Marshall at the bloodiest
point of the fight--The retreat of the beaten Americans--
Unreasonable demands of "public opinion"--Further decline
of American fortunes--Duché's letter to Washington:
"How fruitless the expense of blood"--Washington faces the
British--The impending battle--Marshall's vivid description--
The British withdraw.

IV. VALLEY FORGE AND AFTER 108

The bitter winter of 1777--The British in Philadelphia:
abundance of provisions, warm and comfortable quarters,
social gayeties, revels of officers and men--The Americans
at Valley Forge, "the most celebrated encampment in the
world's history": starvation and nakedness--Surgeon Waldo's
diary of "camp-life": "I'll live like a Chameleon upon
Air"--Waldo's description of soldiers' appearance--Terrible
mortality from sickness--The filthy "hospitals"--Moravians
at Bethlehem--The Good Samaritans to the patriots--Marshall's
cheerfulness: "the best tempered man I ever knew"--His pranks
and jokes--Visitors to the camp remark his superior
intelligence--Settles disputes of his comrades--Hard
discipline at Valley Forge: a woman given a hundred lashes--
Washington alone holds army together--Jealousy of and
shameful attacks upon him--The "Conway Cabal"--His dignity in
the face of slander--His indignant letter to Congress--Faith
of the soldiers in Washington--The absurd popular demand that
he attack Philadelphia--The amazing inferiority of Congress--
Ablest men refuse to attend--Washington's pathetic letter on
the subject: "Send your ablest men to Congress; Where is
Jefferson"--Talk of the soldiers at Valley Forge--Jefferson
in the Virginia Legislature--Comparison of Marshall and
Jefferson at this period--Marshall appointed Deputy Judge
Advocate of the army--Burnaby's appeal to Washington to stop
the war: efforts at reconciliation--Washington's account of
the sufferings of the army--The spring of 1778--Sports in
camp--Marshall the best athlete in his regiment: "Silver
Heels" Marshall--The Alliance with the King of France--
Rejoicing of the Americans at Valley Forge--Washington has
misgivings--The services of Baron von Steuben--Lord Howe's
departure--The "Mischianza"--The British evacuate
Philadelphia--The Americans quick in pursuit--The battle of
Monmouth--Marshall in the thick of the fight--His fairness to
Lee--Promoted to be captain--One of select light infantry
under Wayne, assigned to take Stony Point--The assault of
that stronghold--Marshall in the reserve command--One of the
picked men under "Light Horse Harry" Lee--The brilliant dash
upon Powles Hook--Term of enlistment of Marshall's regiment
expires and he is left without a command--Returns to Virginia
while waiting for new troops to be raised--Arnold invades
Virginia--Jefferson is Governor; he fails to prepare--Marshall
one of party to attack the British--Effect of Jefferson's
conduct on Marshall and the people--Comment of Virginia
women--Inquiry in Legislature as to Jefferson's conduct--
Effect of Marshall's army experience on his thinking--The
roots of his great Nationalist opinions run back to Valley
Forge.

V. MARRIAGE AND LAW BEGINNINGS 148

Marshall's romance--Visits his father who is commanding
at Yorktown--Mythical story of his father's capture at
Charleston--The Ambler family--Rebecca Burwell, Jefferson's
early love--Attractiveness of the Amblers--The "ball" at
Yorktown--High expectations of the young women concerning
Marshall--Their disappointment at his uncouth appearance and
rustic manners--He meets Mary Ambler--Mutual love at first
sight--Her sister's description of the ball and of Marshall--
The courtship--Marshall goes to William and Mary College for
a few weeks--Description of the college--Marshall elected to
the Phi Beta Kappa Society--Attends the law lectures of
Mr. Wythe--The Ambler daughters pass though Williamsburg--
The "ball" at "The Palace"--Eliza Ambler's account:
"Marshall was devoted to my sister"--Marshall leaves college
and follows Mary Ambler to Richmond--Secures license to
practice law--Resigns his command--Walks to Philadelphia to
be inoculated against smallpox--Tavern-keeper refuses to
take him in because of his appearance--Returns to Virginia
and resumes his courtship of Mary Ambler--Marshall's account
of his love-making--His sister-in-law's description of
Marshall's suit--Marshall's father goes to Kentucky and
returns--Marshall elected to the Legislature from Fauquier
County--He marries Mary Ambler: "but one solitary guinea
left"--Financial condition of Marshall's father at this
time--Lack of ready money everywhere--Marshall's account--
He sets up housekeeping in Richmond--Description of Richmond
at that time--Brilliant bar of the town--"Marshall's slender
legal equipment"--The notes he made of Mr. Wythe's lectures--
His Account Book--Examples of his earnings and expenditures
from 1783 until 1787--Life of the period--His jolly letter to
Monroe--His books--Elected City Recorder--Marshall's first
notable case: Hite vs. Fairfax--His first recorded argument--
His wife becomes an invalid--His tender care of her--Mrs.
Carrington's account: Marshall "always and under every
circumstance, an enthusiast in love."

VI. IN THE LEGISLATURE AND COUNCIL OF STATE 200

In the House of Delegates--The building where the Legislature
met--Costumes and manners of the members---Marshall's
popularity and his father's influence secure his election--
He is appointed on important committees--His first vote--
examples of legislative business--Poor quality of the
Legislature: Madison's disgust, Washington's opinion--
Marshall's description and remarkable error--He is elected
member of Council of State--Pendleton criticizes the
elevation of Marshall--Work as member of Council--Resigns
from Council because of criticism of judges--Seeks and
secures reëlection to Legislature from Fauquier County--
Inaccuracy of accepted account of these incidents--Marshall's
letter to Monroe stating the facts--Becomes champion of needy
Revolutionary soldiers--Leads fight for relief of Thomas
Paine--Examples of temper of the Legislature--Marshall favors
new Constitution for Virginia--The "Potowmack Company"--Bills
concerning courts--Reform of the High Court of Chancery--
The religious controversy--State of religion in Virginia--
Marshall's languid interest in the subject--Great question
of the British debts--Long-continued fight over payment or
confiscation--Marshall steadily votes and works for payment
of the debts--Effect of this contest on his economic and
political views--His letter to Monroe--Instability of
Legislature: a majority of thirty-three changed in two weeks
to an adverse majority of forty-nine--No National Government--
Resolution against allowing Congress to lay any tax whatever:
"May prove destructive of rights and liberties of the
people"--The debts of the Confederation--Madison's extradition
bill--Contempt of the pioneers for treaties--Settlers' unjust
and brutal treatment of the Indians--Struggle over Madison's
bill--Patrick Henry saves it--Marshall supports it--Henry's
bill for amalgamation of Indians and whites--Marshall regrets
its defeat--Anti-National sentiment of the people--Steady
change in Marshall's ideas--Mercantile and financial interests
secure the Constitution--Shall Virginia call a Convention to
ratify it?--Marshall harmonizes differences and Convention is
called--He is in the first clash over Nationalism.

VII. LIFE OF THE PEOPLE: COMMUNITY ISOLATION 250

The state of the country--A résumé of conditions--Revolutionary
leaders begin to doubt the people--Causes of this doubt--
Isolation of communities--Highways and roads--Difficulty and
danger of travel--The road from Philadelphia to Boston: between
Boston and New York--Roads in interior of New England, New York,
Philadelphia, and New Jersey--Jefferson's account of roads from
Richmond to New York--Traveler lost in the "very thick woods" on
way from Alexandria to Mount Vernon to visit Washington--Travel
and transportation in Virginia--Ruinous effect on commerce--
Chastellux lost on journey to Monticello to visit Jefferson--
Talleyrand's description of country--Slowness of mails--Three
weeks or a month and sometimes two months required between
Virginia and New York--Mail several months in reaching interior
towns--News that Massachusetts had ratified the Constitution
eight days in reaching New York--Ocean mail service--letters
opened by postmasters or carriers--Scarcity of newspapers--
Their untrustworthiness--Their violent abuse of public men--
Franklin's denunciation of the press: he advises "the liberty
of the cudgel" to restrain "the liberty of the press"--
Jefferson's disgust--The country newspaper: Freneau's "The
Country Printer"--The scantiness of education--Teachers and
schools--The backwoodsmen--The source of abnormal American
individualism--The successive waves of settlers--Their
ignorance, improvidence, and lack of social ideals--Habits and
characteristics of Virginians--Jefferson's harsh description
of them--Food of the people--Their houses--Continuous drinking
of brandy, rum, and whiskey--This common to whole country--
Lack of community consciousness--Abhorrence of any National
Government.

VIII. POPULAR ANTAGONISM TO GOVERNMENT 288

Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"--Its tremendous influence:
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary
evil"--Popular antagonism to the very idea of government--
Impossibility of correcting falsehoods told to the people--
Popular credulity--The local demagogue--North Carolina
preacher's idea of the Constitution--Grotesque campaign story
about Washington and Adams--Persistence of political canard
against Levin Powell--Amazing statements about the Society of
the Cincinnati: Ædanus Burke's pamphlet; Mirabeau's pamphlet;
Jefferson's denunciation--Marshall and his father members of
the Cincinnati--Effect upon him of the extravagant abuse of
this patriotic order--Popular desire for general division of
property and repudiation of debts--Madison's bitter comment--
Jay on popular greed and "impatience of government"--Paper
money--Popular idea of money--Shays's Rebellion--Marshall's
analysis of its objects--Knox's report of it--Madison comes
to the conclusion that "the bulk of mankind" are incapable
of dealing with weighty subjects--Washington in despair--He
declares mankind unfit for their own government--Marshall
also fears that "man is incapable of governing himself"--
Jefferson in Paris--Effect on his mind of conditions in
France--His description of the French people--Jefferson
applauds Shays's Rebellion: "The tree of liberty must be
refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants"--Influence
of French philosophy on Jefferson--The impotence of Congress
under the Confederation--Dishonorable conduct of the States--
Leading men ascribe evil conditions to the people themselves--
Views of Washington, Jay, and Madison--State Sovereignty the
shield of turmoil and baseness--Efforts of commercial and
financial interests produce the Constitution--Madison wants
a National Government with power of veto on all State laws
"whatsoever"--Jefferson thinks the Articles of Confederation
"a wonderfully perfect instrument"--He opposes a "strong
government"--Is apprehensive of the Constitution--Thinks
destruction of credit a good thing--Wishes America "to stand
with respect to Europe precisely on the footing of China"--
The line of cleavage regarding the Constitution--Marshall for
the Constitution.

IX. THE STRUGGLE FOR RATIFICATION 319

The historic Convention of 1788 assembles--Richmond at that
time--General ignorance of the Constitution--Even most members
of the Convention poorly informed--Vague popular idea of
Constitution as something foreign, powerful, and forbidding--
People in Virginia strongly opposed to it--The Virginia debate
to be the greatest ever held over the Constitution--The
revolutionary character of the Constitution: would not have
been framed if the people had known of the purposes of the
Federal Convention at Philadelphia: "A child of fortune"--
Ratification hurried--Pennsylvania Convention: hastily called,
physical violence, small number of people vote at election of
members to Pennsylvania Convention--People's ignorance of the
Constitution--Charges of the opposition--"The humble address
of the low born"--Debate in Pennsylvania Convention--Able
"Address of Minority"--Nationalism of the Constitution the
principal objection--Letters of "Centinel": the Constitution
"a spurious brat"--Attack on Robert Morris--Constitutionalist
replies: "Sowers of sedition"--Madison alarmed--The struggle
in Massachusetts--Conciliatory tactics of Constitutionalists--
Upper classes for Constitution--Common people generally
opposed--Many towns refuse to send delegates to the
Convention--Contemporary descriptions of the elections--
High ability and character of Constitutionalist members--
Self-confessed ignorance and incapacity of opposition: Madison
writes that there is "Scarcely a man of respectability among
them"--Their pathetic fight against the Constitution--Examples
of their arguments--The bargain with Hancock secures enough
votes to ratify--The slender majority: one hundred and
sixty-eight vote against ratification--Methods of
Constitutionalists after ratification--Widgery's amusing
account: hogsheads of rum--Gerry's lament--Bribery charged--
New Hampshire almost rejects Constitution--Convention adjourned
to prevent defeat--"Little information among the people," but
most "men of property and abilities" for Constitution--
Constitution receives no deliberate consideration until debated
in the Virginia Convention--Notable ability of the leaders of
both sides in the Virginia contest.

X. IN THE GREAT CONVENTION 357

Virginia the deciding State--Anxiety of Constitutionalists
in other States--Hamilton writes Madison: "No hope unless
Virginia ratifies"--Economic and political importance of
Virginia--Extreme effort of both sides to elect members to the
Convention--Preëlection methods of the Constitutionalists--
They capture Randolph--Marshall elected from opposition
constituency--Preëlection methods of Anti-Constitutionalists--
The Convention meets--Neither side sure of a majority--
Perfect discipline and astute Convention tactics of the
Constitutionalists--They secure the two powerful offices
of the Convention--The opposition have no plan of action--
Description of George Mason--His grave error in parliamentary
tactics--Constitutionalists take advantage of it: the
Constitution to be debated clause by clause--Analysis of the
opposing forces: an economic class struggle, Nationalism
against provincialism--Henry tries to remedy Mason's mistake--
Pendleton speaks and the debate begins--Nicholas speaks--His
character and personal appearance--Patrick Henry secures the
floor--Description of Henry--He attacks the Constitution:
why "_we the people_ instead of _we_ the States"? Randolph
replies--His manner and appearance--His support of the
Constitution surprises the opposition--His speech--His
about-face saves the Constitution--The Clinton letter: if
Randolph discloses it the Anti-Constitutionalists will win--
He keeps it from knowledge of the Convention--Decisive
importance of Randolph's action--His change ascribed to
improper motives--Mason answers Randolph and again makes
tactical error--Madison fails to speak--Description of Edmund
Pendleton--He addresses the Convention: "the war is between
government and licentiousness"--"Light Horse Harry" Lee--The
ermine and the sword--Henry secures the floor--His great
speech: the Constitution "a revolution as radical as that
which separated us from Great Britain"--The proposed National
Government something foreign and monstrous--"This government
is not a Virginian but an American government"--Marshall
studies the arguments and methods of the debaters--Randolph
answers Henry: "I am a child of the Revolution"--His error
concerning Josiah Philips--His speech ineffective--Description
of James Madison--He makes the first of his powerful
expositions of the Constitution, but has little or no effect
on the votes of the members--Speech of youthful Francis
Corbin--Randolph's futile effort--Madison makes the second
of his masterful speeches--Henry replies--His wonderful art--
He attacks Randolph for his apostasy--He closes the first
week's debate with the Convention under his spell.

XI. THE SUPREME DEBATE 401

Political managers from other States appear--Gouverneur
Morris and Robert Morris for the Constitutionalists and
Eleazer Oswald for the opposition--Morris's letter:
"depredations on my purse"--Grayson's letter: "our affairs
suspended by a thread"--Opening second week of the debate--
The New Academy crowded--Henry resumes his speech--Appeals
to the Kentucky members, denounces secrecy of Federal
Convention, attacks Nationalism--Lee criticizes lobbying
"out of doors" and rebukes Henry--Randolph attacks Henry:
"If our friendship must fall, _let it fall like Lucifer,
never to rise again_"--Randolph challenges Henry: a duel
narrowly averted--Personal appearance of James Monroe--
He speaks for the Revolutionary soldiers against the
Constitution and makes no impression--Marshall put forward
by the Constitutionalists--Description of him: badly dressed,
poetic-looking, "habits convivial almost to excess"--
Best-liked man in the Convention; considered an orator--
Marshall's speech: Constitutionalists the "firm friends of
liberty"; "we, sir, idolize democracy"; only a National
Government can promote the general welfare--Marshall's
argument his first recorded expression on the Constitution--
Most of speech on necessity of providing against war and
inspired by his military experience--Description of Benjamin
Harrison--Mason attacks power of National taxation and sneers
at the "well-born"--He denounces Randolph--Lee answers with
a show of anger--William Grayson secures the floor--His
character, attainments, and appearance--His learned and
witty speech: "We are too young to know what we are good
for"--Pendleton answers: "government necessary to protect
liberty"--Madison makes his fourth great argument--Henry
replies: "the tyranny of Philadelphia [National Government]
may be like the tyranny of George III, a horrid, wretched,
dreadful picture"; Henry's vision of the West--Tremendous
effect on the Convention--Letter of Gouverneur Morris to
Hamilton describing the Convention--Madison's report to
Hamilton and to Washington: "the business is in the most
ticklish state that can be imagined"--Marshall speaks again--
Military speech: "_United we are strong, divided we fall_"--
Grayson answers Marshall--Mason and Henry refer to "vast
speculations": "we may be taxed for centuries to give
advantage to rapacious speculators"--Grayson's letter to
Dane--The advantage with the Anti-Constitutionalists at the
end of the second week.

XII. THE STRATEGY OF VICTORY 444

The climax of the fight--The Judiciary the weakest point for
the Constitutionalists--Reasons for this--Especially careful
plans of the Constitutionalists for this part of the debate--
Pendleton expounds the Judiciary clause--Mason attacks it--
His charge as to secret purpose of many Constitutionalists--
His extreme courtesy causes him again to make a tactical
error--He refers to the Fairfax grant--A clever appeal to
members from the Northern Neck--Madison's distinguished
address--Henry answers Madison--His thrilling speech: "Old
as I am, it is probable I may yet have the appellation of
_rebel_. As to this government [the Constitution] I despise
and abhor it"--Marshall takes the floor--Selected by the
Constitutionalists to make the principal argument for the
Judiciary clause--His speech prepared--The National Judiciary
"will benefit collective Society"; National Courts will be
as fair as State Courts; independence of judges necessary;
if Congress should pass an unconstitutional law the National
Courts "_would declare it void_"; they alone the only
"protection from an infringement of the Constitution";
State courts "crowded with suits which the life of man will
not see determined"; National Courts needed to relieve this
congestion; under the Constitution, States cannot be sued
in National Courts; the Constitution does not exclude trial
by jury: "Does the word _court_ only mean the judges?";
comparison with the Judiciary establishment of Virginia;
reply to Mason's argument on the Fairfax title; "what
security have you for justice? The independence of your
Judiciary!"--Marshall's speech unconnected and discursive,
but the Constitutionalists rest their case upon it--Madison's
report to Hamilton: "If we can weather the storm against the
Judiciary I shall hold the danger to be pretty well over"--
Anti-Constitutionalists try to prolong debate until meeting
of Legislature which is strongly against the Constitution--
Secession threatened--Madison's letter to Hamilton--Contest
so close that "ordinary casualties may vary the result"--
Henry answers Marshall--His compliment to the young lawyer--
His reference to the Indians arouses Colonel Stephen who
harshly assails Henry--Nicholas insults Henry, who demands
an explanation--Debate draws to a close--Mason intimates
forcible resistance to the Constitution--Lee rebukes him--
The Constitutionalists forestall Henry and offer amendments--
Henry's last speech: "Nine-tenths of the people" against
the Constitution; Henry's vision of the future; a sudden
and terrific storm aids his dramatic climax; members and
spectators in awe--The Legislature convenes--Quick, resolute
action of the Constitutionalists--Henry admits defeat--The
Virginia amendments--Absurdity of some of them--Necessary
to secure ratification--Marshall on the committee to report
amendments--Constitutionalists win by a majority of only
ten--Of these, two vote against their instructions and eight
vote against the well-known desires of their constituents--
The Clinton letter at last disclosed--Mason's wrath--Henry
prevents Anti-Constitutionalists from talking measures to
resist the new National Government--Washington's account:
"Impossible for anybody not on the spot to conceive what the
delicacy and danger of our situation have been."

APPENDIX 481
I. WILL OF THOMAS MARSHALL, "CARPENTER" 483
II. WILL OF JOHN MARSHALL "OF THE FOREST" 485
III. DEED OF WILLIAM MARSHALL TO JOHN MARSHALL "OF THE FOREST" 487
IV. MEMORIAL OF THOMAS MARSHALL FOR MILITARYE MOLUMENTS 489

WORKS CITED IN THIS VOLUME 491

ILLUSTRATIONS

JOHN MARSHALL AT 43 _Colored Frontispiece_

From a miniature painted on ivory by an unknown artist. It was
executed in Paris in 1797-98, when Marshall was there on the X. Y.
Z. Mission. It is now in the possession of Miss Emily Harvie, of
Richmond, Virginia. It is the only portrait in existence of
Marshall at this period of his life and faithfully portrays him as
he was at the time of his intellectual duel with Talleyrand.

COLONEL WILLIAM RANDOLPH 10

From a copy in the possession of Mr. Douglas H. Thomas, of
Baltimore, after the original portrait in the possession of Mr.
Edward C. Mayo, of Richmond. The painter of the original is
unknown. It was painted about 1673 and has passed down through
successive generations of the family. Mr. Thomas's copy is a
faithful one, and has been used for reproduction here because the
original is not sufficiently clear and distinct for the purpose.

MARY ISHAM RANDOLPH, WIFE OF COLONEL WILLIAM RANDOLPH 10

From a copy in the possession of Mr. Douglas H. Thomas, of
Baltimore, after the original in the possession of Miss Anne
Mortimer Minor. The original portrait was painted about 1673 by an
unknown artist. It is incapable of satisfactory reproduction.

COLONEL THOMAS MARSHALL, THE FATHER OF JOHN MARSHALL 14

From a portrait in the possession of Charles Edward Marshall, of
Glen Mary, Kentucky. This is the only portrait or likeness of any
kind in existence of John Marshall's father. It was painted at
some time between 1790 and 1800 and was inherited by Charles
Edward Marshall from his parents, Charles Edward and Judith
Langhorne Marshall. The name of the painter of this unusual
portrait is not known.

MARY RANDOLPH (KEITH) MARSHALL, WIFE OF THOMAS MARSHALL AND
MOTHER OF JOHN MARSHALL 18

From a portrait in the possession of Miss Sallie Marshall, of
Leeds, Virginia. The portrait was painted at some time between
1790 and 1800, but the painter's name is unknown. The reproduction
is from a photograph furnished by Mr. Douglas H. Thomas.

"THE HOLLOW" 36

The Blue Ridge home of the Marshall family where John Marshall
lived from early childhood to his eighteenth year. The house is
situated on a farm at Markham, Va. From a photograph.

OAK HILL 56

From a water-color in the possession of Mr. Thomas Marshall Smith,
of Baltimore. The small house at the rear of the right of the main
building was the original dwelling, built by John Marshall's
father in 1773. The Marshall family lived here until after the
Revolution. The large building was added nearly forty years
afterward by Thomas Marshall, son of the Chief Justice. The name
of the painter is unknown.

OAK HILL 64

This is the original house, built in 1773 and carefully kept in
repair. The brick pavement is a modern improvement. From a
photograph.

FACSIMILE OF THE LAST PAGE OF A LETTER FROM JOHN MARSHALL TO
HIS WIFE, DESCRIBING THEIR COURTSHIP 152

This letter was written at Washington, February 23, 1824,
forty-one years after their marriage. No part of it has ever
before been published.

MARY AMBLER MARSHALL, THE WIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL 168

A crayon drawing from the original painting now in the possession
of Mrs. Carroll, a granddaughter of John Marshall, living at Leeds
Manor, Va. This is the only painting of Mrs. Marshall in existence
and the name of the artist is unknown.

RICHMOND IN 1800 184

From a painting in the rooms of the Virginia Historical Society.

FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF MARSHALL'S ACCOUNT BOOK, MAY, 1787 198

In this book Marshall kept his accounts of receipts and expenses
for twelve years after his marriage in 1783. In the first part of
it he also recorded his notes of law lectures during his brief
attendance at William and Mary College. The original volume is
owned by Mrs. John K. Mason, of Richmond.

FACSIMILES OF SIGNATURES OF JOHN MARSHALL AT TWENTY-NINE AND
FORTY-TWO AND OF THOMAS MARSHALL 210

These signatures are remarkable as showing the extreme
dissimilarity between the signature of Marshall as a member of the
Council of State before he was thirty and his signature in his
mature manhood, and also as showing the basic similarity between
the signatures of Marshall and his father. The signature of
Marshall as a member of the Council of State in 1784 is from the
original minutes of the Council in the Archives of the Virginia
State Library. His 1797 signature is from a letter to his wife,
the original of which is in the possession of Miss Emily Harvie,
of Richmond. The signature of Thomas Marshall is from the original
roster of the officers of his regiment in the Manuscripts Division
of the Library of Congress.

FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF A LETTER FROM MARSHALL TO JAMES
MONROE, APRIL 17, 1784 212

From the original in the Manuscript Division of the New York
Public Library. This letter has never before been published. It is
extremely important in that it corrects extravagant errors
concerning Marshall's resignation from the Council of State and
his reëlection to the legislature.

JOHN MARSHALL 294

From a profile drawing by Charles Balthazar Julien Fèvre de Saint
Mémin, in the possession of Miss Emily Harvey of Richmond, Va., a
granddaughter of John Marshall. Autograph from manuscript
collection in the Library of the Boston Athenæum.

GEORGE WYTHE 368

From an engraving by J. B. Longacre after a portrait by an unknown
painter in the possession of the Virginia State Library. George
Wythe was Professor of Law at William and Mary College during
Marshall's brief attendance.

JOHN MARSHALL 420

From a painting by J. B. Martin in the Robe Room of the Supreme
Court of the United States, Washington, D.C.

PATRICK HENRY 470

From a copy (in the possession of the Westmoreland Club, of
Richmond) of the portrait by Thomas Sully. Sully, who never saw
Patrick Henry himself, painted the portrait from a miniature on
ivory done by a French artist in Richmond about 1792. John
Marshall, under date of December 30, 1816, attested its excellence
as follows: "I have been shown a painting of the late Mr. Henry,
painted by Mr. Sully, now in possession of Mr. Webster, which I
think a good likeness."

LIST OF ABBREVIATED TITLES MOST FREQUENTLY CITED

_All references here are to the List of Authorities at the end of
this volume._

Beard: _Econ. I. C._ _See_ Beard, Charles A. Economic Interpretation of
the Constitution of the United States.

Beard: _Econ. O. J. D._ _See_ Beard, Charles A. Economic Origins of
Jeffersonian Democracy.

Bruce: _Econ._ _See_ Bruce, Philip Alexander. Economic History of
Virginia in the Seventeeth Century.

Bruce: _Inst._ _See_ Bruce, Philip Alexander. Institutional History of
Virginia in the Seventeeth Century.

_Cor. Rev._: Sparks. _See_ Sparks, Jared. Correspondence of the
Revolution.

Eckenrode: _R. V._ _See_ Eckenrode, H. J. The Revolution in Virginia.

Eckenrode: _S. of C. and S._ _See_ Eckenrode, H. J. Separation of Church
and State in Virginia.

Jefferson's _Writings_: Washington. _See_ Jefferson, Thomas. Writings.
Edited by H. A. Washington.

Monroe's _Writings_: Hamilton. _See_ Monroe, James. Writings. Edited by
Stanislaus Murray Hamilton.

_Old Family Letters._ _See_ Adams, John. Old Family Letters. Edited by
Alexander Biddle.

Wertenbaker: _P. and P._ _See_ Wertenbaker, Thomas J. Patrician and
Plebeian in Virginia; or the Origin and Development of the Social
Classes of the Old Dominion.

Wertenbaker: _V. U. S._ _See_ Wertenbaker, Thomas J. Virginia Under the
Stuarts, 1607-1688.

_Works_: Adams. _See_ Adams, John. Works. Edited by Charles Francis
Adams.

_Works_: Ford. _See_ Jefferson, Thomas. Works. Federal Edition. Edited
by Paul Leicester Ford.

_Works_: Hamilton. _See_ Hamilton, Alexander. Works. Edited by John C.
Hamilton.

_Works_: Lodge. _See_ Hamilton, Alexander. Works. Federal Edition.
Edited by Henry Cabot Lodge.

_Writings_: Conway. _See_ Paine, Thomas. Writings. Edited by Moncure
Daniel Conway.

_Writings_: Ford. _See_ Washington, George. Writings. Edited by
Worthington Chauncey Ford.

_Writings_: Hunt. _See_ Madison, James. Writings. Edited by Gaillard
Hunt.

_Writings_: Smyth. _See_ Franklin, Benjamin. Writings. Edited by Albert
Henry Smyth.

_Writings_: Sparks. _See_ Washington, George. Writings. Edited by Jared
Sparks.

THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL

CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT

Often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events
and in to-day already walks to-morrow. (Schiller.)

I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an
American. (Webster.)

"The British are beaten! The British are beaten!" From cabin to cabin,
from settlement to settlement crept, through the slow distances, this
report of terror. The astounding news that Braddock was defeated finally
reached the big plantations on the tidewater, and then spread dismay and
astonishment throughout the colonies.

The painted warriors and the uniformed soldiers of the French-Indian
alliance had been growing bolder and bolder, their ravages ever more
daring and bloody.[1] Already the fear of them had checked the thin wave
of pioneer advance; and it seemed to the settlers that their hereditary
enemies from across the water might succeed in confining British
dominion in America to the narrow strip between the ocean and the
mountains. For the royal colonial authorities had not been able to cope
with their foes.[2]

But there was always the reserve power of Great Britain to defend her
possessions. If only the home Government would send an army of British
veterans, the colonists felt that, as a matter of course, the French and
Indians would be routed, the immigrants made safe, and the way cleared
for their ever-swelling thousands to take up and people the lands beyond
the Alleghanies.

So when at last, in 1755, the redoubtable Braddock and his red-coated
regiments landed in Virginia, they were hailed as deliverers. There
would be an end, everybody said, to the reign of terror which the
atrocities of the French and Indians had created all along the border.
For were not the British grenadiers invincible? Was not Edward Braddock
an experienced commander, whose bravery was the toast of his fellow
officers?[3] So the colonists had been told, and so they believed.

They forgave the rudeness of their British champions; and Braddock
marched away into the wilderness carrying with him the unquestioning
confidence of the people.[4] It was hardly thought necessary for any
Virginia fighting men to accompany him; and that haughty, passionate
young Virginia soldier, George Washington (then only twenty-three years
of age, but already the chief military figure of the Old Dominion), and
his Virginia rangers were invited to accompany Braddock more because
they knew the country better than for any real aid in battle that was
expected of them. "I have been importuned," testifies Washington, "to
make this campaign by General Braddock, ... conceiving ... that the ...
knowledge I have ... of the country, Indians, &c. ... might be useful to
him."[5]

So through the ancient and unbroken forests Braddock made his slow and
painful way.[6] Weeks passed; then months.[7] But there was no
impatience, because everybody knew what would happen when his scarlet
columns should finally meet and throw themselves upon the enemy. Yet
this meeting, when it came, proved to be one of the lesser tragedies of
history, and had a deep and fateful effect upon American public opinion
and upon the life and future of the American people.[8]

Time has not dulled the vivid picture of that disaster. The golden
sunshine of that July day; the pleasant murmur of the waters of the
Monongahela; the silent and somber forests; the steady tramp, tramp of
the British to the inspiriting music of their regimental bands playing
the martial airs of England; the bright uniforms of the advancing
columns giving to the background of stream and forest a touch of
splendor; and then the ambush and surprise; the war-whoops of savage
foes that could not be seen; the hail of invisible death, no pellet of
which went astray; the pathetic volleys which the doomed British troops
fired at hidden antagonists; the panic; the rout; the pursuit; the
slaughter; the crushing, humiliating defeat![9]

Most of the British officers were killed or wounded as they vainly tried
to halt the stampede.[10] Braddock himself received a mortal hurt.[11]
Raging with battle lust, furious at what he felt was the stupidity and
cowardice of the British regulars,[12] the youthful Washington rode
among the fear-frenzied Englishmen, striving to save the day. Two horses
were shot under him. Four bullets rent his uniform.[13] But, crazed with
fright, the Royal soldiers were beyond human control.

Only the Virginia rangers kept their heads and their courage. Obeying
the shouted orders of their young commander, they threw themselves
between the terror-stricken British and the savage victors; and,
fighting behind trees and rocks, were an ever-moving rampart of fire
that saved the flying remnants of the English troops. But for Washington
and his rangers, Braddock's whole force would have been annihilated.[14]
Colonel Dunbar and his fifteen hundred British regulars, who had been
left a short distance behind as a reserve, made off to Philadelphia as
fast as their panic-winged feet could carry them.[15]

So everywhere went up the cry, "The British are beaten!" At first rumor
had it that the whole force was destroyed, and that Washington had been
killed in action.[16] But soon another word followed hard upon this
error--the word that the boyish Virginia captain and his rangers had
fought with coolness, skill, and courage; that they alone had prevented
the extinction of the British regulars; that they alone had come out of
the conflict with honor and glory.

Thus it was that the American colonists suddenly came to think that they
themselves must be their own defenders. It was a revelation, all the
more impressive because it was so abrupt, unexpected, and dramatic, that
the red-coated professional soldiers were not the unconquerable warriors
the colonists had been told that they were.[17] From colonial "mansion"
to log cabin, from the provincial "capitals" to the mean and exposed
frontier settlements, Braddock's defeat sowed the seed of the idea that
Americans must depend upon themselves.[18]

As Bacon's Rebellion at Jamestown, exactly one hundred years before
Independence was declared at Philadelphia, was the beginning of the
American Revolution in its first clear expression of popular rights,[19]
so Braddock's defeat was the inception of that same epoch in its lesson
of American military self-dependence.[20] Down to Concord and Lexington,
Great Bridge and Bunker Hill, the overthrow of the King's troops on the
Monongahela in 1755 was a theme of common talk among men, a household
legend on which American mothers brought up their children.[21]

Close upon the heels of this epoch-making event, John Marshall came into
the world. He was born in a little log cabin in the southern part of
what now is Fauquier County, Virginia (then a part of Prince William),
on September 24, 1755,[22] eleven weeks after Braddock's defeat. The
Marshall cabin stood about a mile and a half from a cluster of a dozen
similar log structures built by a handful of German families whom
Governor Spotswood had brought over to work his mines. This little
settlement was known as Germantown, and was practically on the
frontier.[23]

Thomas Marshall, the father of John Marshall, was a close friend of
Washington, whom he ardently admired. They were born in the same county,
and their acquaintance had begun, apparently, in their boyhood.[24]
Also, as will presently appear, Thomas Marshall had for about three
years been the companion of Washington, when acting as his assistant in
surveying the western part of the Fairfax estate.[25] From that time
forward his attachment to Washington amounted to devotion.[26]

Also, he was, like Washington, a fighting man.[27] It seems strange,
therefore, that he did not accompany his hero in the Braddock
expedition. There is, indeed, a legend that he did go part of the
way.[28] But this, like so many stories concerning him, is untrue.[29]
The careful roster, made by Washington of those under his command,[30]
does not contain the name of Thomas Marshall either as officer or
private. Because of their intimate association it is certain that
Washington would not have overlooked him if he had been a member of that
historic body of men.

So, while the father of John Marshall was not with his friend and leader
at Braddock's defeat, no man watched that expedition with more care,
awaited its outcome with keener anxiety, or was more affected by the
news, than Thomas Marshall. Beneath no rooftree in all the colonies,
except, perhaps, that of Washington's brother, could this capital event
have made a deeper impression than in the tiny log house in the forests
of Prince William County, where John Marshall, a few weeks afterwards,
first saw the light of day.

Wars and rumors of wars, ever threatening danger, and stern, strong,
quiet preparation to meet whatever befell--these made up the moral and
intellectual atmosphere that surrounded the Marshall cabin before and
after the coming of Thomas and Mary Marshall's first son. The earliest
stories told this child of the frontier[31] must have been those of
daring and sacrifice and the prevailing that comes of them.

Almost from the home-made cradle John Marshall was taught the idea of
American solidarity. Braddock's defeat, the most dramatic military event
before the Revolution,[32] was, as we have seen, the theme of fireside
talk; and from this grew, in time, the conviction that Americans, if
united,[33] could not only protect their homes from the savages and the
French, but defeat, if need be, the British themselves.[34] So thought
the Marshalls, father and mother; and so they taught their children, as
subsequent events show.

It was a remarkable parentage that produced this child who in manhood
was to become the master-builder of American Nationality. Curiously
enough, it was exactly the same mingling of human elements that gave to
the country that great apostle of the rights of man, Thomas Jefferson.
Indeed, Jefferson's mother and Marshall's grandmother were first
cousins. The mother of Thomas Jefferson was Jane Randolph, daughter of
Isham Randolph of Turkey Island; and the mother of John Marshall was
Mary Randolph Keith, the daughter of Mary Isham Randolph, whose father
was Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe, the brother of Jefferson's maternal
grandfather.

Thus, Thomas Jefferson was the great-grandson and John Marshall the
great-great-grandson of William Randolph and Mary Isham. Perhaps no
other couple in American history is so remarkable for the number of
distinguished descendants. Not only were they the ancestors of Thomas
Jefferson and John Marshall, but also of "Light Horse Harry" Lee,
of Revolutionary fame, Edmund Randolph, Washington's first
Attorney-General, John Randolph of Roanoke, George Randolph, Secretary
of War under the Confederate Government, and General Robert E. Lee, the
great Southern military leader of the Civil War.[35]

The Virginia Randolphs were one of the families of that proud colony who
were of undoubted gentle descent, their line running clear and unbroken
at least as far back as 1550. The Ishams were a somewhat older family,
their lineage being well established to 1424. While knighthood was
conferred upon one ancestor of Mary Isham, the Randolph and Isham
families were of the same social stratum, both being of the English
gentry.[36] The Virginia Randolphs were brilliant in mind, physically
courageous, commanding in character, generally handsome in person, yet
often as erratic as they were gifted.

[Illustration: COLONEL WILLIAM RANDOLPH]

[Illustration: MARY ISHAM RANDOLPH]

When the gentle Randolph-Isham blood mingled with the sturdier currents
of the common people, the result was a human product stronger, steadier,
and abler than either. So, when Jane Randolph became the wife of Peter
Jefferson, a man from the grass roots, the result was Thomas Jefferson.
The union of a daughter of Mary Randolph with Thomas Marshall, a man of
the soil and forests, produced John Marshall.[37]

Physically and mentally, Peter Jefferson and Thomas Marshall were much
alike. Both were powerful men of great stature. Both were endowed with
rare intellectuality.[38] Both were hard-working, provident, and
fearless. Even their occupations were the same: both were land
surveyors. The chief difference between them was that, whereas Peter
Jefferson appears to have been a hearty and convivial person,[39]
Thomas Marshall seems to have been self-contained though adventurous,
and of rather austere habits. Each became the leading man of his
county[40] and both were chosen members of the House of Burgesses.[41]

On the paternal side, it is impossible to trace the origin of either
Peter Jefferson[42] or Thomas Marshall farther back than their
respective great-grandfathers, without floundering, unavailingly, in
genealogical quicksands.

Thomas Marshall was the son of a very small planter in Westmoreland
County, Virginia. October 23, 1727, three years before Thomas was born,
his father, John Marshall "of the forest," acquired by deed, from
William Marshall of King and Queen County, two hundred acres of poor,
low, marshy land located on Appomattox Creek.[43] Little as the value of
land in Virginia then was, and continued to be for three quarters of a
century afterwards,[44] this particular tract seems to have been of an
especially inferior quality. The deed states that it is a part of twelve
hundred acres which had been granted to "Jno. Washington & Thos. Pope,
gents ... & by them lost for want of seating."

Here John Marshall "of the forest"[45] lived until his death in 1752,
and here on April 2, 1730, Thomas Marshall was born. During the quarter
of a century that this John Marshall remained on his little farm, he had
become possessed of several slaves, mostly, perhaps, by natural
increase. By his will he bequeaths to his ten children and to his wife
six negro men and women, ten negro boys and girls, and two negro
children. In addition to "one negro fellow named Joe and one negro woman
named Cate" he gives to his wife "one Gray mair named beauty and side
saddle also six hogs also I leave her the use of my land During her
widowhood, and afterwards to fall to my son Thomas Marshall and his
heirs forever."[46] One year later the widow, Elizabeth Marshall, deeded
half of this two hundred acres to her son Thomas Marshall.[47]

Such was the environment of Thomas Marshall's birth, such the property,
family, and station in life of his father. Beyond these facts, nothing
positively is known of the ancestry of John Marshall on his father's
side. Marshall himself traces it no further back than his grandfather.
"My Father, Thomas Marshall, was the eldest son of John Marshall, who
intermarried with a Miss Markham and whose parents migrated from Wales,
and settled in the county of Westmoreland, in Virginia, where my Father
was born."[48]

It is probable, however, that Marshall's paternal great-grandfather was
a carpenter of Westmoreland County. A Thomas Marshall, "carpenter," as
he describes himself in his will, died in that county in 1704. He
devised his land to his son William. A William Marshall of King and
Queen County deeded to John Marshall "of the forest," for five
shillings, the two hundred acres of land in Westmoreland County, as
above stated.[49] The fair inference is that this William was the elder
brother of John "of the forest" and that both were sons of Thomas the
"carpenter."

[Illustration: THOMAS MARSHALL]

Beyond his paternal grandfather or at furthest his great-grandfather,
therefore, the ancestry of John Marshall, on his father's side, is lost
in the fogs of uncertainty.[50] It is only positively known that his
grandfather was of the common people and of moderate means.[51]

Concerning his paternal grandmother, nothing definitely is established
except that she was Elizabeth Markham, daughter of Lewis Markham, once
Sheriff of Westmoreland County.[52]

John Marshall's lineage on his mother's side, however, is long, high,
and free from doubt, not only through the Randolphs and Ishams, as we
have seen, but through the Keiths. For his maternal grandfather was an
Episcopal clergyman, James Keith, of the historic Scottish family of
that name, who were hereditary Earls Marischal of Scotland. The Keiths
had been soldiers for generations, some of them winning great
renown.[53] One of them was James Keith, the Prussian field marshal and
ablest of the officers of Frederick the Great.[54] James Keith, a
younger son of this distinguished family, was destined for the
Church;[55] but the martial blood flowing in his veins asserted itself
and, in his youth, he also became a soldier, upholding with arms the
cause of the Pretender. When that rebellion was crushed, he fled to
Virginia, resumed his sacred calling, returned to England for orders,
came back to Virginia[56] and during his remaining years performed his
priestly duties with rare zeal and devotion.[57] The motto of the Keiths
of Scotland was "Veritas Vincit," and John Marshall adopted it. During
most of his life he wore an amethyst with the ancient Keith motto
engraved upon it.[58]

When past middle life the Scottish parson married Mary Isham
Randolph,[59] granddaughter of William Randolph and Mary Isham. In 1754
their daughter, Mary Randolph Keith, married Thomas Marshall and became
the mother of John Marshall. "My mother was named Mary Keith, she was
the daughter of a clergyman, of the name of Keith, who migrated from
Scotland and intermarried with a Miss Randolph of James River" is
Marshall's comment on his maternal ancestry.[60]

Not only was John Marshall's mother uncommonly well born, but she was
more carefully educated than most Virginia women of that period.[61] Her
father received in Aberdeen the precise and methodical training of a
Scottish college;[62] and, as all parsons in the Virginia of that time
were teachers, it is certain that he carefully instructed his daughter.
He was a deeply religious man, especially in his latter years,--so much
so, indeed, that there was in him a touch of mysticism; and the two
marked qualities of his daughter, Mary, were deep piety and strong
intellectuality. She had, too, all the physical hardiness of her
Scottish ancestry, fortified by the active and useful labor which all
Virginia women of her class at that time performed.

[Illustration: MARY RANDOLPH KEITH MARSHALL (Mrs. Thomas Marshall)]

So Thomas Marshall and Mary Keith combined unusual qualities for the
founding of a family. Great strength of mind both had, and powerful
wills; and through the veins of both poured the blood of daring. Both
were studious-minded, too, and husband and wife alike were seized of a
passion for self-improvement as well as a determination to better their
circumstances. It appears that Thomas Marshall was by nature religiously
inclined;[63] and this made all the greater harmony between himself and
his wife. The physical basis of both husband and wife seems to have been
well-nigh perfect.

Fifteen children were the result of this union, every one of whom lived
to maturity and almost all of whom rounded out a ripe old age. Every one
of them led an honorable and successful life. Nearly all strongly
impressed themselves upon the community in which they lived.

It was a peculiar society of which this prolific and virile family
formed a part, and its surroundings were as strange as the society
itself. Nearly all of Virginia at that time was wilderness,[64] if we
look upon it with the eyes of to-day. The cultivated parts were given
over almost entirely to the raising of tobacco, which soon drew from the
soil its virgin strength; and the land thus exhausted usually was
abandoned to the forest, which again soon covered it. No use was made of
the commonest and most obvious fertilizing materials and methods; new
spaces were simply cleared.[65] Thus came a happy-go-lucky improvidence
of habits and character.

This shiftlessness was encouraged by the vast extent of unused and
unoccupied domain. Land was so cheap that riches measured by that basis
of all wealth had to be counted in terms of thousands and tens of
thousands of acres.[66] Slavery was an even more powerful force making
for a kind of lofty disdain of physical toil among the white
people.[67] Black slaves were almost as numerous as white free men.[68]
On the great plantations the negro quarters assumed the proportions of
villages;[69] and the masters of these extensive holdings were by
example the arbiters of habits and manners to the whole social and
industrial life of the colony. While an occasional great planter was
methodical and industrious,[70] careful and systematic methods were
rare. Manual labor was, to most of these lords of circumstance, not only
unnecessary but degrading. To do no physical work that could be avoided
on the one hand, and on the other hand, to own as many slaves as
possible, was, generally, the ideal of members of the first estate.[71]
This spread to the classes below, until it became a common ambition of
white men throughout the Old Dominion.

While contemporary travelers are unanimous upon this peculiar aspect of
social and economic conditions in old Virginia, the vivid picture drawn
by Thomas Jefferson is still more convincing. "The whole commerce
between master and slave," writes Jefferson, "is a perpetual exercise of
the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one
part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and
learn to imitate it.... Thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in
tyranny ... the man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and
morals undepraved.... With the morals of the people their industry also
is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who
can make another labour for him.... Of the proprietors of slaves a very
small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour."[72]

Two years after he wrote his "Notes on Virginia" Jefferson emphasized
his estimate of Virginia society. "I have thought them [Virginians] as
you found them," he writes Chastellux, "aristocratical, pompous,
clannish, indolent, hospitable ... careless of their interests, ...
thoughtless in their expenses and in all their transactions of
business." He again ascribes many of these characteristics to "that
warmth of their climate which unnerves and unmans both body and
mind."[73]

From this soil sprang a growth of habits as noxious as it was luxuriant.
Amusements to break the monotony of unemployed daily existence took the
form of horse-racing, cock-fighting, and gambling.[74] Drinking and all
attendant dissipations were universal and extreme;[75] this, however,
was the case in all the colonies.[76] Bishop Meade tells us that even
the clergy indulged in the prevailing customs to the neglect of their
sacred calling; and the church itself was all but abandoned in the
disrepute which the conduct of its ministers brought upon the house of
God.[77]

Yet the higher classes of colonial Virginians were keen for the
education of their children, or at least of their male offspring.[78]
The sons of the wealthiest planters often were sent to England or
Scotland to be educated, and these, not infrequently, became graduates
of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.[79] Others of this class were
instructed by private tutors.[80] Also a sort of scanty and fugitive
public instruction was given in rude cabins, generally located in
abandoned fields. These were called the Old Field Schools.[81]

More than forty per cent of the men who made deeds or served on juries
could not sign their names, although they were of the land-owning and
better educated classes;[82] the literacy of the masses, especially that
of the women,[83] was, of course, much lower.

An eager desire, among the "quality," for reading brought a considerable
number of books to the homes of those who could afford that luxury.[84]
A few libraries were of respectable size and two or three were very
large. Robert Carter had over fifteen hundred volumes,[85] many of which
were in Latin and Greek, and some in French.[86] William Byrd collected
at Westover more than four thousand books in half a dozen languages.[87]
But the Carter and Byrd libraries were, of course, exceptions. Byrd's
library was the greatest, not only in Virginia, but in all the colonies,
except that of John Adams, which was equally extensive and varied.[88]

Doubtless the leisure and wealth of the gentry, created by the peculiar
economic conditions of the Old Dominion, sharpened this appetite for
literature and afforded to the wealthy time and material for the
gratification of it. The passion for reading and discussion persisted,
and became as notable a characteristic of Virginians as was their
dislike for physical labor, their excessive drinking, and their love of
strenuous sport and rough diversion.

There were three social orders or strata, all contemporary observers
agree, into which Virginians were divided; but they merged into one
another so that the exact dividing line was not clear.[89] First, of
course, came the aristocracy of the immense plantations. While the
social and political dominance of this class was based on wealth, yet
some of its members were derived from the English gentry, with, perhaps,
an occasional one from a noble family in the mother country.[90] Many,
however, were English merchants or their sons.[91] It appears, also,
that the boldest and thriftiest of the early Virginia settlers, whom the
British Government exiled for political offenses, acquired extensive
possessions, became large slave-owners, and men of importance and
position. So did some who were indentured servants;[92] and, indeed, an
occasional transported convict rose to prominence.[93]

But the genuine though small aristocratic element gave tone and color to
colonial Virginia society. All, except the "poor whites," looked to this
supreme group for ideals and for standards of manners and conduct.
"People of fortune ... are the pattern of all behaviour here," testifies
Fithian of New Jersey, tutor in the Carter household.[94] Also, it was,
of course, the natural ambition of wealthy planters and those who
expected to become such to imitate the life of the English higher
classes. This was much truer in Virginia than in any other colony; for
she had been more faithful to the Crown and to the royal ideal than had
her sisters. Thus it was that the Old Dominion developed a distinctively
aristocratic and chivalrous social atmosphere peculiar to herself,[95]
as Jefferson testifies.

Next to the dominant class came the lesser planters. These corresponded
to the yeomanry of the mother country; and most of them were from the
English trading classes.[96] They owned little holdings of land from a
few hundred to a thousand and even two thousand acres; and each of these
inconsiderable landlords acquired a few slaves in proportion to his
limited estate. It is possible that a scanty number of this middle class
were as well born as the best born of the little nucleus of the genuine
aristocracy; these were the younger sons of great English houses to whom
the law of primogeniture denied equal opportunity in life with the elder
brother. So it came to pass that the upper reaches of the second estate
in the social and industrial Virginia of that time merged into the
highest class.

At the bottom of the scale, of course, came the poverty-stricken whites.
In eastern Virginia this was the class known as the "poor whites"; and
it was more distinct than either of the two classes above it. These
"poor whites" lived in squalor, and without the aspirations or virtues
of the superior orders. They carried to the extreme the examples of
idleness given them by those in higher station, and coarsened their
vices to the point of brutality.[97] Near this social stratum, though
not a part of it, were classed the upland settlers, who were poor
people, but highly self-respecting and of sturdy stock.

Into this structure of Virginia society Fate began to weave a new and
alien thread about the time that Thomas Marshall took his young bride to
the log cabin in the woods of Prince William County where their first
child was born. In the back country bordering the mountains appeared the
scattered huts of the pioneers. The strong character of this element of
Virginia's population is well known, and its coming profoundly
influenced for generations the political, social, industrial, and
military history of that section. They were jealous of their "rights,"
impatient of restraint, wherever they felt it, and this was seldom.
Indeed, the solitariness of their lives, and the utter self-dependence
which this forced upon them, made them none too tolerant of law in any
form.

These outpost settlers furnished most of that class so well known to our
history by the term "backwoodsmen," and yet so little understood. For
the heroism, the sacrifice, and the suffering of this "advance guard of
civilization" have been pictured by laudatory writers to the exclusion
of its other and less admirable qualities. Yet it was these latter
characteristics that played so important a part in that critical period
of our history between the surrender of the British at Yorktown and the
adoption of the Constitution, and in that still more fateful time when
the success of the great experiment of making out of an inchoate
democracy a strong, orderly, independent, and self-respecting nation was
in the balance.

These American backwoodsmen, as described by contemporary writers who
studied them personally, pushed beyond the inhabited districts to get
land and make homes more easily. This was their underlying purpose; but
a fierce individualism, impatient even of those light and vague social
restraints which the existence of near-by neighbors creates, was a
sharper spur.[98] Through both of these motives, too, ran the spirit of
mingled lawlessness and adventure. The physical surroundings of the
backwoodsman nourished the non-social elements of his character. The log
cabin built, the surrounding patch of clearing made, the seed planted
for a crop of cereals only large enough to supply the household
needs--these almost ended the backwoodsman's agricultural activities and
the habits of regular industry which farming requires.

While his meager crops were coming on, the backwoodsman must supply his
family with food from the stream and forest. The Indians had not yet
retreated so far, nor were their atrocities so remote, that fear of
them had ceased;[99] and the eye of the backwoodsman was ever keen for a
savage human foe as well as for wild animals. Thus he became a man of
the rifle,[100] a creature of the forests, a dweller amid great
silences, self-reliant, suspicious, non-social, and almost as savage as
his surroundings.[101]

But among them sometimes appeared families which sternly held to high
purposes, orderly habits, and methodical industry;[102] and which clung
to moral and religious ideals and practices with greater tenacity than
ever, because of the very difficulties of their situation. These chosen
families naturally became the backbone of the frontier; and from them
came the strong men of the advanced settlements.

Such a figure among the backwoodsmen was Thomas Marshall. Himself a
product of the settlements on the tidewater, he yet was the
personification of that spirit of American advance and enterprise which
led this son of the Potomac lowlands ever and ever westward until he
ended his days in the heart of Kentucky hundreds of miles through the
savage wilderness from the spot where, as a young man, he built his
first cabin home.

This, then, was the strange mingling of human elements that made up
Virginia society during the middle decades of the eighteenth century--a
society peculiar to the Old Dominion and unlike that of any other place
or time. For the most part, it was idle and dissipated, yet also
hospitable and spirited, and, among the upper classes, keenly
intelligent and generously educated. When we read of the heavy drinking
of whiskey, brandy, rum, and heady wine; of the general indolence,
broken chiefly by fox-hunting and horse-racing, among the quality; of
the coarser sport of cock-fighting shared in common by landed gentry and
those of baser condition, and of the eagerness for physical encounter
which seems to have pervaded the whole white population,[103] we wonder
at the greatness of mind and soul which grew from such a social soil.

Yet out of it sprang a group of men who for ability, character, spirit,
and purpose, are not outshone and have no precise counterpart in any
other company of illustrious characters appearing in like space of time
and similar extent of territory. At almost the same point of time,
historically speaking,--within thirty years, to be exact,--and on the
same spot, geographically speaking,--within a radius of a hundred
miles,--George Mason, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson,
John Marshall, and George Washington were born. The life stories of
these men largely make up the history of their country while they lived;
and it was chiefly their words and works, their thought and purposes,
that gave form and direction, on American soil, to those political and
social forces which are still working out the destiny of the American
people.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For instance, the Indians massacred nine families in Frederick
County, just over the Blue Ridge from Fauquier, in June, 1755.
(_Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser_, July 24, 1755.)

[2] Marshall, i, 12-13; Campbell, 469-71. "The Colonial contingents were
not nearly sufficient either in quantity or quality." (Wood, 40.)

[3] Braddock had won promotion solely by gallantry in the famous
Coldstream Guards, the model and pride of the British army, at a time
when a lieutenant-colonelcy in that crack regiment sold for £5000
sterling. (Lowdermilk, 97.)

[4] "The British troops had been looked upon as invincible, and
preparations had been made in Philadelphia for the celebration of
Braddock's anticipated victory." (_Ib._, 186.)

[5] Washington to Robinson, April 20, 1755; _Writings_: Ford, i, 147.

[6] The "wild desert country lying between fort Cumberland and fort
Frederick [now the cities of Cumberland and Frederick in Maryland], the
most common track of the Indians, in making their incursions into
Virginia." (Address in the Maryland House of Delegates, 1757, as quoted
by Lowdermilk, 229-30.) Cumberland was "about 56 miles beyond our
[Maryland] settlements." (_Ib._) Cumberland "is far remote from any of
our inhabitants." (Washington to Dinwiddie, Sept. 23, 1756; _Writings_:
Ford, i, 346.) "Will's Creek was on the very outskirts of civilization.
The country beyond was an unbroken and almost pathless wilderness."
(Lowdermilk, 50.)

[7] It took Braddock three weeks to march from Alexandria to Cumberland.
He was two months and nineteen days on the way from Alexandria to the
place of his defeat. (_Ib._, 138.)

[8] "All America watched his [Braddock's] advance." (Wood, 61.)

[9] For best accounts of Braddock's defeat see Bradley, 75-107;
Lowdermilk, 156-63; and Marshall, i, 7-10.

[10] "Of one hundred and sixty officers, only six escaped." (Lowdermilk,
footnote to 175.)

[11] Braddock had five horses killed under him. (_Ib._, 161.)

[12] "The dastardly behavior of the Regular [British] troops," who
"broke and ran as sheep before hounds." (Washington to Dinwiddie, July
18, 1755; _Writings_: Ford, i, 173-74.)

[13] Washington to John A. Washington, July 18, 1755. (_Ib._, 176.)

[14] "The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers ...
of three companies ... scarce thirty were left alive." (Washington to
Dinwiddie, July 18, 1755; _Writings_: Ford, i, 173-74.)

[15] Lowdermilk, 182-85; and see Washington's _Writings_: Ford, i,
footnote to 175. For account of battle and rout see Washington's letters
to Dinwiddie, _ib._, 173-76; to John A. Washington, July 18, 1755,
_ib._; to Robert Jackson, Aug. 2, 1755, _ib._, 177-78; also see
Campbell, 472-81. For French account see Hart, ii, 365-67; also,
Sargent: _History of Braddock's Expedition_.

[16] Washington to John A. Washington, July 18, 1755; _Writings_: Ford,
i, 175.

[17] "The Defeat of Braddock was totally unlooked for, and it excited
the most painful surprise." (Lowdermilk, 186.)

[18] "After Braddock's defeat, the Colonists jumped to the conclusion
that all regulars were useless." (Wood, 40.)

[19] See Stanard: _Story of Bacon's Rebellion_. Bacon's Rebellion
deserves the careful study of all who would understand the beginnings of
the democratic movement in America. Mrs. Stanard's study is the best
brief account of this popular uprising. See also Wertenbaker: _V. U.
S._, chaps. 5 and 6.

[20] "The news [of Braddock's defeat] gave a far more terrible blow to
the reputation of the regulars than to the British cause [against the
French] itself." (Wood, 61.)

[21] "From that time [Braddock's defeat] forward the Colonists had a
much less exalted opinion of the valor of the royal troops."
(Lowdermilk, 186.) The fact that the colonists themselves had been
negligent and incompetent in resisting the French or even the Indians
did not weaken their newborn faith in their own prowess and their
distrust of British power.

[22] _Autobiography._

[23] Campbell, 494. "It is remarkable," says Campbell, "that as late as
the year 1756, when the colony was a century and a half old, the Blue
Ridge of mountains was virtually the western boundary of Virginia." And
see Marshall, i, 15; also, _New York Review_ (1838), iii, 330. For
frontier settlements, see the admirable map prepared by Marion F.
Lansing and reproduced in Channing, ii.

[24] Humphrey Marshall, i, 344-45. Also Binney, in Dillon, iii, 283.

[25] See _infra_, chap. II.

[26] Humphrey Marshall, i, 344-45.

[27] He was one of a company of militia cavalry the following year,
(Journal, H.B. (1756), 378); and he was commissioned as ensign Aug. 27,
1761. (Crozier: _Virginia Colonial Militia_, 96.) And see _infra_,
chaps, III and IV.

[28] Paxton, 20.

[29] A copy of a letter (MS.) to Thomas Marshall from his sister
Elizabeth Marshall Martin, dated June 15, 1755, referring to the
Braddock expedition, shows that he was at home at this time.
Furthermore, a man of the quality of Thomas Marshall would not have left
his young wife alone in their backwoods cabin at a time so near the
birth of their first child, when there was an overabundance of men eager
to accompany Braddock.

[30] Washington MSS., Lib. Cong.

[31] Simon Kenton, the Indian fighter, was born in the same county in
the same year as John Marshall. (M'Clung: _Sketches of Western
Adventure_, 93.)

[32] Neither the siege of Louisburg nor the capture of Quebec took such
hold on the public imagination as the British disaster on the
Monongahela. Also, the colonists felt, though unjustly, that they were
entitled to as much credit for the two former events as the British.

[33] The idea of unity had already germinated. The year before, Franklin
offered his plan of concerted colonial action to the Albany conference.
(_Writings_: Smyth, i, 387.)

[34] Wood, 38-42.

[35] For these genealogies see Slaughter: _Bristol Parish_, 212; Lee:
_Lee of Virginia_, 406 _et seq._; Randall, i, 6-9; Tucker, i, 26. See
Meade, i, footnote to 138-39, for other descendants of William Randolph
and Mary Isham.

[36] _Va. Mag. Hist. and Biog._, iii, 261; xviii, 86-87.

[37] The curious sameness in the ancestry of Marshall and Jefferson is
found also in the surroundings of their birth. Both were born in log
cabins in the backwoods. Peter Jefferson, father of Thomas, "was the
third or fourth white settler within the space of several miles" of his
cabin home, which he built "in a small clearing in the dense and
primeval forest." (Randall, i, 11.) Here Jefferson was born, April 2,
1743, a little more than twelve years before John Marshall came into the
world, under like conditions and from similar parents.

Peter Jefferson was, however, remotely connected by descent, on his
mother's side, with men who had been burgesses. His maternal
grandfather, Peter Field, was a burgess, and his maternal
great-grandfather, Henry Soane, was Speaker of the House of Burgesses.
But both Peter Jefferson and Thomas Marshall were "of the people" as
distinguished from the gentry.

[38] Morse, 3; and Story, in Dillon, iii, 330.

[39] Randall, i, 7. Peter Jefferson "purchased" four hundred acres of
land from his "bosom friend," William Randolph, the consideration as set
forth in the deed being, "Henry Weatherbourne's biggest bowl of arrack
punch"! (_Ib._)

[40] Peter Jefferson was County Lieutenant of Albemarle. (_Va. Mag,
Hist. and Biog._, xxiii, 173-75.) Thomas Marshall was Sheriff of
Fauquier.

[41] Randall, i, 12-13; and see _infra_, chap. II.

[42] Tucker, i, 26.

[43] Records of Westmoreland County, Deeds and Wills, viii, I, 276.

[44] _Ib._ Seventy years later La Rochefoucauld found land adjoining
Norfolk heavily covered with valuable timber, close to the water and
convenient for shipment, worth only from six to seven dollars an acre.
(La Rochefoucauld, iii, 25.) Virginia sold excellent public land for two
cents an acre three quarters of a century after this deed to John
Marshall "of the forest." (Ambler, 44; and see Turner, Wis. Hist. Soc,
1908, 201.) This same land which William Marshall deeded to John
Marshall nearly two hundred years ago is now valued at only from ten to
twenty dollars an acre. (Letter of Albert Stuart, Deputy Clerk of
Westmoreland County, to author, Aug. 26, 1913.) In 1730 it was probably
worth one dollar per acre.

[45] A term generally used by the richer people in referring to those of
poorer condition who lived in the woods, especially those whose abodes
were some distance from the river. (Statement of W. G. Stanard,
Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society and Dr. H. J. Eckenrode of
Richmond College, and formerly Archivist of the Virginia State Library.)
There were, however, Virginia estates called "The Forest." For example,
Jefferson's father-in-law, John Wayles, a wealthy man, lived in "The
Forest."

[46] Will of John Marshall "of the forest," made April 1, 1752, probated
May 26, 1752, and recorded June 22, 1752; Records of Westmoreland
County, Deeds and Wills, xi, 419 _et seq._ (Appendix II.)

[47] _Ib._, 421.

[48] _Autobiography_. Marshall gives the ancestry of his wife more fully
and specifically. See _infra_, chap. V.

[49] Will of Thomas Marshall, "carpenter," probated May 31, 1704;
Records of Westmoreland County, Deeds and Wills, iii, 232 _et seq._
(Appendix I.)

[50] Most curiously, precisely this is true of Thomas Jefferson's
paternal ancestry.

[51] There is a family tradition that the first of this particular
Marshall family in America was a Royalist Irish captain who fought under
Charles I and came to America when Cromwell prevailed. This may or may
not be true. Certainly no proof of it has been discovered. The late
Wilson Miles Cary, whose authority is unquestioned in genealogical
problems upon which he passed judgment, decided that "the Marshall
family begins absolutely with Thomas Marshall, 'Carpenter.'" (The Cary
Papers, MSS., Va. Hist. Soc. The _Virginia Magazine of History and
Biography_ is soon to publish these valuable genealogical papers.)

Within comparatively recent years, this family tradition has been
ambitiously elaborated. It includes among John Marshall's ancestors
William le Mareschal, who came to England with the Conqueror; the
celebrated Richard de Clare, known as "Strongbow"; an Irish king,
Dermont; Sir William Marshall, regent of the kingdom of England and
restorer of Magna Charta; a Captain John Marshall, who distinguished
himself at the siege of Calais in 1558; and finally, the Irish captain
who fought Cromwell and fled to Virginia as above mentioned. (Paxton, 7
_et seq._)

Senator Humphrey Marshall rejected this story as "a myth supported by
vanity." (_Ib._) Colonel Cary declares that "there is no evidence
whatever in support of it." (Cary Papers, MSS.) Other painstaking
genealogists have reached the same conclusion. (See, for instance,
General Thomas M. Anderson's analysis of the subject in _Va. Mag. Hist.
and Biog._, xii, 328 _et seq._)

Marshall himself, of course, does not notice this legend in his
_Autobiography_; indeed, it is almost certain that he never heard of it.
In constructing this picturesque genealogical theory, the kinship of
persons separated by centuries is assumed largely because of a
similarity of names. This would not seem to be entirely convincing.
There were many Marshalls in Virginia no more related to one another
than the various unrelated families by the name of Smith. Indeed,
_maréchal_ is the French word for a "shoeing smith."

For example, there lived in Westmoreland County, at the same time with
John Marshall "of the forest," another John Marshall, who died intestate
and the inventory of whose effects was recorded March 26, 1751, a year
before John Marshall "of the forest" died. These two John Marshalls do
not seem to have been kinsmen.

The only prominent person in Virginia named Marshall in 1723-34 was a
certain Thomas Marshall who was a member of the colony's House of
Burgesses during this period; but he was from Northampton County.
(Journal, H.B. (1712-23), xi; _ib._ (1727-40), viii, and 174.) He does
not appear to have been related in any way to John "of the forest."

There were numerous Marshalls who were officers in the Revolutionary War
from widely separated colonies, apparently unconnected by blood or
marriage. For instance, there were Abraham, David, and Benjamin Marshall
from Pennsylvania; Christopher Marshall from Massachusetts; Dixon
Marshall from North Carolina; Elihu Marshall from New York, etc.
(Heitman, 285.)

At the same time that John Marshall, the subject of this work, was
captain in a Virginia regiment, two other John Marshalls were captains
in Pennsylvania regiments. When Thomas Marshall of Virginia was an
officer in Washington's army, there were four other Thomas Marshalls,
two from Massachusetts, one from South Carolina, and one from Virginia,
all Revolutionary officers. (_Ib._)

When Stony Point was taken by Wayne, among the British prisoners
captured was Lieutenant John Marshall of the 17th Regiment of British
foot (see Dawson, 86); and Captain John Marshall of Virginia was one of
the attacking force. (See _infra_, chap. IV.)

In 1792, John Marshall of King and Queen County, a boatswain, was a
Virginia pensioner. (_Va. Hist. Prs._, v, 544.) He was not related to
John Marshall, who had become the leading Richmond lawyer of that time.

While Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury he received several letters
from John Marshall, an Englishman, who was in this country and who wrote
Hamilton concerning the subject of establishing manufactories. (Hamilton
MSS., Lib. Cong.)

Illustrations like these might be continued for many pages. They merely
show the danger of inferring relationship because of the similarity of
names, especially one so general as that of Marshall.

[52] The Cary Papers, _supra_. Here again the Marshall legend riots
fantastically. This time it makes the pirate Blackbeard the first
husband of Marshall's paternal grandmother; and with this freebooter she
is said to have had thrilling and melancholy experiences. It deserves
mention only as showing the absurdity of such myths. Blackbeard was one
Edward Teach, whose career is well authenticated (Wise, 186.) Colonel
Cary put a final quietus on this particular tale, as he did on so many
other genealogical fictions.

[53] See Douglas: _Peerage of Scotland_ (1764), 448. Also Burke:
_Peerage_ (1903), 895; and _ib._ (1876). This peerage is now extinct.
See Burke: _Extinct Peerages_.

[54] For appreciation of this extraordinary man see Carlyle's _Frederick
the Great_.

[55] Paxton, 30.

[56] From data furnished by Justice James Keith, President of the Court
of Appeals of Virginia.

[57] Paxton, 30; and see Meade, ii, 216.

[58] Data furnished by Thomas Marshall Smith of Baltimore, Md.

[59] With this lady the tradition deals most unkindly and in highly
colored pictures. An elopement, the deadly revenge of outraged brothers,
a broken heart and resulting insanity overcome by gentle treatment, only
to be reinduced in old age by a fraudulent Enoch Arden letter apparently
written by the lost love of her youth--such are some of the incidents
with which this story clothes Marshall's maternal grandmother. (Paxton,
25-26.)

[60] _Autobiography._

[61] In general, Virginia women at this time had very little education
(Burnaby, 57.) Sometimes the daughters of prominent and wealthy families
could not read or write. (Bruce: _Inst._, i, 454-55.) Even forty years
after John Marshall was born, there was but one girls' school in
Virginia. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 227.) In 1789, there were very few
schools of any kind in Virginia, it appears. (Journal, H.B. (Dec. 14,
1789), 130; and see _infra_, chap. VI.)

[62] Paxton, 30. Marischal College, Aberdeen, was founded by George
Keith, Fifth Earl Marischal (1593).

[63] See _infra_, chap. II. When Leeds Parish was organized, we find
Thomas Marshall its leading vestryman. He was always a stanch churchman.

[64] Jones, 35; Burnaby,58. But see Maxwell in _William and Mary College
Quarterly_, xix, 73-103; and see Bruce: _Econ._, i, 425, 427, 585, 587.

[65] "Though tobacco exhausts the land to a prodigious degree, the
proprietors take no pains to restore its vigor; they take what the soil
will give and abandon it when it gives no longer. They like better to
clear new lands than to regenerate the old." (De Warville, 439; and see
Fithian, 140.)

The land produced only "four or five bushels of wheat per acre or from
eight to ten of Indian corn. These fields are never manured, hardly even
are they ploughed; and it seldom happens that their owners for two
successive years exact from them these scanty crops.... The country ...
everywhere exhibits the features of laziness, of ignorance, and
consequently of poverty." (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 106-07, describing
land between Richmond and Petersburg, in 1797; and see Schoepf, ii, 32,
48; and Weld, i, 138, 151.)

[66] Burnaby, 45, 59. The estate of Richard Randolph of Curels, in 1742
embraced "not less than forty thousand acres of the choicest lands."
(Garland, i, 7.) The mother of George Mason bought ten thousand acres in
Loudoun County for an insignificant sum. (Rowland, i, 51.) The Carter
plantation in 1774 comprised sixty thousand acres and Carter owned six
hundred negroes. (Fithian, 128.) Compare with the two hundred acres and
few slaves of John Marshall "of the forest," _supra_.

Half a century later the very best lands in Virginia with valuable mines
upon them sold for only eighteen dollars an acre. (La Rochefoucauld,
iii, 124.) For careful account of the extent of great holdings in the
seventeenth century see Wertenbaker: _P. and P._, 34-35, 97-99.
Jefferson in 1790 owned two hundred slaves and ten thousand acres of
very rich land on the James River. (Jefferson to Van Staphorst, Feb. 28,
1790; _Works_: Ford, vi, 33.) Washington owned enormous quantities of
land, and large numbers of slaves. His Virginia holdings alone amounted
to thirty-five thousand acres. (Beard: _Econ. I. C._, 144.)

[67] Burnaby, 54.

[68] In the older counties the slaves outnumbered the whites; for
instance, in 1790 Westmoreland County had 3183 whites, 4425 blacks, and
114 designated as "all others." In 1782 in the same county 410
slave-owners possessed 4536 slaves and 1889 horses. (_Va. Mag. Hist. and
Biog._, x, 229-36.)

[69] Ambler, 11. The slaves of some planters were valued at more than
thirty thousand pounds sterling. (Fithian, 286; and Schoepf, ii, 38;
also, Weld, i, 148.)

[70] Robert Carter was a fine example of this rare type. (See Fithian,
279-80.)

[71] Burnaby, 53-54 and 59. "The Virginians ... are an indolent haughty
people whose thoughts and designs are directed solely towards p[l]aying
the lord, owning great tracts of land and numerous troops of slaves. Any
man whatever, if he can afford so much as 2-3 [two or three] negroes,
becomes ashamed of work, and goes about in idleness, supported by his
slaves." (Schoepf, ii, 40.)

[72] "Notes on Virginia"; _Works_: Ford, iv, 82-83. See La
Rochefoucauld, iii, p. 161, on Jefferson's slaves.

[73] Jefferson to Chastellux, Sept. 2, 1785; _Thomas Jefferson
Correspondence_, Bixby Collection: Ford, 12; and see Jefferson's
comparison of the sections of the country, _ib._ and _infra_, chap. VI.

[74] "Many of the wealthier class were to be seen seeking relief from
the vacuity of idleness, not merely in the allowable pleasures of the
chase and the turf, but in the debasing ones of cock-fighting, gaming,
and drinking." (Tucker, i, 18; and see La Rochefoucauld, iii, 77; Weld,
i, 191; also _infra_, chap. VII, and references there given.)

[75] Jones, 48, 49, and 52; Chastellux, 222-24; also, translator's note
to _ib._, 292-93. The following order from the Records of the Court of
Rappahannock County, Jan. 2, 1688 (_sic_), p. 141, is illustrative:--

"It having pleased Almighty God to bless his Royall Mahst. with the
birth of a son & his subjects with a Prince of Wales, and for as much as
his Excellency hath sett apart the 16th. day of this Inst. Janr'y. for
solemnizing the same. To the end therefore that it may be don with all
the expressions of joy this County is capable of, this Court have
ordered that Capt. Geo. Taylor do provide & bring to the North Side
Courthouse for this county as much Rum or other strong Liquor with sugar
proportionable as shall amount to six thousand five hundred pounds of
Tobb. to be distributed amongst the Troops of horse, Compa. of foot and
other persons that shall be present at the Sd. Solemnitie. And that the
said sum be allowed him at the next laying of the Levey. As also that
Capt. Samll. Blomfield provide & bring to the South side Courthouse for
this county as much Rum or other strong Liquor Wth. sugar proportionable
as shall amount to three thousand five hundred pounds of Tobb. to be
distributed as above att the South side Courthouse, and the Sd. sum to
be allowed him at the next laying of the Levey."

And see Bruce: _Econ._, ii, 210-31; also Wise, 320, 327-29. Although
Bruce and Wise deal with a much earlier period, drinking seems to have
increased in the interval. (See Fithian, 105-14, 123.)

[76] As in Massachusetts, for instance. "In most country towns ... you
will find almost every other house with a sign of entertainment before
it.... If you sit the evening, you will find the house full of people,
drinking drams, flip, toddy, carousing, swearing." (John Adams's
_Diary_, describing a New England county, in 1761; _Works_: Adams, ii,
125-26. The Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, now in process of
publication by the Essex Institute, contain many cases that confirm the
observation of Adams.)

[77] Meade, i, 52-54; and see Schoepf, ii, 62-63.

[78] Wise, 317-19; Bruce: _Inst._, i, 308-15.

[79] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 317-22; and see especially, _Va. Mag. Hist. and
Biog._, ii, 196 _et seq._

[80] _Ib._, 323-30; also Fithian, 50 _et seq._

[81] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 331-42.

[82] _Ib._, 452-53.

[83] _Ib._, 456-57. Bruce shows that two thirds of the women who joined
in deeds could not write. This, however, was in the richer section of
the colony at a much earlier period. Just before the Revolution Virginia
girls, even in wealthy families, "were simply taught to read and write
at 25/ [shillings] and a load of wood per year--A boarding school was
no where in Virginia to be found." (Mrs. Carrington to her sister Nancy;
MS.) Part of this letter appears in the _Atlantic Monthly_ series cited
hereafter (see chap. V); but the teacher's pay is incorrectly printed as
"pounds" instead of "shillings." (_Atlantic Monthly_, lxxxiv, 544-45.)

[84] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 402-42; and see Wise, 313-15. Professor Tucker
says that "literature was neglected, or cultivated, by the small number
who had been educated in England, rather as an accomplishment and a mark
of distinction than for the substantial benefits it confers." (Tucker,
i, 18.)

[85] Fithian, 177.

[86] See catalogue in _W. and M. C. Q._, x and xi.

[87] See catalogue in Appendix A to Byrd's _Writings_: Bassett.

[88] See catalogue of John Adams's Library, in the Boston Public
Library.

[89] Ambler, 9; and see Wise, 68-70.

[90] Trustworthy data on this subject is given in the volumes of the
_Va. Mag. Hist. and Biog._; see also _W. and M. C. Q._

[91] Wertenbaker: _P. and P._, 14-20. But see William G. Stanard's
exhaustive review of Mr. Wertenbaker's book in _Va. Mag. Hist. and
Biog._, xviii, 339-48.

[92] "One hundred young maids for wives, as the former ninety sent. One
hundred boys more for apprentices likewise to the public tenants. One
hundred servants to be disposed among the old planters which they
exclusively desire and will pay the company their charges." (_Virginia
Company Records_, i, 66; and see Fithian, 111.)

[93] For the understanding in England at that period of the origin of
this class of Virginia colonists see Defoe: _Moll Flanders_, 65 _et
seq._ On transported convicts see _Amer. Hist. Rev._, ii. 12 _et seq._
For summary of the matter see Channing, i, 210-14, 226-27.

[94] Fithian to Greene, Dec. 1, 1773; Fithian, 280.

[95] Fithian to Peck, Aug. 12, 1774; Fithian, 286-88; and see Professor
Tucker's searching analysis in Tucker, i, 17-22; also see Lee, in Ford:
_P. on C._, 296-97. As to a genuinely aristocratic _group_, the New York
patroons were, perhaps, the most distinct in the country.

[96] Wertenbaker: _P. and P._, 14-20; also _Va. Mag. Hist. and Biog._,
xviii, 339-48.

[97] For accounts of brutal physical combats, see Anburey, ii, 310 _et
seq._ And for dueling, though at an earlier period, see Wise, 329-31.
The practice of dueling rapidly declined; but fighting of a violent and
often repulsive character persisted, as we shall see, far into the
nineteenth century. Also, see La Rochefoucauld, Chastellux, and other
travelers, _infra_, chap. VII.

[98] Schoepf, i, 261; and see references, _infra_, chap. VII.

[99] After Braddock's defeat the Indians "extended their raids ...
pillaging and murdering in the most ruthless manner.... The whole
country from New York to the heart of Virginia became the theatre of
inhuman barbarities and heartless destruction." (Lowdermilk, 186.)

[100] Although the rifle did not come into general use until the
Revolution, the firearms of this period have been so universally
referred to as "rifles" that I have, for convenience, adopted this
inaccurate term in the first two chapters.

[101] "Their actions are regulated by the wildness of the neighbourhood.
The deer often come to eat their grain, the wolves to destroy their
sheep, the bears to kill their hogs, the foxes to catch their poultry.
This surrounding hostility immediately puts the gun into their
hands,... and thus by defending their property, they soon become
professed hunters; ... once hunters, farewell to the plough. The chase
renders them ferocious, gloomy, and unsociable; a hunter wants no
neighbour, he rather hates them.... The manners of the Indian natives
are respectable, compared with this European medley. Their wives and
children live in sloth and inactivity.... You cannot imagine what an
effect on manners the great distance they live from each other has....
Eating of wild meat ... tends to alter their temper.... I have seen it."
(Crèvecoeur, 66-68.) Crèvecoeur was himself a frontier farmer.
(_Writings_: Sparks, ix, footnote to 259.)

[102] "Many families carry with them all their decency of conduct,
purity of morals, and respect of religion; but these are scarce."
(Crèvecoeur, 70.) Crèvecoeur says his family was one of these.

[103] This bellicose trait persisted for many years and is noted by all
contemporary observers.

CHAPTER II

A FRONTIER EDUCATION

"Come to me," quoth the pine tree,
"I am the giver of honor." (Emerson.)

I do not think the greatest things have been done for the world by
its bookmen. Education is not the chips of arithmetic and grammar.
(Wendell Phillips.)

John Marshall was never out of the simple, crude environment of the near
frontier for longer than one brief space of a few months until his
twentieth year, when, as lieutenant of the famous Culpeper Minute Men,
he marched away to battle. The life he had led during this period
strengthened that powerful physical equipment which no strain of his
later years seemed to impair; and helped to establish that extraordinary
nervous equilibrium which no excitement or contest ever was able to
unbalance.[104] This foundation part of his life was even more
influential on the forming mind and spiritual outlook of the growing
youth.

Thomas Marshall left the little farm of poor land in Westmoreland County
not long after the death of his father, John Marshall "of the forest."
This ancestral "estate" had no attractions for the enterprising young
man. Indeed, there is reason for thinking that he abandoned it.[105] He
lifted his first rooftree in what then were still the wilds of Prince
William County.[106] There we find him with his young wife, and there in
the red year of British disaster his eldest son was born. The cabin has
long since disappeared, and only a rude monument of native stone,
erected by college students in recent years, now marks the supposed site
of this historic birthplace.

The spot is a placid, slumberous countryside. A small stream runs hard
by. In the near distance still stands one of the original cabins of
Spotswood's Germans.[107] But the soil is not generous. When Thomas
Marshall settled there the little watercourse at the foot of the gentle
slope on which his cabin stood doubtless ran bank-full; for in 1754 the
forests remained thick and unviolated about his cabin,[108] and fed the
waters from the heavy rains in restrained and steady flow to creek and
river channels. Amidst these surroundings four children of Thomas
Marshall and Mary Keith were born.[109]

The sturdy young pioneer was not content to remain permanently at
Germantown. A few years later found him building another home about
thirty miles farther westward, in a valley in the Blue Ridge
Mountains.[110] Here the elder son spent the critical space of life from
childhood to his eighteenth year. This little building still stands,
occupied by negroes employed on the estate of which it forms a part. The
view from it even now is attractive; and in the days of John Marshall's
youth must have been very beautiful.

The house is placed on a slight rise of ground on the eastern edge of
the valley. Near by, to the south and closer still to the west, two
rapid mountain streams sing their quieting, restful song. On all sides
the Blue Ridge lifts the modest heights of its purple hills. This valley
at that time was called "The Hollow," and justly so; for it is but a cup
in the lazy and unambitious mountains. When the eldest son first saw
this frontier home, great trees thickly covered mountain, hill, and
glade, and surrounded the meadow, which the Marshall dwelling
overlooked, with a wall of inviting green.[111]

Two days by the very lowest reckoning it must have taken Thomas Marshall
to remove his family to this new abode. It is more likely that three or
four days were consumed in the toilsome task. The very careful maps of
the British survey at that time show only three roads in all immense
Prince William County.[112] On one of these the Marshalls might have
made their way northward, and on another, which it probably joined, they
could have traveled westward. But these trails were primitive and
extremely difficult for any kind of vehicle.[113]

Some time before 1765, then, rational imagination can picture a strong,
rude wagon drawn by two horses crawling along the stumpy,
rock-roughened, and mud-mired road through the dense woods that led in
the direction of "The Hollow." In the wagon sat a young woman.[114] By
her side a sturdy, red-cheeked boy looked out with alert but quiet
interest showing from his brilliant black eyes; and three other children
cried their delight or vexation as the hours wore on. In this wagon,
too, were piled the little family's household goods; nor did this make a
heavy load, for all the Lares and Penates of a frontier settler's family
in 1760 would not fill a single room of a moderately furnished household
in the present day.

[Illustration: _"The Hollow," Markham, Virginia_

_John Marshall's boyhood home._]

By the side of the wagon strode a young man dressed in the costume of
the frontier. Tall, broad-shouldered, lithe-hipped, erect, he was a very
oak of a man. His splendid head was carried with a peculiar dignity; and
the grave but kindly command that shone from his face, together with the
brooding thoughtfulness and fearless light of his striking eyes, would
have singled him out in any assemblage as a man to be respected and
trusted. A negro drove the team, and a negro girl walked behind.[115]

So went the Marshalls to their Blue Ridge home. It was a commodious one
for those days. Two rooms downstairs, one fifteen feet by sixteen, the
other twelve by fourteen, and above two half-story lofts of the same
dimensions, constituted this domestic castle. At one end of the larger
downstairs room is a broad and deep stone fireplace, and from this rises
a big chimney of the same material, supporting the house on the
outside.[116]

Thomas and Mary Marshall's pride and aspiration, as well as their social
importance among the settlers, are strongly shown by this frontier
dwelling. Unlike those of most of the other backwoodsmen, it was not a
log cabin, but a frame house built of whip-sawed uprights and
boards.[117] It was perhaps easier to construct a one and a half story
house with such materials; for to lift heavy timbers to such a height
required great effort.[118] But Thomas Marshall's social, religious, and
political status[119] in the newly organized County of Fauquier were the
leading influences that induced him to build a house which, for the
time and place, was so pretentious. A small stone "meat house," a
one-room log cabin for his two negroes, and a log stable, completed the
establishment.

In such an abode, and amidst such surroundings, the fast-growing
family[120] of Thomas Marshall lived for more than twelve years. At
first neighbors were few and distant. The nearest settlements were at
Warrenton, some twenty-three miles to the eastward, and Winchester, a
little farther over the mountains to the west.[121] But, with the horror
of Braddock's defeat subdued by the widespread and decisive counter
victories, settlers began to come into the country on both sides of the
Blue Ridge. These were comparatively small farmers, who, later on,
became raisers of wheat, corn, and other cereals, rather than tobacco.

Not until John Marshall had passed his early boyhood, however, did these
settlers become sufficiently numerous to form even a scattered
community, and his early years were enlivened with no child
companionship except that of his younger brothers and sisters. For the
most part his days were spent, rifle in hand, in the surrounding
mountains, and by the pleasant waters that flowed through the valley of
his forest home. He helped his mother, of course, with her many labors,
did the innumerable chores which the day's work required, and looked
after the younger children, as the eldest child always must do. To his
brothers and sisters as well as to his parents, he was devoted with a
tenderness peculiar to his uncommonly affectionate nature and they, in
turn, "fairly idolized" him.[122]

There were few of those minor conveniences which we to-day consider the
most indispensable of the simplest necessities. John Marshall's mother,
like most other women of that region and period, seldom had such things
as pins; in place of them use was made of thorns plucked from the bushes
in the woods.[123] The fare, naturally, was simple and primitive. Game
from the forest and fish from the stream were the principal articles of
diet. Bear meat was plentiful.[124] Even at that early period, salt pork
and salt fish probably formed a part of the family's food, though not
to the extent to which such cured provisions were used by those of the
back country in later years, when these articles became the staple of
the border.[125]

Corn meal was the basis of the family's bread supply. Even this was not
always at hand, and corn meal mush was welcomed with a shout by the
clamorous brood with which the little cabin soon fairly swarmed. It
could not have been possible for the Marshall family in their house on
Goose Creek to have the luxury of bread made from wheat flour. The
clothing of the family was mostly homespun. "Store goods," whether food,
fabric, or utensil, could be got to Thomas Marshall's backwoods dwelling
only with great difficulty and at prohibitive expense.[126]

But young John Marshall did not know that he was missing anything. On
the contrary, he was conscious of a certain wealth not found in cities
or among the currents of motion. For ever his eye looked out upon noble
yet quieting, poetic yet placid, surroundings. Always he could have the
inspiring views from the neighboring heights, the majestic stillness of
the woods, the soothing music of meadow and stream. So uplifted was the
boy by the glory of the mountains at daybreak that he always rose while
the eastern sky was yet gray.[127] He was thrilled by the splendor of
sunset and never tired of watching it until night fell upon the vast and
somber forests. For the boy was charged with poetic enthusiasm, it
appears, and the reading of poetry became his chief delight in youth and
continued to be his solace and comfort throughout his long life;[128]
indeed, Marshall liked to make verses himself, and never outgrew the
habit.

There was in him a rich vein of romance; and, later on, this manifested
itself by his passion for the great creations of fiction. Throughout his
days he would turn to the works of favorite novelists for relaxation and
renewal.[129]

The mental and spiritual effects of his surroundings on the forming mind
and unfolding soul of this young American must have been as lasting and
profound as were the physical effects on his body.[130] His environment
and his normal, wholesome daily activities could not have failed to do
its work in building the character of the growing boy. These and his
sound, steady, and uncommonly strong parentage must, perforce, have
helped to give him that courage for action, that balanced vision for
judgment, and that serene outlook on life and its problems, which were
so notable and distinguished in his mature and rugged manhood.

Lucky for John Marshall and this country that he was not city born and
bred; lucky that not even the small social activities of a country town
drained away a single ohm of his nervous energy or obscured with lesser
pictures the large panorama which accustomed his developing intelligence
to look upon big and simple things in a big and simple way.

There were then no public schools in that frontier[131] region, and
young Marshall went untaught save for the instruction his parents gave
him. For this task his father was unusually well equipped, though not by
any formal schooling. All accounts agree that Thomas Marshall, while not
a man of any learning, had contrived to acquire a useful though limited
education, which went much further with a man of his well-ordered mind
and determined will than a university training could go with a man of
looser fiber and cast in smaller mould. The father was careful,
painstaking, and persistent in imparting to his children and
particularly to John all the education he himself could acquire.

Between Thomas Marshall and his eldest son a mutual sympathy, respect,
and admiration existed, as uncommon as it was wholesome and beneficial.
"My father," often said John Marshall, "was a far abler man than any of
his sons."[132] In "his private and familiar conversations with me,"
says Justice Story, "when there was no other listener ... he never named
his father ... without dwelling on his character with a fond and winning
enthusiasm ... he broke out with a spontaneous eloquence ... upon his
virtues and talents."[133] Justice Story wrote a sketch of Marshall for
the "National Portrait Gallery," in which Thomas Marshall is highly
praised. In acknowledging the receipt of the magazine, Marshall wrote:
"I am particularly gratified by the terms in which you speak of my
father. If any contemporary, who knew him in the prime of manhood,
survived, he would confirm all you say."[134]

So whether at home with his mother or on surveying trips with his
father, the boy continually was under the influence and direction of
hardy, clear-minded, unusual parents. Their lofty and simple ideals,
their rational thinking, their unbending uprightness, their religious
convictions--these were the intellectual companions of John Marshall's
childhood and youth. While too much credit has not been given Thomas
Marshall for the training of the eldest son, far too little has been
bestowed on Mary Randolph Keith, who was, in all things, the equal of
her husband.

Although, as we have seen, many books were brought into eastern Virginia
by the rich planters, it was difficult for the dwellers on the frontier
to secure any reading material. Most books had to be imported, were
very expensive, and, in the back country, there were no local sources of
supply where they could be purchased. Also, the frontier settlers had
neither the leisure nor, it appears, the desire for reading[135] that
distinguished the wealthy landlords of the older parts of the
colony.[136] Thomas Marshall, however, was an exception to his class in
his eagerness for the knowledge to be gathered from books and in his
determination that his children should have those advantages which
reading gives.

So, while his small house in "The Hollow" of the Blue Ridge probably
contained not many more books than children, yet such volumes as were on
that frontier bookshelf were absorbed and made the intellectual
possession of the reader. The Bible was there, of course; and probably
Shakespeare also.[137] The only book which positively is known to have
been a literary companion of John Marshall was a volume of Pope's poems.
He told Justice Story that, by the time he was twelve years old (1767),
he had copied every word of the "Essay on Man" and other of Pope's moral
essays, and had committed to memory "many of the most interesting
passages."[138] This would seem to prove that not many other attractive
books were at the boyhood hands of so eager a reader of poetry and
fiction as Marshall always was. It was quite natural that this volume
should be in that primitive household; for, at that time, Pope was more
widely read, admired, and quoted than any other writer either of poetry
or prose.[139]

For those who believe that early impressions are important, and who wish
to trace John Marshall's mental development back to its sources, it is
well to spend a moment on that curious work which Pope named his "Essay
on Man." The natural bent of the youth's mind was distinctively logical
and orderly, and Pope's metred syllogisms could not but have appealed to
it powerfully. The soul of Pope's "Essay" is the wisdom of and necessity
for order; and it is plain that the boy absorbed this vital message and
made it his own. Certain it is that even as a beardless young soldier,
offering his life for his country's independence, he already had grasped
the master truth that order is a necessary condition of liberty and
justice.

It seems probable, however, that other books were brought to this
mountain fireside. There was a limited store within his reach from which
Thomas Marshall could draw. With his employer and friend, George
Washington,[140] he was often a visitor at the wilderness home of Lord
Fairfax just over the Blue Ridge. Washington availed himself of the
Fairfax Library,[141] and it seems reasonable that Thomas Marshall did
the same. It is likely that he carried to his Blue Ridge dwelling an
occasional Fairfax volume carefully selected for its usefulness in
developing his own as well as his children's minds.

This contact with the self-expatriated nobleman had more important
results, however, than access to his books. Thomas Marshall's life was
profoundly influenced by his early and intimate companionship with the
well-mannered though impetuous and headstrong young Washington, who
engaged him as assistant surveyor of the Fairfax estate.[142] From youth
to manhood, both had close association with Lord Fairfax, who gave
Washington his first employment and secured for him the appointment by
the colonial authorities as public surveyor.[143] Washington was related
by marriage to the proprietor of the Northern Neck, his brother Lawrence
having married the daughter of William Fairfax. When their father died,
Lawrence Washington took the place of parent to his younger
brother;[144] and in his house the great landowner met George
Washington, of whom he became very fond. For more than three years the
youthful surveyor passed most of his time in the Blue Ridge part of the
British nobleman's vast holdings,[145] and in frequent and intimate
contact with his employer. Thus Thomas Marshall, as Washington's
associate and helper, came under the guidance and example of Lord
Fairfax.

The romantic story of this strange man deserves to be told at length,
but only a résumé is possible here. This summary, however, must be given
for its bearing on the characters of George Washington and Thomas
Marshall, and, through them, its formative influence on John
Marshall.[146]

Lord Fairfax inherited his enormous Virginia estate from his mother, the
daughter of Lord Culpeper, the final grantee of that kingly domain. This
profligate grant of a careless and dissolute monarch embraced some five
million acres between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers back to a
straight line connecting the sources of these streams. While the young
heir of the ancient Fairfax title was in Oxford, his father having died,
his mother and grandmother, the dowager Ladies Fairfax and Culpeper,
forced him to cut off the entail of the extensive Fairfax estates in
England in order to save the heavily mortgaged Culpeper estates in the
same country; and as compensation for this sacrifice, the noble Oxford
student was promised the inheritance of this wild Virginia forest
principality.

Nor did the youthful baron's misfortunes end there. The lady of his
heart had promised to become his bride, the wedding day was set, the
preparations made. But before that hour of joy arrived, this fickle
daughter of ambition received an offer to become a duchess instead of a
mere baroness, and, throwing over young Fairfax without delay, she
embraced the more exalted station offered her.

These repeated blows of adversity embittered the youthful head of the
illustrious house of Fairfax against mother and grandmother, and, for
the time being, all but against England itself. So, after some years of
management of his Virginia estate by his cousin, William, who was in
Government employ in America, Lord Fairfax himself left England forever,
came to Virginia, took personal charge of his inherited holdings, and
finally established himself at its very outskirts on the savage
frontier. In the Shenandoah Valley, near Winchester, he built a small
house of native stone and called it Greenway Court,[147] after the
English fashion; but it never was anything more than a hunting
lodge.[148]

From this establishment he personally managed his vast estates, parting
with his lands to settlers on easy terms. His tenants generally were
treated with liberality and consideration. If any land that was leased
or sold did not turn out as was expected by the purchaser or lessee,
another and better tract would be given in its place. If money was
needed for improvements, Lord Fairfax advanced it. His excess revenues
were given to the poor. So that the Northern Neck under Lord Fairfax's
administration became the best settled, best cultivated, and best
governed of all the upper regions of the colony.[149]

Through this exile of circumstance, Fate wove another curious thread in
the destiny of John Marshall. Lord Fairfax was the head of that ancient
house whose devotion to liberty had been proved on many a battlefield.
The second Lord Fairfax commanded the Parliamentary forces at Marston
Moor. The third Lord Fairfax was the general of Cromwell's army and the
hero of Naseby. So the proprietor of the Northern Neck, who was the
sixth Lord Fairfax, came of blood that had been poured out for human
rights. He had, as an inheritance of his house, that love of liberty for
which his ancestors had fought.[150]

But much as he hated oppression, Lord Fairfax was equally hostile to
disorder and upheaval; and his forbears had opposed these even to the
point of helping restore Charles II to the throne. Thus the Virginia
baron's talk and teaching were of liberty with order, independence with
respect for law.[151]

He loved literature and was himself no mean writer, his contributions
while he was in the University having been accepted by the
"Spectator."[152] His example instructed his companions in manners, too,
and schooled them in the speech and deportment of gentlemen. All who met
George Washington in his mature years were impressed by his correct if
restricted language, his courtly conduct, and his dignified if rigid
bearing. Much of this was due to his noble patron.[153]

Thomas Marshall was affected in the same way and by the same cause.
Pioneer and backwoodsman though he was, and, as we shall see, true to
his class and section, he yet acquired more balanced ideas of liberty,
better manners, and finer if not higher views of life than the crude,
rough individualists who inhabited the back country. As was the case
with Washington, this intellectual and moral tendency in Thomas
Marshall's development was due, in large measure, to the influence of
Lord Fairfax. While it cannot be said that George Washington imitated
the wilderness nobleman, yet Fairfax undoubtedly afforded his protégé a
certain standard of living, thinking, and acting; and Thomas Marshall
followed the example set by his fellow surveyor.[154] Thus came into the
Marshall household a different atmosphere from that which pervaded the
cabins of the Blue Ridge.

All this, however, did not make for his unpopularity among Thomas
Marshall's distant, scattered, and humbly placed neighbors. On the
contrary, it seems to have increased the consideration and respect which
his native qualities had won for him from the pioneers. Certainly Thomas
Marshall was the foremost man in Fauquier County when it was established
in 1759. He was almost immediately elected to represent the county in
the Virginia House of Burgesses;[155] and, six years later, he was
appointed Sheriff by Governor Fauquier, for whom the county was
named.[156] The shrievalty was, at that time, the most powerful local
office in Virginia; and the fees and perquisites of the place made it
the most lucrative.[157]

By 1765 Thomas Marshall felt himself sufficiently established to acquire
the land where he had lived since his removal from Germantown. In the
autumn of that year he leased from Thomas Ludwell Lee and Colonel
Richard Henry Lee the three hundred and thirty acres on Goose Creek
"whereon the said Thomas Marshall now lives." The lease was "for and
during the natural lives of ... Thomas Marshall, Mary Marshall his wife,
and John Marshall his son and ... the longest liver of them." The
consideration was "five shillings current money in hand paid" and a
"yearly rent of five pounds current money, and the quit rents and Land
Tax."[158]

In 1769 Leeds Parish, embracing Fauquier County, was established.[159]
Of this parish Thomas Marshall became the principal vestryman.[160] This
office supplemented, in dignity and consequence, that of sheriff; the
one was religious and denoted high social status, the other was civil
and evidenced political importance.[161] The occupancy of both marked
Thomas Marshall as the chief figure in the local government and in the
social and political life of Fauquier County, although the holding of
the superior office of burgess left no doubt as to his leadership. The
vestries had immense influence in the civil affairs of the parish and
the absolute management of the practical business of the established
(Episcopal) church.[162] Among the duties and privileges of the vestry
was that of selecting and employing the clergyman.[163]

The vestry of Leeds Parish, with Thomas Marshall at its head, chose for
its minister a young Scotchman, James Thompson, who had arrived in
Virginia a year or two earlier. He lived at first with the Marshall
family.[164] Thus it came about that John Marshall received the first of
his three short periods of formal schooling; for during his trial year
the young[165] Scotch deacon returned Thomas Marshall's hospitality by
giving the elder children such instruction as occasion offered,[166] as
was the custom of parsons, who always were teachers as well as
preachers. We can imagine the embryo clergyman instructing the eldest
son under the shade of the friendly trees in pleasant weather or before
the blazing logs in the great fireplace when winter came. While living
with the Marshall family, he doubtless slept with the children in the
half-loft[167] of that frontier dwelling.

There was nothing unusual about this; indeed, circumstances made it the
common and unavoidable custom. Washington tells us that in his surveying
trips, he frequently slept on the floor in the room of a settler's cabin
where the fireplace was and where husband, wife, children, and visitors
stretched themselves for nightly rest; and he remarks that the person
was lucky who got the spot nearest the fireplace.[168]

At the end of a year the embryo Scottish clergyman's character, ability,
and services having met the approval of Thomas Marshall and his fellow
vestrymen, Thompson returned to England for orders.[169] So ended John
Marshall's first instruction from a trained teacher. His pious tutor
returned the next year, at once married a young woman of the Virginia
frontier, and settled on the glebe near Salem, where he varied his
ministerial duties by teaching such children of his parishioners as
could get to him. It may be that John Marshall was among them.[170]

In the light they throw upon the Marshall family, the political opinions
of Mr. Thompson are as important as was his teaching. True to the
impulses of youth, he was a man of the people, ardently championed their
cause, and was fervently against British misrule, as was his principal
vestryman. Five years later we find him preaching a sermon on the
subject so strong that a part of it has been preserved.[171]

Thus the years of John Marshall's life sped on until his eighteenth
birthday. By this time Thomas Marshall's rapidly growing prosperity
enabled him to buy a larger farm in a more favorable locality. In
January, 1773, he purchased from Thomas Turner seventeen hundred acres
adjacent to North Cobler Mountain, a short distance to the east of his
first location in "The Hollow."[172] For this plantation he paid "nine
hundred and twelve pounds ten shillings current money of Virginia." Here
he established himself for the third time and remained for ten years.

On an elevation overlooking valley, stream, and grove, with the Blue
Ridge as a near background, he built a frame house thirty-three by
thirty feet, the attic or loft under the roof serving as a second
story.[173] The house had seven rooms, four below and three above. One
of the upper rooms is, comparatively, very large, being twenty-one by
fifteen feet; and, according to tradition, this was used as a
school-room for the Marshall children. Indeed, the structure was, for
that section and period, a pretentious dwelling. This is the famous Oak
Hill.[174] The house still stands as a modest wing to the large and
attractive building erected by John Marshall's eldest son, Thomas, many
years later.

[Illustration: OAK HILL

From a water-color. The original house, built by Thomas Marshall in
1773, is shown at the right, in the rear of the main building.]

A book was placed in the hands of John Marshall, at this time, that
influenced his mind even more than his reading of Pope's poetry when a
small boy. Blackstone's "Commentaries" was published in America in 1772
and one of the original subscribers was "Captain Thomas Marshall, Clerk
of Dunmore County, Virginia."[175] The youthful backwoodsman read
Blackstone with delight; for this legal classic is the poetry of law,
just as Pope is logic in poetry. Also, Thomas Marshall saw to it that
his son read Blackstone as carefully as circumstances permitted. He had
bought the book for John's use as much as or more than for his own
information. Marshall's parents, with a sharp eye on the calling that
then brought greatest honor and profit, had determined that their eldest
son should be a lawyer. "From my infancy," says Marshall, "I was
destined for the bar."[176] He did not, we believe, give his attention
exclusively to Blackstone. Indeed, it appears certain that his legal
reading at this period was fragmentary and interrupted, for his time was
taken up and his mind largely absorbed by military exercises and study.
He was intent on mastering the art of war against the day when the call
of patriotism should come to him to be a soldier.[177] So the law book
was pushed aside by the manual of arms.

About this time John Marshall was given his second fragment of formal
teaching. He was sent to the school of the Reverend Archibald Campbell
in Westmoreland County.[178] This embryo "academy" was a primitive
affair, but its solitary instructor was a sound classical scholar
equipped with all the learning which the Scottish universities could
give. He was a man of unusual ability, which, it appears, was the common
possession of his family. He was the uncle of the British poet
Campbell.[179]

The sons of this colonial parson school-teacher from Scotland became men
of note and influence, one of them among the most distinguished lawyers
of Virginia.[180] Indeed, it was chiefly in order to teach his two boys
that Mr. Campbell opened his little school in Westmoreland.[181] So,
while John Marshall attended the "academy" for only a few months, that
brief period under such a teacher was worth much in methods of thought
and study.

The third scanty fragment of John Marshall's education by professional
instructors comes seven years later, at a time and under circumstances
which make it necessary to defer a description of it.

During all these years, however, young Marshall was getting another kind
of education more real and more influential on his later life than any
regular schooling could have given him. Thomas Marshall served in the
House of Burgesses at Williamsburg[182] from 1761 until October, 1767,
when he became Sheriff of Fauquier County.[183] In 1769 he was again
chosen Burgess,[184] and reëlected until 1773, when he was appointed
Clerk of Dunmore County.[185] In 1775 he once more appears as Burgess
for Fauquier County.[186] Throughout this period, George Washington also
served as Burgess from Westmoreland County. Thomas Marshall was a member
of the standing committees on Trade, Religion, Propositions and
Grievances, and on several special committees and commissions.[187]

The situations, needs, and interests of the upland counties above the
line of the falls of the rivers, so different from those on the
tidewater, had made the political oligarchy of the lower counties more
distinct and conspicuous than ever. This dominant political force was
aristocratic and selfish. It was generally hostile to the opinions of
the smaller pioneer landowners of the back country and it did not
provide adequately for their necessities. Their petitions for roads,
bridges, and other indispensable requisites of social and industrial
life usually were denied; and their rapidly growing democratic spirit
was scorned with haughty disfavor and contempt.[188]

In the House of Burgesses, one could tell by his apparel and deportment,
no less than by his sentiments, a member from the mountains, and indeed
from anywhere above the fall line of the rivers; and, by the same
tokens, one from the great plantations below. The latter came
fashionably attired, according to the latest English mode, with the silk
knee breeches and stockings, colored coat, ornamented waistcoat, linen
and lace, buckled shoes, garters, and all details of polite adornment
that the London fashion of the time dictated. The upland men were
plainly clad; and those from the border appeared in their native
homespun, with buckskin shirts, coonskin caps, and the queue of their
unpowdered hair tied in a bag or sack of some thin material. To this
upland class of Burgesses, Thomas Marshall belonged.

He had been a member of the House for four years when the difference
between the two Virginia sections and classes suddenly crystallized. The
upper counties found a leader and fought and overcame the hitherto
invincible power of the tidewater aristocracy, which, until then, had
held the Government of Virginia in its lordly hand.

This explosion came in 1765, when John Marshall was ten years old. For
nearly a quarter of a century the combination of the great planter
interests of eastern Virginia had kept John Robinson Speaker of the
House and Treasurer of the Colony.[189] He was an ideal representative
of his class--rich, generous, kindly, and ever ready to oblige his
fellow members of the ruling faction.[190] To these he had lent large
sums of money from the public treasury and, at last, finding himself
lost unless he could find a way out of the financial quagmire in which
he was sinking, Robinson, with his fellow aristocrats, devised a scheme
for establishing a loan office, equipping it with a million and a
quarter of dollars borrowed on the faith of the colony, to be lent to
individuals on personal security.[191] A bill to this effect was
presented and the tidewater machine was oiled and set in motion to put
it through.

As yet, Robinson's predicament was known only to himself and those upon
whom he had bestowed the proceeds of the people's taxes; and no
opposition was expected to the proposed resolution which would extricate
the embarrassed Treasurer. But Patrick Henry, a young member from
Hanover County, who had just been elected to the House of Burgesses and
who had displayed in the famous Parsons case a courage and eloquence
which had given him a reputation throughout the colony,[192] opposed, on
principle, the proposed loan-office law. In a speech of startling power
he attacked the bill and carried with him every member from the up
counties. The bill was lost.[193] It was the first defeat ever
experienced by the combination that had governed Virginia so long that
they felt that it was their inalienable right to do so. One of the votes
that struck this blow was cast by Thomas Marshall.[194] Robinson died
the next year; his defalcation was discovered and the real purpose of
the bill was thus revealed.[195]

Quick on the heels of this victory for popular rights and honest
government trod another event of vital influence on American history.
The British Parliament, the year before, had passed resolutions
declaring the right of Parliament to tax the colonies without
representation, and, indeed, to enact any law it pleased for the
government and administration of British dominions wherever
situated.[196] The colonies protested, Virginia among them; but when
finally Parliament enacted the Stamp Act, although the colonies were in
sullen anger, they yet prepared to submit.[197] The more eminent men
among the Virginia Burgesses were willing to remonstrate once more, but
had not the heart to go further.[198] It was no part of the plan or
feeling of the aristocracy to affront the Royal Government openly. At
this moment, Patrick Henry suddenly offered his historic resolutions,
the last one a bold denial of Parliament's right to pass the Stamp Act,
and a savage defiance of the British Government.[199]

Cautious members of the tidewater organization were aghast. They did not
like the Stamp Act themselves, but they thought that this was going too
far. The logical end of it would be armed conflict, they said; or at the
very least, a temporary suspension of profitable commerce with England.
Their material interests were involved; and while they hazarded these
and life itself most nobly when the test of war finally came, ten years
later, they were not minded to risk either business or comfort until
forced to do so.[200]

But a far stronger influence with them was their hatred of Henry and
their fear of the growing power of the up country. They were smarting
from the defeat[201] of the loan-office bill. They did not relish the
idea of following the audacious Henry and his democratic supporters
from the hills. They resented the leadership which the "new men" were
assuming. To the aristocratic machine it was offensive to have any
movement originate outside itself.[202]

The up-country members to a man rallied about Patrick Henry and fought
beneath the standard of principle which he had raised. The line that
marked the division between these contending forces in the Virginia
House of Burgesses was practically identical with that which separated
them in the loan-office struggle which had just taken place. The same
men who had supported Robinson were now against any measure which might
too radically assert the rights of the colonies and offend both the
throne and Westminster Hall. And as in the Robinson case so in the fight
over Henry's Stamp Act Resolutions, the Burgesses who represented the
frontier settlers and small landowners and who stood for their
democratic views, formed a compact and militant force to strike for
popular government as they already had struck, and successfully, for
honest administration.[203]

Henry's fifth resolution was the first written American assertion of
independence, the virile seed out of which the declaration at
Philadelphia ten years later directly grew. It was over this resolution
that Thomas Jefferson said, "the debate was most bloody";[204] and it
was in this particular part of the debate that Patrick Henry made his
immortal speech, ending with the famous words, "Tarquin and Cæsar had
each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third--"
And as the cries of "Treason! Treason! Treason!" rang from every part of
the hall, Henry, stretching himself to the utmost of his stature,
thundered, "--_may profit by their example_. If _this_ be treason, make
the most of it."[205]

Henry and the stout-hearted men of the hills won the day, but only by a
single vote. Peyton Randolph, the foremost member of the tidewater
aristocracy and Royal Attorney-General, exclaimed, "By God, I would have
given one[206] hundred guineas for a single vote!"[207] Thomas Marshall
again fought by Henry's side and voted for his patriotic defiance of
British injustice.[208]

[Illustration: _Oak Hill_]

This victory of the poorer section of the Old Dominion was, in Virginia,
the real beginning of the active period of the Revolution. It was
more--it was the ending of the hitherto unquestioned supremacy of
the tidewater aristocracy.[209] It marked the effective entrance of the
common man into Virginia's politics and government.

When Thomas Marshall returned to his Blue Ridge home, he described, of
course, the scenes he had witnessed and taken part in. The heart of his
son thrilled, we may be sure, as he listened to his father reciting
Patrick Henry's words of fire and portraying the manner, appearance, and
conduct of that master orator of liberty. So it was that John Marshall,
even when a boy, came into direct and living touch with the outside
world and learned at first hand of the dramatic movement and the mighty
forces that were about to quarry the materials for a nation.

Finally the epic year of 1775 arrived,--the year of the Boston riots,
Paul Revere's ride, Lexington and Concord,--above all, the year of the
Virginia Resolutions for Arming and Defense. Here we find Thomas
Marshall a member of the Virginia Convention,[210] when once more the
radicals of the up country met and defeated the aristocratic
conservatives of the older counties. The latter counseled prudence. They
argued weightily that the colony was not prepared for war with the Royal
Power across the sea. They urged patience and the working-out of the
problem by processes of conciliation and moderate devices, as those made
timid by their own interests always do.[211] Selfish love of ease made
them forget, for the moment, the lesson of Braddock's defeat. They held
up the overwhelming might of Great Britain and the impotence of the
King's subjects in his western dominions; and they were about to
prevail.

But again Patrick Henry became the voice of America. He offered the
Resolutions for Arming and Defense and carried them with that amazing
speech ending with, "Give me liberty or give me death,"[212] which
always will remain the classic of American liberty. Thomas Marshall, who
sat beneath its spell, declared that it was "one of the most bold,
animated, and vehement pieces of eloquence that had ever been
delivered."[213] Once more he promptly took his stand under Henry's
banner and supported the heroic resolutions with his vote and
influence.[214] So did George Washington, as both had done ten years
before in the battle over Henry's Stamp Act Resolutions in the House of
Burgesses in 1765.[215]

Not from newspapers, then, nor from second-hand rumor did John Marshall,
now nineteen years old, learn of the epochal acts of that convention.
He heard of them from his father's lips. Henry's inspired speech, which
still burns across a century with undiminished power, came to John
Marshall from one who had listened to it, as the family clustered around
the fireside of their Oak Hill home. The effect on John Marshall's mind
and spirit was heroic and profound, as his immediate action and his
conduct for several years demonstrate.

We may be sure that the father was not deceived as to the meaning of it
all; nor did he permit his family to be carried off the solid ground of
reality by any emotional excitement. Thomas Marshall was no fanatic, no
fancy-swayed enthusiast resolving highly in wrought-up moments and
retracting humbly in more sober hours. He was a man who looked before he
leaped; he counted the costs; he made up his mind with knowledge of the
facts. When Thomas Marshall decided to act, no unforeseen circumstance
could make him hesitate, no unexpected obstacle could swerve him from
his course; for he had considered carefully and well; and his son was of
like mettle.

So when Thomas Marshall came back to his Fauquier County home from the
fateful convention of 1775 at Richmond, he knew just what the whole
thing meant; and, so knowing, he gravely welcomed the outcome. He knew
that it meant war; and he knew also what war meant. Already he had been
a Virginia ranger and officer, had seen fighting, had witnessed wounds
and death.[216] The same decision that made him cast his vote for
Henry's resolutions also caused Thomas Marshall to draw his sword from
its scabbard. It inspired him to do more; for the father took down the
rifle from its deerhorn bracket and the hunting-knife from its hook, and
placed them in the hands of his first-born. And so we find father and
son ready for the field and prepared to make the ultimate argument of
willingness to lay down their lives for the cause they believed in.

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Story, in Dillon, iii, 334.

[105] The records of Westmoreland County do not show what disposition
Thomas Marshall made of the one hundred acres given him by his mother.
(Letter of Albert Stuart, Deputy Clerk of Westmoreland County, Virginia,
to the author, Aug. 26, 1913.) He probably abandoned it just as John
Washington and Thomas Pope abandoned one thousand acres of the same
land. (_Supra._)

[106] Westmoreland County is on the Potomac River near its entrance into
Chesapeake Bay. Prince William is about thirty miles farther up the
river. Marshall was born about one hundred miles by wagon road from
Appomattox Creek, northwest toward the Blue Ridge and in the wilderness.

[107] Campbell, 404-05.

[108] More than forty years later the country around the Blue Ridge was
still a dense forest. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 173.) And the road even
from Richmond to Petersburg, an hundred miles east and south of the
Marshall cabin, as late as 1797 ran through "an almost uninterrupted
succession of woods." (_Ib._, 106; and see _infra_, chap. VII.)

[109] John, 1755; Elizabeth, 1756; Mary, 1757; Thomas, 1761.

[110] Binney, in Dillon, iii, 284.

[111] The ancient trunks of one or two of these trees still stand close
to the house.

[112] British map of 1755; Virginia State Library.

[113] See La Rochefoucauld, iii, 707. These "roads" were scarcely more
than mere tracks through the forests. See chap. VII, infra, for
description of roads at the period between the close of the Revolution
and the beginning of our National Government under the Constitution.
Even in the oldest and best settled colonies the roads were very bad.
Chalkley's _Augusta County (Va.) Records_ show many orders regarding
roads; but, considering the general state of highways, (see _infra_,
chap. VII) these probably concerned very primitive efforts. When Thomas
Marshall removed his family to the Blue Ridge, the journey must have
been strenuous even for that hardship-seasoned man.

[114] She was born in 1737. (Paxton, 19.)

[115] At this time, Thomas Marshall had at least two slaves, inherited
from his father. (Will of John Marshall "of the forest," Appendix I.) As
late as 1797 (nearly forty years after Thomas Marshall went to "The
Hollow"), La Rochefoucauld found that even on the "poorer" plantations
about the Blue Ridge the "planters, however wretched their condition,
have all of them one or two negroes." (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 135.)

[116] Personal inspection.

[117] Mill-sawed weather-boarding, held by cut nails, now covers the
sides of the house, the original broad whip-sawed boards, fastened by
wrought nails, having long since decayed.

[118] Practically all log cabins, at that time, had only one story.

[119] See _infra_.

[120] Six more children were born while the Marshalls remained in "The
Hollow": James M., 1764; Judith, 1766; William and Charles, 1767; Lucy,
1768; and Alexander, 1770.

[121] Nearly twenty years later, "Winchester was rude, wild, as nature
had made it," but "it was less so than its inhabitants." (Mrs.
Carrington to her sister Nancy, describing Winchester in 1777, from
personal observation; MS.)

[122] See Mrs. Carrington to her sister Nancy, _infra_, chap. V.

[123] John Marshall, when at the height of his career, liked to talk of
these times. "He ever recurred with fondness to that primitive mode of
life, when he partook with a keen relish of balm tea and mush; and when
the females used thorns for pins." (Howe, 263, and see _Hist. Mag._,
iii, 166.)

Most of the settlers on the frontier and near frontier did not use forks
or tablecloths. Washington found this condition in the house of a
Justice of the Peace. "When we came to supper there was neither a Cloth
upon ye Table nor a knife to eat with; but as good luck would have it,
we had knives of our [own]." (_Writings_: Ford, i, 4.)

Chastellux testifies that, thirty years later, the frontier settlers
were forced to make almost everything they used. Thus, as population
increased, necessity developed men of many trades and the little
communities became self-supporting. (Chastellux, 226-27.)

[124] More than a generation after Thomas Marshall moved to "The Hollow"
in the Blue Ridge large quantities of bear and beaver skins were brought
from the Valley into Staunton, not many miles away, just over the Ridge.
(La Rochefoucauld, iii, 179-80.) The product of the Blue Ridge itself
was sent to Fredericksburg and Alexandria. (See Crèvecoeur, 63-65.)
Thirty years earlier (1733) Colonel Byrd records that "Bears, Wolves,
and Panthers" roamed about the site of Richmond; that deer were
plentiful and rattlesnakes considered a delicacy. (Byrd's _Writings_:
Bassett, 293, 318-19.)

[125] See _infra_, chap. VII.

[126] Even forty years later, all "store" merchandise could be had in
this region only by hauling it from Richmond, Fredericksburg, or
Alexandria. Transportation from the latter place to Winchester cost two
dollars and a half per hundredweight. In 1797, "store" goods of all
kinds cost, in the Blue Ridge, thirty per cent more than in
Philadelphia. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 203.) From Philadelphia the cost
was four to five dollars per hundredweight. While there appear to have
been country stores at Staunton and Winchester, over the mountains
(Chalkley's _Augusta County (Va.) Records_), the cost of freight to
those places was prohibitive of anything but the most absolute
necessities even ten years after the Constitution was adopted.

[127] _Hist. Mag._, iii, 166; Howe, 263; also, Story, in Dillon, iii,
334.

[128] Story, in Dillon, iii, 331-32.

[129] _Ib._

[130] See Binney, in Dillon, iii, 285.

[131] "Fauquier was then a frontier county ... far in advance of the
ordinary reach of compact population." (Story, in Dillon, iii, 331; also
see _New York Review_ (1838), iii, 333.) Even a generation later (1797),
La Rochefoucauld, writing from personal investigation, says (iii,
227-28): "There is no state so entirely destitute of all means of public
education as Virginia."

[132] See Binney, in Dillon, iii, 285.

[133] Story, in Dillon, iii, 330.

[134] Marshall to Story, July 31, 1833; Story, ii, 150.

[135] See _infra_, chaps. VII and VIII.

[136] "A taste for reading is more prevalent [in Virginia] among the
gentlemen of the first class than in any other part of America; but the
common people are, perhaps, more ignorant than elsewhere." (La
Rochefoucauld, iii, 232.) Other earlier and later travelers confirm this
statement of this careful French observer.

[137] Story thinks that Thomas Marshall, at this time, owned Milton,
Shakespeare, and Dryden. (Dillon, iii, 331.) This is possible. Twenty
years later, Chastellux found Milton, Addison, and Richardson in the
parlor of a New Jersey inn; but this was in the comparatively thickly
settled country adjacent to Philadelphia. (Chastellux, 159.)

[138] Story, in Dillon, iii, 331, and Binney, in _ib._, 283; _Hist.
Mag._, iii, 166.

[139] Lang: _History of English Literature_, 384; and see Gosse:
_History of Eighteenth Century Literature_, 131; also, Traill: _Social
England_, V, 72; Stephen: _Alexander Pope_, 62; and see Cabot to
Hamilton, Nov. 29, 1800; _Cabot_: Lodge, 299.

[140] Binney, in Dillon, iii, 283-84; Washington's _Diary_; MS., Lib.
Cong.

[141] Irving, i, 45; and Lodge: _Washington_, i, 59. Many years later
when he became rich, Washington acquired a good library, part of which
is now in the Boston Athenæum. But as a young and moneyless surveyor he
had no books of his own and his "book" education was limited and
shallow.

[142] Binney, in Dillion, iii, 281-84.

[143] Irving, i, 37, 45; and Sparks, 10.

[144] Irving, i, 27.

[145] Irving, i, 46.

[146] As will appear, the Fairfax estate is closely interwoven into John
Marshall's career. (See vol. II of this work.)

[147] For description of Greenway Court see Pecquet du Bellet, ii, 175.

[148] Washington's _Writings_: Ford, i, footnote to 329.

[149] For a clear but laudatory account of Lord Fairfax see Appendix No.
4 to Burnaby, 197-213. But Fairfax could be hard enough on those who
opposed him, as witness his treatment of Joist Hite. (See _infra_, chap.
V.)

[150] When the Revolution came, however, Fairfax was heartily British.
The objection which the colony made to the title to his estate doubtless
influenced him.

[151] Fairfax was a fair example of the moderate, as distinguished from
the radical or the reactionary. He was against both irresponsible
autocracy and unrestrained democracy. In short, he was what would now be
termed a liberal conservative (although, of course, such a phrase,
descriptive of that demarcation, did not then exist). Much attention
should be given to this unique man in tracing to their ultimate sources
the origins of John Marshall's economic, political, and social
convictions.

[152] Sparks, 11; and Irving, i, 33.

[153] For Fairfax's influence on Washington see Irving, i, 45; and in
general, for fair secondary accounts of Fairfax, see _ib._, 31-46; and
Sparks, 10-11.

[154] Senator Humphrey Marshall says that Thomas Marshall "emulated"
Washington. (Humphrey Marshall, i, 345.)

[155] See _infra_.

[156] Bond of Thomas Marshall as Sheriff, Oct. 26, 1767; Records of
Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, iii, 70. Approval of bond by County
Court; Minute Book (from 1764 to 1768), 322. Marshall's bond was "to his
Majesty, George III," to secure payment to the British revenue officers
of all money collected by Marshall for the Crown. (Records of Fauquier
County (Va.), Deed Book, iii, 71.)

[157] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 597, 600; also, ii, 408, 570-74.

[158] Records of Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, ii, 42. There is a
curious record of a lease from Lord Fairfax in 1768 to John Marshall for
his life and "the natural lives of Mary his wife and Thomas Marshall his
son and every of them longest living." (Records of Fauquier County
(Va.), Deed Book, iii, 230.) John Marshall was then only thirteen years
old. The lease probably was to Thomas Marshall, the clerk of Lord
Fairfax having confused the names of father and son.

[159] Meade, ii, 218.

[160] In 1773 three deeds for an aggregate of two hundred and twenty
acres "for a glebe" were recorded in Fauquier County to "Thos. Marshall
& Others, Gentlemen, & Vestrymen of Leeds Parish." (Records of Fauquier
County (Va.), Deed Book, V, 401, 403, 422.)

[161] The vestrymen were "the foremost men ... in the parish ... whether
from the point of view of intelligence, wealth or social position."
(Bruce: _Inst._, i, 62; and see Meade, i, 191.)

[162] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 62-93; and see Eckenrode: _S.C. & S._, 13.

[163] Bruce: _Inst._, i, 131 _et seq._

[164] Meade, ii, 219. Bishop Meade here makes a slight error. He says
that Mr. Thompson "lived at first in the family of Colonel Thomas
Marshall, of Oak Hill." Thomas Marshall did not become a colonel until
ten years afterward. (Heitman, 285.) And he did not move to Oak Hill
until 1773, six years later. (Paxton, 20.)

[165] James Thompson was born in 1739. (Meade, ii, 219.)

[166] _Ib._

[167] Forty years later La Rochefoucauld found that the whole family and
all visitors slept in the same room of the cabins of the back country.
(La Rochefoucauld, iv, 595-96.)

[168] "I have not sleep'd above three nights or four in a bed, but,
after walking ... all the day, I lay down before the fire upon a little
hay, straw, fodder or bearskin ... with man, wife, and children, like a
parcel of dogs and cats; and happy is he, who gets the berth nearest the
fire." (Washington to a friend, in 1748; _Writings_: Ford, i, 7.)

Here is another of Washington's descriptions of frontier comforts: "I
not being so good a woodsman as ye rest of my company, striped myself
very orderly and went into ye Bed, as they calld it, when to my
surprize, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together
without sheets or any thing else, but only one thread bear [_sic_]
blanket with double its weight of vermin such as Lice, Fleas, &c."
(Washington's _Diary_, March 15, 1747; _ib._, 2.) And see La
Rochefoucauld, iii, 175, for description of homes of farmers in the
Valley forty years later--miserable log huts "which swarmed with
children." Thomas Marshall's little house was much better than, and the
manners of the family were far superior to, those described by
Washington and La Rochefoucauld.

[169] Meade, ii, 219.

[170] _Ib._ Bishop Meade says that Thomas Marshall's sons were sent to
Mr. Thompson again; but Marshall himself told Justice Story that the
Scotch parson taught him when the clergyman lived at his father's house.

[171] Meade, ii, 219. This extract of Mr. Thompson's sermon was
treasonable from the Tory point of view. See _infra_, chap. III.

[172] Records of Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, V, 282. This purchase
made Thomas Marshall the owner of about two thousand acres of the best
land in Fauquier County. He had sold his Goose Creek holding in "The
Hollow."

[173] The local legend, current to the present day, is that this house
had the first glass windows in that region, and that the bricks in the
chimney were imported from England. The importation of brick, however,
is doubtful. Very little brick was brought to Virginia from England.

[174] Five more children of Thomas and Mary Marshall were born in this
house: Louis, 1773; Susan, 1775; Charlotte, 1777; Jane, 1779; and Nancy,
1781. (Paxton.)

[175] This volume is now in the possession of Judge J. K. M. Norton, of
Alexandria, Va. On several leaves are printed the names of the
subscribers. Among them are Pelatiah Webster, James Wilson, Nathanael
Greene, John Adams, and others.

[176] _Autobiography._

[177] Binney, in Dillon, iii, 286.

[178] Story and Binney say that Marshall's first schooling was at
Campbell's "academy" and his second and private instruction under Mr.
Thompson. The reverse seems to have been the case.

[179] Meade, ii, 159, and footnote to 160.

[180] _Ib._, 161.

[181] _Ib._

[182] Journal, H.B. (1761-65), 3. Thomas Marshall was seldom out of
office. Burgess, Sheriff, Vestryman, Clerk, were the promising
beginnings of his crowded office-holding career. He became Surveyor of
Fayette County, Kentucky, upon his removal to that district, and
afterwards Collector of Revenue for the District of Ohio. (Humphrey
Marshall, i, 120; and see ii, chap. V, of this work. Thomas Marshall to
Adams, April 28, 1797; MS.) In holding offices, John Marshall followed
in his father's footsteps.

[183] Journal, H.B. (1766-69), 147 and 257.

[184] His election was contested in the House, but decided in Marshall's
favor. (_Ib._ (1761-69), 272, 290, 291.)

[185] _Ib._, (1773-76), 9. County Clerks were then appointed by the
Secretary of State. In some respects the Clerk of the County Court had
greater advantages than the Sheriff. (See Bruce: _Inst._, i, 588 _et
seq._) Dunmore County is now Shenandoah County. The Revolution changed
the name. When Thomas Marshall was appointed Clerk, the House of
Burgesses asked the Governor to issue a writ for a new election in
Fauquier County to fill Marshall's place as Burgess. (_Ib._ (1773-76),
9.)

[186] _Ib._ (1766-69), 163.

[187] _Ib._, 16, 71, 257; (1770-72), 17, 62, 123, 147, 204, 234, 251,
257, 274, 292; (1773-76), 217, 240.

[188] Ambler, Introduction.

[189] Ambler, 17-18.

[190] Henry, i, 71.

[191] _Ib._, 76-77.

[192] Henry, i, 39-48.

[193] Wirt, 71 _et seq._ It passed the House (Journal, H.B. (1761-65),
350); but was disapproved by the Council. (_Ib._, 356; and see Henry, i,
78.)

[194] The "ayes" and "noes" were not recorded in the Journals of the
House; but Jefferson says, in his description of the event, which he
personally witnessed, that Henry "carried with him all the members of
the upper counties and left a minority composed merely of the
aristocracy." (Wirt, 71.) "The members, who, like himself [Henry],
represented the yeomanry of the colony, were filled with admiration and
delight." (Henry, i, 78.)

[195] Wirt, 71. The incident, it appears, was considered closed with the
defeat of the loan-office bill. Robinson having died, nothing further
was done in the matter. For excellent condensed account see Eckenrode:
_R. V._, 16-17.

[196] Declaratory Resolutions.

[197] For the incredible submission and indifference of the colonies
before Patrick Henry's speech, see Henry, i, 63-67. The authorities
given in those pages are conclusive.

[198] _Ib._, 67.

[199] _Ib._, 80-81.

[200] _Ib._, 82-86.

[201] Wirt, 74-76.

[202] Eckenrode: _R. V._, 5-6.

[203] "The members from the upper counties invariably supported Mr.
Henry in his revolutionary measures." (Jefferson's statement to Daniel
Webster, quoted in Henry, i, 87.)

[204] Henry, i, 86.

[205] Henry, i, 86, and authorities there cited in the footnote.

[206] Misquoted in Wirt (79) as "500 guineas."

[207] Jefferson to Wirt, Aug. 14, 1814; _Works_: Ford, xi, 404.

[208] It is most unfortunate that the "ayes" and "noes" were not kept in
the House of Burgesses. In the absence of such a record, Jefferson's
repeated testimony that the up-country members voted and worked with
Henry must be taken as conclusive of Thomas Marshall's vote. For not
only was Marshall Burgess from a frontier county, but Jefferson, at the
time he wrote to Wirt in 1814 (and gave the same account to others
later), had become very bitter against the Marshalls and constantly
attacked John Marshall whom he hated virulently. If Thomas Marshall had
voted out of his class and against Henry, so remarkable a circumstance
would surely have been mentioned by Jefferson, who never overlooked any
circumstance unfavorable to an enemy. Far more positive evidence,
however, is the fact that Washington, who was a Burgess, voted with
Henry, as his letter to Francis Dandridge, Sept. 20, 1765, shows.
(_Writings_: Ford, ii, 209.) And Thomas Marshall always acted with
Washington.

[209] "By these resolutions, Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands of
those who had heretofore guided the proceedings of the House."
(Jefferson to Wirt, Aug. 14, 1814; _Works_: Ford, xi, 406.)

[210] _Proceedings_, Va. Conv., 1775, March 20, 3; July 17, 3, 5, 7.

[211] Henry, i, 255-61; Wirt, 117-19. Except Henry's speech itself,
Wirt's summary of the arguments of the conservatives is much the best
account of the opposition to Henry's fateful resolutions.

[212] Wirt, 142; Henry, i, 261-66.

[213] _Ib._, 271; and Wirt, 143.

[214] In the absence of the positive proof afforded by a record of the
"ayes" and "noes," Jefferson's testimony, Washington's vote, Thomas
Marshall's tribute to Henry, and above all, the sentiment of the
frontier county he represented, are conclusive testimony as to Thomas
Marshall's stand in this all-important legislative battle which was the
precursor of the iron conflict soon to come in which he bore so heroic a
part. (See Humphrey Marshall, i, 344.)

[215] Washington was appointed a member of the committee provided for in
Henry's second resolution. (Henry, i, 271.)

[216] Thomas Marshall had been ensign, lieutenant, and captain in the
militia, had taken part in the Indian wars, and was a trained soldier.
(Crozier: _Virginia Colonial Militia_, 96.)

Chapter III

A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION

Our liberties are at stake. It is time to brighten our fire-arms
and learn to use them in the field. (Marshall to Culpeper Minute
Men, 1775.)

Our sick naked, and well naked, our unfortunate men in captivity
naked. (Washington, 1777.)

I have seen a regiment consisting of _thirty men_ and a company of
_one corporal_. (Von Steuben, 1778.)

The fighting men of the up counties lost not a minute's time. Blood had
been shed in New England; blood, they knew, must soon flow in Virginia.
At once Culpeper, Orange, and Fauquier Counties arranged to raise a
regiment of minute men with Lawrence Taliaferro of Orange as colonel,
Edward Stevens of Culpeper as lieutenant, Thomas Marshall of Fauquier as
major.[217] Out over the countryside went the word; and from mountain
cabins and huts in forest clearings, from log abodes in secluded valleys
and on primitive farms, the fighting yeomanry of northern Virginia came
forth in answer.

In the years between Patrick Henry's two epochal appeals in 1765 and
1775, all Virginia, but particularly the back country, had been getting
ready to make answer in terms of rifle and lead. "No man should scruple,
or hesitate a moment, to use arms," wrote Washington in 1769.[218]
Thomas Marshall's minister, Mr. Thompson, preached militant
preparation; Parliament had deprived the colonists of "their just and
legal rights" by acts which were "destructive of their liberties,"
thundered the parson; it had "overawed the inhabitants by British
troops," loaded "great hardships" upon the people, and "reduced the poor
to great want." The preacher exhorted his flock "as men and Christians"
to help "supply the country with arms and ammunition," and referred his
hearers, for specific information, to "the committee of this
county,"[219] whose head undoubtedly was their Burgess and leading
vestryman of the parish, Thomas Marshall.

When news of Concord and Lexington finally trickled through to upper
Virginia, it found the men of her hills and mountains in grim readiness;
and when, soon after, Henry's flaming words came to them, they were
ready and eager to make those words good with their lives. John
Marshall, of course, was one of the band of youths who had agreed to
make up a company if trouble came. In May, 1775, these young
frontiersmen were called together. Their captain did not come, and
Marshall was appointed lieutenant, "instead of a better," as he modestly
told his comrades. But, for his years, "a better" could not have been
found; since 1773 John Marshall had received careful military
instruction from his father.[220] Indeed, during the two years before
his company took the field in actual warfare, the youth had devoted most
of his time to preparing himself, by study and practice, for military
service.[221] So these embryo warriors gathered about their leader to
be told what to do.[222]

Here we get the first glimpse of John Marshall's power over men. "He had
come," the young officer informed his comrades of the backwoods, "to
meet them as fellow soldiers, who were likely to be called on to defend
their country." Their own "rights and liberties" were at stake. Their
brothers in New England had fought and beaten the British; now "it is
time to brighten our fire-arms and learn to use them in the field." He
would show them how to do this. So the boys fell into line, and John
Marshall, bringing his own gun to his shoulder, instructed them in the
manual of arms. He first gave the words of command slowly and distinctly
and then illustrated the movements with his own rifle so that every man
of the company might clearly understand what each order meant and how to
execute it. He then put the company through the drill.[223]

On this muster field we learn how John Marshall looked in his nineteenth
year. He was very tall, six feet at least, slender and erect. His
complexion was dark, with a faint tinge of red. His face was
round--"nearly a circle." His forehead was straight and low, and thick,
strong, "raven black" hair covered his head. Intense eyes "dark to
blackness,"[224] of compelling power, pierced the beholder while they
reassured him by the good nature which shone from them. "He wore a
purple or pale blue hunting-shirt, and trousers of the same material
fringed with white."[225]

At this point, too, we first learn of his bent for oratory. What his
father told him about the debates in the House of Burgesses, the
speeches of Wythe and Lee and Randolph, and above all, Patrick Henry;
what he had dreamed and perhaps practiced in the silent forests and
vacant fields, here now bore public fruit. When he thought that he had
drilled his company enough for the time being, Marshall told them to
fall out, and, if they wished to hear more about the war, to gather
around him and he would make them a speech.[226] And make them a speech
he did. Before his men the youthful lieutenant stood, in his hand his
"round black hat mounted with a buck's tail for a cockade," and spoke to
that company of country boys of the justice of their cause and of those
larger things in life for which all true men are glad to die.

"For something like an hour" he spoke, his round face glowing, the
dormant lightning of his eye for the time unloosed. Lively words they
were, we may be sure; for John Marshall was as ardent a patriot as the
colonies could produce. He had learned the elementary truths of liberty
in the school of the frontier; his soul was on fire with the burning
words of Henry; and he poured forth his immature eloquence not to a
company of peaceful theorists, but to a group of youths ready for the
field. Its premises were freedom and independence; its conclusion was
action. It was a battle speech.[227] This fact is very important to an
understanding of John Marshall's character, and indeed of the blood that
flowed in his veins. For, as we shall find, he was always on the firing
line; the Marshall blood was fighting blood.[228]

But it was not all labor of drill and toil of discipline, heroics of
patriotic speech, or solemn preachments about duty, for the youths of
John Marshall's company. If he was the most earnest, he was also, it
seems, the jolliest person in the whole band; and this deserves especial
note, for his humor was a quality which served not only the young
soldier himself, but the cause for which he fought almost as well as his
valor itself, in the martial years into which he was entering. Indeed
this capacity for leavening the dough of serious purpose with the yeast
of humor and diversion made John Marshall's entire personal life
wholesome and nutritious. Jokes and fun were a part of him, as we shall
see, whether in the army, at the bar, or on the bench.

So when, the business of the day disposed of, Lieutenant Marshall
challenged his sure-eyed, strong-limbed, swift-footed companions to a
game of quoits, or to run a race, or to jump a pole, we find him
practicing that sport and comradeship which, luckily for himself and his
country, he never outgrew. Pitch quoits, then, these would-be soldiers
did, and coursed their races, and vaulted high in their running
jumps.[229] Faster than any of them could their commander run, with his
long legs out-going and his powerful lungs out-winding the best of them.
He could jump higher, too, than anybody else; and from this
accomplishment he got his soldier nickname "Silver Heels" in
Washington's army a year later.[230]

The final muster of the Culpeper Minute Men was in "Major Clayton's old
field" hard by the county seat[231] on September 1, 1775.[232] They were
clad in the uniform of the frontier, which indeed was little different
from their daily apparel. Fringed trousers often of deerskins, "strong
brown linen hunting-shirts dyed with leaves, ... buck-tails in each hat,
and a leather belt about the shoulders, with tomahawk and
scalping-knife" made up their warlike costume.[233] By some
preconcert,--an order perhaps from one of the three superior officers
who had poetic as well as fighting blood in him,--the mothers and wives
of this wilderness soldiery had worked on the breast of each
hunting-shirt in large white letters the words "Liberty or Death,"[234]
with which Patrick Henry had trumpeted the purpose of hitherto
inarticulate America.

Early in the autumn of 1775 came the expected call. Not long had the
"shirt men,"[235] as they were styled, been drilling near the
court-house of Culpeper County when an "express" came from Patrick
Henry.[236] This was a rider from Williamsburg, mounting swift relays as
he went, sometimes over the rough, miry, and hazardous roads, but mostly
by the bridle paths which then were Virginia's principal highways of
land travel. The "express" told of the threatening preparations of Lord
Dunmore, then Royal Governor of Virginia, and bore Patrick Henry's
command to march at once for the scene of action a hundred miles to the
south.

Instantly the Culpeper Minute Men were on the move. "We marched
immediately," wrote one of them, "and in a few days were in
Williamsburg." News of their coming went before them; and when the
better-settled districts were reached, the inhabitants were in terror of
them, for the Culpeper Minute Men were considered as "savage
backwoodsmen" by the people of these older communities.[237] And indeed
they must have looked the part, striding along armed to the teeth with
the alarming weapons of the frontier,[238] clad in the rough but
picturesque war costume of the backwoods, their long hair falling
behind, untied and unqueued.

When they reached Williamsburg half of the minute men were discharged,
because they were not needed;[239] but the other half, marching under
Colonel Woodford, met and beat the enemy at Great Bridge, in the first
fight of the Revolution in Virginia, the first armed conflict with
British soldiers in the colonies since Bunker Hill. In this small but
bloody battle, Thomas Marshall and his son took part.[240]

The country around Norfolk swarmed with Tories. Governor Dunmore had
established martial law, proclaimed freedom of slaves, and summoned to
the Royal standard everybody capable of bearing arms. He was busy
fortifying Norfolk and mounting cannon upon the entrenchments. Hundreds
of the newly emancipated negroes were laboring upon these
fortifications. To keep back the patriots until this military work
should be finished, the Governor, with a force of British regulars and
all the fighting men whom he could gather, took up an almost impregnable
position near Great Bridge, about twenty miles from Norfolk, "in a small
fort on an oasis surrounded by a morass, not far from the Dismal Swamp,
accessible on either side by a long causeway." Here Dunmore and the
Loyalists awaited the Americans.[241]

When the latter came up they made their camp "within gunshot of this
post, in mud and mire, in a village at the southern end of the
causeway." Across this the patriot volunteers threw a breastwork. But,
having no cannon, they did not attack the British position. If only
Dunmore would take the offensive, the Americans felt that they would
win. Legend has it that through a stratagem of Thomas Marshall, the
British assault was brought on. He instructed his servant to pretend to
desert and mislead the Governor as to the numbers opposing him.
Accordingly, Marshall's decoy sought the enemy's lines and told Dunmore
that the insurgents numbered not more than three hundred. The Governor
then ordered the British to charge and take the Virginians, "or die in
the attempt."[242]

"Between daybreak and sunrise," Captain Fordyce, leading his grenadiers
six abreast, swept across the causeway upon the American breastworks.
Marshall himself tells us of the fight. The shots of the sentinels
roused the little camp and "the bravest ... rushed to the works," firing
at will, to meet the British onset. The gallant Fordyce "fell dead
within a few steps of the breastwork.... Every grenadier ... was killed
or wounded; while the Americans did not lose a single man." Full one
hundred of the British force laid down their lives that bloody December
morning, among them four of the King's officers. Small as was this
affair,--which was called "The Little Bunker Hill,"--it was more
terrible than most military conflicts in loss of life in proportion to
the numbers engaged.[243]

This was John Marshall's first lesson[244] in warfare upon the field of
battle. Also, the incidents of Great Bridge, and what went before and
came immediately after, gave the fledgling soldier his earliest
knowledge of that bickering and conflict of authority that for the next
four years he was to witness and experience in far more shocking and
dangerous guise.[245]

Within a few months from the time he was haranguing his youthful
companions in "Major Clayton's old field" in Culpeper County, John
Marshall learned, in terms of blood and death and in the still more
forbidding aspects of jealousy and dissension among the patriots
themselves, that freedom and independence were not to be wooed and won
merely by high-pitched enthusiasm or fervid speech. The young soldier in
this brief time saw a flash of the great truth that liberty can be made
a reality and then possessed only by men who are strong, courageous,
unselfish, and wise enough to act unitedly as well as to fight bravely.
He began to discern, though vaguely as yet, the supreme need of the
organization of democracy.

After the victory at Great Bridge, Marshall, with the Culpeper Minute
Men, marched to Norfolk, where he witnessed the "American soldiers
frequently amuse themselves by firing" into Dunmore's vessels in the
harbor; saw the exasperated Governor imprudently retaliate by setting
the town on fire; and beheld for "several weeks" the burning of
Virginia's metropolis.[246] Marshall's battalion then marched to
Suffolk, and was discharged in March, 1776.[247]

With this experience of what war meant, John Marshall could have
returned to the safety of Oak Hill and have spent, at that pleasant
fireside, the red years that were to follow, as indeed so many in the
colonies who then and after merely prated of liberty, actually did. But
it was not in the Marshall nature to support a cause with lip service
only. Father and son chose the sterner part; and John Marshall was now
about to be schooled for four years by grim instructors in the knowledge
that strong and orderly government is necessary to effective liberty. He
was to learn, in a hard and bitter school, the danger of provincialism
and the value of Nationality.

Not for long did he tarry at the Fauquier County home; and not an
instant did the father linger there. Thomas Marshall, while still
serving with his command at Great Bridge, was appointed by the
Legislature major of the Third Virginia Regiment; and at once entered
the Continental service;[248] on July 30, 1776, four months after the
Culpeper Minute Men, their work finished, had been disbanded by the new
State, his son was commissioned lieutenant in the same regiment. The
fringed hunting-shirt and leggings, the buck-tail headgear,
scalping-knife, and tomahawk of the backwoods warrior now gave place to
the buff and blue uniform, the three-cornered hat,[249] the sword, and
the pistol of the Continental officer; and Major Thomas Marshall and his
son, Lieutenant John Marshall, marched away to the north to join
Washington, and under him to fight and suffer through four black and
heart-breaking years of the Revolution.

It is needful, here, to get clearly in our minds the state of the
American army at this time. What particular year of the Revolution was
darkest up almost to the victorious end, it is hard to say. Studying
each year separately one historian will conclude that 1776 sounded the
depths of gloom; another plumbs still greater despair at Valley Forge;
still another will prove that the bottom was not reached until '79 or
'80. And all of them appear to be right.[250]

Even as early as January, 1776, when the war was new, and enthusiasm
still warm, Washington wrote to the President of Congress, certain
States having paid no attention to his application for arms: "I have, as
the last expedient, sent one or two officers from each regiment into the
country, with money to try if they can buy."[251] A little later he
writes: "My situation has been such, that I have been obliged to use art
to conceal it from my own officers."[252]

Congress even placed some of Washington's little army under the
direction of the Committee of Safety of New York; and Washington thus
wrote to that committee: "I should be glad to know how far it is
conceived that my powers over them [the soldiers] extend, or whether I
have any at all. Sure I am that they cannot be subjected to the
direction of both"[253] (the committee and himself).

In September the Commander-in-Chief wrote to the President of Congress
that the terms of enlistment of a large portion of the army were about
to expire, and that it was direful work "to be forming armies
constantly, and to be left by troops just when they begin to deserve the
name, or perhaps at a moment when an important blow is expected."[254]

Four days later Washington again told Congress, "beyond the possibility
of doubt, ... unless some speedy and effectual measures are adopted by
Congress, our cause will be lost."[255] On December 1, 1776, the army
was "greatly reduced by the departure of the Maryland _Flying Camp_ men,
and by sundry other causes."[256] A little afterwards General Greene
wrote to Governor Cooke [of Rhode Island] that "two brigades left us at
Brunswick, notwithstanding the enemy were within two hours' march and
coming on."[257]

Thirteen days before the Christmas night that Washington crossed the
Delaware and struck the British at Trenton, the distressed American
commander found that "our little handful is daily decreasing by sickness
and other causes."[258] And the very day before that brilliant exploit,
Washington was compelled to report that "but very few of the men have
[re]enlisted" because of "their wishes to return home, the
nonappointment of officers in some instances, the turning out of good
and appointing of bad in others, and the incomplete or rather no
arrangement of them, a work unhappily committed to the management of
their States; nor have I the most distant prospect of retaining them ...
notwithstanding the most pressing solicitations and the obvious
necessity for it." Washington informed Reed that he was left with only
"fourteen to fifteen hundred effective men. This handful and such
militia as may choose to join me will then compose our army."[259] Such
was American patriotic efficiency, as exhibited by "State Sovereignty,"
the day before the dramatic crossing of the Delaware.

A month earlier the general of this assemblage of shreds and patches had
been forced to beg the various States for militia in order to get in "a
number of men, if possible, to keep up the appearance of our army."[260]
And he writes to his brother Augustine of his grief and surprise to find
"the different States so slow and inattentive.... In ten days from this
date there will not be above two thousand men, if that number, of the
fixed established regiments, ... to oppose Howe's whole army."[261]

Throughout the war, the neglect and ineffectiveness of the States, even
more than the humiliating powerlessness of Congress, time and again all
but lost the American cause. The State militia came and went almost at
will. "The impulse for going home was so irresistible, that it answered
no purpose to oppose it. Though I would not discharge them," testifies
Washington, "I have been obliged to acquiesce, and it affords one more
melancholy proof, how delusive such dependencies [State controlled
troops] are."[262]

"The Dependence, which the Congress have placed upon the militia," the
distracted general complains to his brother, "has already greatly
injured, and I fear will totally ruin our cause. Being subject to no
controul themselves, they introduce disorder among the troops, whom you
have attempted to discipline, while the change in their living brings on
sickness; this makes them Impatient to get home, which spreads
universally, and introduces abominable desertions. In short, it is not
in the power of words to describe the task I have to act."[263]

Nor was this the worst. Washington thus pours out his soul to his
nephew: "Great bodies of militia in pay that never were in camp; ...
immense quantities of provisions drawn by men that never rendered ...
one hour's service ... every kind of military [discipline] destroyed by
them.... They [the militia] come without any conveniences and soon
return. I discharged a regiment the other day that had in it fourteen
rank and file fit for duty only.... The subject ... is not a fit one to
be publicly known or discussed.... I am wearied to death all day ... at
the conduct of the militia, whose behavior and want of discipline has
done great injury to the other troops, who never had officers, except in
a few instances, worth the bread they eat."[264]

Conditions did not improve in the following year, for we find Washington
again writing to his brother of "militia, who are here today and gone
tomorrow--whose way, like the ways of [Pr]ovidence, are almost
inscrutable."[265] Baron von Steuben testifies thus: "The eternal ebb
and flow of men ... who went and came every day, rendered it impossible
to have either a regiment or company complete.... I have seen a regiment
consisting of _thirty men_ and a company of _one corporal_."[266] Even
Thomas Paine, the arch-enemy of anything resembling a regular or
"standing" army, finally declared that militia "will not do for a long
campaign."[267] Marshall thus describes the predicament in which
Washington was placed by the inconstancy of this will-o'-the-wisp
soldiery: "He was often abandoned by bodies of militia, before their
places were filled by others.... The soldiers carried off arms and
blankets."[268]

Bad as the militia were,[269] the States did not keep up even this
happy-go-lucky branch of the army. "It is a matter of astonishment,"
savagely wrote Washington to the President of Pennsylvania, two months
before Valley Forge, "to every part of the continent, to hear that
Pennsylvania, the most opulent and populous of all the States, has but
twelve hundred militia in the field, at a time when the enemy are
endeavoring to make themselves completely masters of, and to fix their
winter quarters in, her capital."[270] Even in the Continental line, it
appears, Pennsylvania's quota had "never been above one third full; and
now many of them are far below even that."[271]

Washington's wrath at Pennsylvania fairly blazed at this time, and the
next day he wrote to Augustine Washington that "this State acts most
infamously, the People of it, I mean, as we derive little or no
assistance from them.... They are in a manner, totally disaffected or in
a kind of Lethargy."[272]

The head of the American forces was not the only patriot officer to
complain. "The Pennsylvania Associators [militia] ... are deserting ...
notwithstanding the most spirited exertions of their officers," reported
General Livingston in the midsummer of 1776.[273] General Lincoln and
the Massachusetts Committee tried hard to keep the militia of the Bay
State from going home; but, moaned Lee, "whether they will succeed,
Heaven only knows."[274]

General Sullivan determined to quit the service because of abuse and
ill-treatment.[275] For the same reason Schuyler proposed to
resign.[276] These were not examples of pique; they denoted a general
sentiment among officers who, in addition to their sufferings, beheld
their future through none too darkened glasses. They "not only have the
Mortification to See every thing live except themselves," wrote one
minor officer in 1778, "but they see their private fortune wasting away
to make fat those very Miscreants [speculators] ... they See their
Country ... refuse to make any future provision for them, or even to
give them the Necessary Supplies."[277]

Thousands of the Continentals were often practically naked; Chastellux
found several hundred in an invalid camp, not because they were ill, but
because "they were not covered even with rags."[278] "Our sick naked,
and well naked, our unfortunate men in captivity naked"! wailed
Washington in 1777.[279] Two days before Christmas of that year he
informed Congress that, of the force then under his immediate command,
nearly three thousand were "barefoot and otherwise naked."[280] Sickness
was general and appalling. Smallpox raged throughout the army even from
the first.[281] "The Regimental Surgeons are immediately to make
returns ... of all the men in their Regiments, who have not had the
small Pox,"[282] read the orders of the day just after New Year's Day,
in 1778.

Six years after Concord and Lexington, three hundred American soldiers,
in a body, wished to join the British.[283] Stern measures were taken to
prevent desertion and dishonesty and even to enforce the most ordinary
duties of soldiers. "In the afternoon three of our reg^t were
flogged;--2 of them received one hundred lashes apiece for attempting to
desert; the other received 80 for enlisting twice and taking two
bounties,"[284] Wild coolly enters in his diary. And again: "This
afternoon one of our men was hanged on the grand parade for attempting
to desert to the enemy";[285] and "at 6 ock P.M. a soldier of Col.
Gimatts Battalion was hanged."

Sleeping on duty meant "Twenty Lashes on ... [the] bare back" of the
careless sentry.[286] A soldier convicted of "getting drunk & losing his
Arms" was "Sentenc'd to receive 100 Lashes on his bare back, & pay for
his Arms lost."[287] A man who, in action, "turns his back on the Enemy"
was ordered to be "instantly put ... to Death" by the officers.[288] At
Yorktown in May, 1781, Wayne ordered a platoon to fire on twelve
soldiers who were persuading their comrades not to march; six were
killed and one wounded, who was, by Wayne's command, enforced by a
cocked pistol, then finished with the bayonet thrust into the prostrate
soldier by a comrade.[289]

Such was the rough handling practiced in the scanty and ill-treated army
of individualists which Washington made shift to rally to the patriot
colors.[290] It was not an encouraging omen. But blacker still was the
disorganizing effect of local control of the various "State Lines" which
the pompous authority of the newborn "sovereign and independent"
Commonwealths asserted.[291]

Into this desperate confusion came the young Virginia lieutenant. Was
this the manner of liberty? Was this the way a people fighting for their
freedom confronted their enemy? The dreams he had dreamed, the visions
he had seen back in his Virginia mountains were clad in glories as
enchanting as the splendors of their tree-clad summits at break of
day--dreams and visions for which strong men should be glad of the
privilege of dying if thereby they might be won as realities for all the
people. And indeed at this time, and in the even deadlier days that
followed, young John Marshall found strong men by his side willing to
die and to go through worse than death to make their great dream come
true.

But why thus decrepit, the organization called the American army? Why
this want of food even for such of the soldiers as were willing and
eager to fight for their country? Why this scanty supply of arms? Why
this avoidable sickness, this needless suffering, this frightful waste?
What was the matter? Something surely was at fault. It must be in the
power that assumed to direct the patriot army. But whence came that
power? From Congress? No. Congress had no power; after a while, it did
not even have influence. From the States? Yes; that was its
source--there was plenty of power in the States.

But what kind of power, and how displayed? One State did one thing;
another State did another thing.[292] One State clothed its troops well;
another sent no supplies at all.[293] One regiment of Maryland militia
had no shirts and the men wrapped blankets about their bare bodies.[294]
One day State troops would come into camp, and the next day leave. How
could war be conducted, how could battles be fought and won, through
such freakish, uncertain power as that?

But how could this vaunted liberty, which orators had proclaimed and
which Lieutenant Marshall himself had lauded to his frontier companions
in arms, be achieved except by a well-organized army, equipped,
supplied, and directed by a competent central Government? This was the
talk common among the soldiers of the Continental establishment in which
John Marshall was a lieutenant. In less than two years after he entere

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