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John Marshall

Page 33

by Harlow Giles Unger


  What it did: Put the power of federal troops behind enforcement of Supreme Court decisions.

  _______________

  * Eleventh Amendment: “The Judicial power of the United States shall not . . . extend to any suit . . . against one of the United States by Citizens of another State.”

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. John Paul Frank, Marble Palace: The Supreme Court in American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1958), 62.

  2. Viscount James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, American Edition, 2 vols. (Chicago: Charles H. Sergel & Co., 1891), 1:375.

  3. Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.

  4. John Adams to John Marshall, August 17, 1825, The Papers of John Marshall, 12 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). 10:197. (Hereafter JM Papers)

  Chapter 1: Chaos!

  1. Merrill Jensen, John P. Kaminski, Gaspare Saladino, Richard Leffler, and Charles H. Schoenleber, eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 22 vols. to date (in progress) (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976), 9:951–968. (Hereafter DHRC)

  2. Ibid.

  3. Ibid., 1115–1127.

  4. Jack Lynch, “A Great Deal of Noise, Whipping and Spurring: America’s First Disputed Presidential Election,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal 34, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 30–35.

  5. DHRC, IX:1115–1127.

  6. John Marshall, An Autobiographical Sketch, ed. John Stokes Adams (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1937), 12–13. (Hereafter JM Autobiographical Sketch)

  7. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 3–4.

  8. Ibid., 22.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid., 4.

  11. Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1769).

  12. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 4.

  13. Ibid., 5.

  14. William Wirt Henry, Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 1:262–268.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Jefferson borrowed ideas and even specific words and phrases from at least four essays of John Locke: Two Treatises of Government (1689), A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, for example, declares, “whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery . . . the People are at liberty to provide for themselves . . . as they shall find it most for their safety and good.” Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence contend that “whenever . . . Government becomes destructive, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it and to institute new Government . . . as to them shall seem most like to effect their safety and happiness.” In their writings both Locke and Jefferson justified overthrow of corrupt or tyrannical government by the “People.” Although Locke called property an inalienable right, Jefferson preferred “pursuit of happiness.”

  17. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 5–6.

  18. Nathaniel Judson to Commodore R. V. Morris, February 10, 1814, in Matthew L. Davis, Memoirs of Aaron Burr, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1836), 1:68–69.

  19. Theodore Sedgwick to Aaron Burr Jr., August 7, 1776, ibid., 1:60–61.

  20. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 24.

  21. Ibid., 6.

  22. John Marshall, The Life of George Washington, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: C. P. Wayne, 1804–1807), 2:352.

  23. Jefferson to Pendleton, July 1776, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford, 12 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904–1905), 2:219–220. (Hereafter Ford, Works of TJ)

  24. Although Dumas Malone (Jefferson the Virginian [Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1948]) refers to Unger as John Lewis de Unger, it is unlikely that his family would have adopted English spellings. Most sources refer to him as Jean Louis. The French occupation of many German-speaking areas east of the Rhine created a fad among some noble German families to give their children French Christian names.

  25. George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, December 18–30, 1778, The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, ed. W. W. Abbot, multiple volumes (in progress) (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1985), 18:447–452. (Hereafter PGW-R)

  26. Jefferson to Van Staphorst and Hubbard, February 28, 1790, Ford, Works of TJ, 6:33.

  27. George Washington to Patrick Henry, December 27, 1777, PGW-R, 13:17–18.

  28. DHRC, 9:1120.

  29. Marshall, Life of George Washington, 2:434.

  30. Rev. Philip Slaughter, A History of St. Mark’s Parish, Culpeper County, Virginia (Baltimore, MD: Innes and Co., 1877), 107–108.

  31. Benson Bobrick, Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 345.

  32. George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington (New York: Derby and Jackson, 1860), 220.

  33. Charlemagne Tower Jr., The Marquis de Lafayette in the American Revolution, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1895), 1:384.

  34. Aaron Burr to Rhoda Edwards, September 26, 1776, Matthew L. Davis, Memoirs of Aaron Burr, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1836), 1:70–71.

  35. George Washington to John Augustine Washington, July 4, 1778, PGW-R, 16:25–26.

  36. Anthony Wayne to ____ Delaney, July 13, 1779, in Henry B. Dawson, Battles of the United States by Sea and Land, 2 vols. (New York: Johnson, Fry, and Company, 1858), 1:517–523.

  Chapter 2: Commotions

  1. Thomas Jefferson to Brother John de Coigne, June 1781, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscombe, 20 vols. (Washington, DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903–1904), 15:375.

  2. Eliza Ambler Carrington to her sister Nancy, “An Old Virginia Correspondence,” Atlantic Monthly (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1899), 134:547.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid.

  5. JM to Polly, February 23, 1824, Frances Norton Mason, My Dearest Polly (Richmond, VA: Garrett and Massie, 1961), 262–263.

  6. Carrington, Atlantic Monthly.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, May 28, 1781, The Writings of George Washington, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, 14 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891), 9:276n–278n.

  9. Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, “The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson,” eds. Adrian Koch and William Peden (New York: Modern Library, 1993), 50–51.

  10. JM to TJ, October 1, 1781, ibid., 31–32.

  11. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 10.

  12. GW to the Officers of the Army, March 15, 1783, The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, 39 vols.(Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1931–1944), 26:222–227. (Hereafter Fitzpatrick, GW Writings)

  13. JM to James Monroe, January 3, 1784, The Papers of James Monroe, ed. Daniel Preston, 2 vols. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003–2006), 1:113.

  14. Carrington, Atlantic Monthly.

  15. JM to James Monroe, February 24, 1784, Papers of James Monroe, 1:116–117.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Johann David Schoeff, Travels in the Confederation, 1783–1784. Trans. and ed. Alfred J. Morrison (Philadelphia: W. J. Campbell, 1911), 2:64.

  18. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 7.

  19. Martha Jefferson Carr to Thomas Jefferson, February 26, 1787, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, 25 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950–1992), 15:634–635.

  20. Carrington, Atlantic Monthly.

  21. Lee to GW, October 1, 1786, Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series, ed. W. W. Abbot, 6 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992–1997), 4:281–282. (Hereafter PGW-C)

  22. JM to James Wilkinson, January 5, 1787, JM Papers, 1:199–201.

  Chapter 3: “We, Sir, Idolize Democracy!”

 
1. JM to Levin Powell, December 9, 1783, Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall, 4 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916–1919), 1:207.

  2. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, July 3, 1784, Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt, 9 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900), 2:62.

  3. Lee to GW, October 17, 1786, Life of John Marshall, 4:295–296.

  4. DHRC, 13:25.

  5. William Short [citing Henry] to Thomas Jefferson, May 15, 1784, in Robert Douthat Meade, Patrick Henry, Practical Revolutionary (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1969), 273.

  6. GW to Jonathan Trumbull, Junior, January 5, 1784, Fitzpatrick, GW Writings, 27:293–295.

  7. James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 7.

  8. John Steele Gordon, An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 61–63.

  9. Henry Knox to George Washington, January 31, 1785, PGW-C, 2:301–306.

  10. JM to Humphrey Marshall, May 7, 1833, JM Papers, 12:275–276.

  11. Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention, 7.

  12. JM to Arthur Lee, JM Papers, 1:205–206.

  13. George Washington Circular to the States, Fitzpatrick, GW Writings, 26:483–496.

  14. George Washington to John Jay, May 18, 1786, PGW-C, 4:55–56.

  15. Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention, 651.

  16. DHRC, 9:929–931.

  17. George Washington to David Humphries, October 19, 1787, PGW-C, 5:365–366.

  18. The Federalist No. 84, May 28, 1788, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, The Federalist (New York: New American Library of World Literature, 1961).

  19. Marshall, Life of George Washington, 5:105.

  20. DHRC, IX:951–968.

  21. Thomas Jefferson to W.S. Smith, February 2, 1788, in Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), 171.

  22. Papers of James Monroe, 2:408ff.

  23. Ibid.

  24. W. P. Cresson, James Monroe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), 101.

  25. DHRC, 9:992.

  26. Ibid., 9:951–968.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid., 9:1150–1127.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Ibid., 9:1072–1080.

  33. John P. Kaminski, James Madison, Champion of Liberty and Justice (Madison, WI: Parallel Press, 2006), 17–18.

  34. DHRC, 9:689–698.

  35. Ibid., 9:1115–1127.

  36. DHRC, 10:1476–1477.

  37. Henry, Patrick Henry, 3:586; George Morgan, The True Patrick Henry (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1907), 354.

  Chapter 4: Quoits Was the Game

  1. From an address by Mr. Justice Joseph Story, delivered in Boston on October 15, 1835, to the Suffolk (MA) Bar (Rochester, NY: The Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Co., 1900), 16.

  2. JM Papers, 2:461n64.

  3. Henry, Patrick Henry, 2:376.

  4. Meade, Patrick Henry, 420.

  5. Henry, Patrick Henry, 2:363.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Samuel Mordecai, Virginia, Especially Richmond, in Bygone Days with a Glance at the Present: Being Reminiscences and Last Words of an Old Citizen (Richmond: C. H. Wynne, 1860), 259.

  9. Beveridge, Life of John Marshall, 2:183.

  10. Joseph Story, Eulogy, Boston, October 15, 1835, in John P. Kaminski, ed., The Founder and the Founders: Word Portraits from the American Revolutionary War Era (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 403–404.

  11. JM Papers, 2:41–42.

  12. Ibid., 42–43.

  13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings: On the Social Contract, trans. and ed. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), 141.

  14. John P. Kaminski, ed., The Quotable Jefferson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 390–391.

  15. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 216.

  16. Thomas Jefferson to William Short, January 3, 1793, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), 1003–1006.

  17. Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, xvii.

  18. Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2002), 227.

  19. Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 459.

  20. The Political Writings of John Adams, ed. George A. Peek Jr. (New York: Liberal Arts Press, The American Heritage Series, 1954), 194.

  Chapter 5: The Great Divide

  1. JM to Patrick Henry, August 31, 1790, JM Papers, 2:60–61.

  2. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, September 8, 1793, Kaminski, Quotable Jefferson, 197.

  3. Ibid., 399.

  4. Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 401.

  5. GW to Thomas Jefferson, August 23, 1792, Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, September, 1788–May 1793, ed. W. W. Abbot, multi-volumes (in progress) (Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 1987), 11:28–32. (Hereafter PGW-P)

  6. Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, April 2, 1790, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Julian P. Boyd et al., multi-volumes (in progress) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950), 16:293.

  7. Alexander DeConde, Entangling Alliance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958), 181; Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962), 97.

  8. Meade Minnigerode, Jefferson—Friend of France (New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1928), 205.

  9. GW to Thomas Jefferson, April 12, 1793, PGW-P, 12:448–449.

  10. Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington, completed by John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth, 7 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957), 7:36.

  11. JM writing as Gracchus, in Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Richmond), October 16, 1793, JM Papers, 2:221–228.

  12. George Wythe, Resolutions, August 17, 1793, JM Papers, 2:196–197.

  13. The Correspondence Between Citizen Genet, Minister of the French Republic to the United States of North America and the Officers of the Federal Government; to Which Are Prefixed the Instructions from the Constituted Authorities of France to the Said Minister (Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin Bache, 1793), 1–9.

  14. Minnigerode, Jefferson, 221.

  15. Boston Gazette, April 29, 1793.

  16. Richard Harwell, An Abridgment in One Volume of the Seven Volume George Washington by Douglas Southall Freeman (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968), 622.

  17. Harlow Giles Unger, The Life and Times of Noah Webster, An American Patriot (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998), 71, 183.

  18. Instructions to Citizen Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary from the French Republic to the United States, from the Executive Council, Archives des Affaires Étrangères, Quai d’Orsay, Paris, France, vol. 38, Dossier Correspondence Consulaire: Genet.

  19. Ibid.

  20. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 13–14.

  21. Address in Support of the Neutrality Proclamation, August 17, 1793, and printed in Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Richmond), August 21, JM Papers, 2:196–197.

  22. James Monroe, writing as Agricola, September 4, 1793, Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Richmond).

  23. John Marshall, Aristides No. 1, September 8, 1793, Gazette and General Advertiser (Richmond).

  24. Ibid.

  25. Ibid.

  26. John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1813, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, Lester J. Cappon, ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 346–347.

  27. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May 19, 1793, Jefferson Writings, 1007–1009.

  28. Minnigerode, Jefferson, 184.

  29. Archives des Affaires Étrangères, Ministère des Affaire
s Étrangères, vol. 38, Dossier Correspondence Consulaire: Genet.

  30. JM to Archibald Stuart, March 27, 1794, JM Papers, 2:260–262.

  Chapter 6: The Two Happiest People on Earth

  1. Minnigerode, Jefferson, 183.

  2. John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 13, 1813, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 346.

  3. The Navy remained part of the US Army until 1798, when it became a separate branch of the military.

  4. The Works of Hamilton, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge, 2 vols. (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 6:508.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Henry Ammon, The Genet Mission (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 28; Jean Tulard, Jean-François Fayard, Alfred Fierro, Histoire et Dictionnaire de la Révolution Française, 1789–1799 (Paris: Editions Robert Laffon, S.A., 1987, 1998), 349.

  7. John C. Miller, The Federalist Era (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), 161.

  8. Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 471.

  9. George Washington to Henry Knox, March 2, 1797, ibid., 35:408–410.

  10. JM to Polly, June 24, 1797, Mason, My Dearest Polly, 90–91

  11. Patrick Henry to George Washington, October 16, 1795, Henry, Patrick Henry, 2:558.

  12. Alexander Hamilton, Papers of Alexander Hamilton, eds. Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke, 27 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961–1987), 19:254–263.

  13. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 16.

  14. Thomas Jefferson to Mann Page, August 30, 1795, Ford, Works of TJ, 7:24.

  15. JM Autobiographical Sketch, 15–16.

  16. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, November 26, 1795, Ford, Works of TJ, 8:197–198.

  17. JM to Mrs. Mary W. Marshall, February 3, 1796, JM Papers, 3:3–4.

  18. Ibid., 3:19–20.

  19. Thomas Marshall to JM, September 9, 1796, ibid., 3:44–46.

 

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