The Life of John Marshall
Chapter 237 : [538] Niles, XIV, 193-96; also XV, 434.[539] _Ib._ XVII, 164.[540] _Ib._ XIV, 108.[541

[538] Niles, XIV, 193-96; also XV, 434.

[539] _Ib._ XVII, 164.

[540] _Ib._ XIV, 108.

[541] A wealthy Richmond merchant who had married a sister of Marshall's wife. (See vol. II, 172, of this work.)

[542] A writ directing the sheriff to seize the goods and chattels of a person to compel him to satisfy an obligation. Bouvier (Rawle's ed.) I, 590.

[543] Richmond _Enquirer_, Jan. 16, 1816.

What was the outcome of this incident does not appear. Professor Sumner says that the bank was closed for a few days, but soon opened and went on with its business. (Sumner: _Hist. Am. Currency_, 74-75.) Sumner fixes the date in 1817, two years after the event.

[544] Niles, XIV, 281.

[545] _Ib._ 314-15.

[546] _Ib._ 333; and for similar cases, see _ib._ 356, 396-97, 428-30.

All these accounts were taken from newspapers at the places where criminals were captured.

[547] Niles, XIV, 428.

[548] _Ib._ XVI, 147-48; also, _ib._ 360, 373, 390.

[549] _Ib._ 179.

[550] _Ib._ 210.

[551] _Ib._ 208.

[552] _Ib._ 210.

[553] See Catterall, 39-50.

[554] The frauds of the directors and officers of the Bank of the United States were used, however, as the pretext for an effort to repeal its charter. On Feb. 9, 1819, James Johnson of Virginia introduced a resolution for that purpose. (_Annals_, 15th Cong. 2d Sess. III, 1140-42.)

[555] See Catterall, 32.

[556] New Castle County.

[557] Niles, XV, 162.

[558] _Ib._ 59.

[559] _Ib._ 418.

[560] Flint's Letters, _E.W.T._: Thwaites, IX, 226.

[561] They, too, a.s.serted that inst.i.tution to be the author of their woes, (Niles, XVII, 2.)

[562] Catterall, 33-37.

[563] _Ib._ 51-53; and see Niles, XV, 25.

[564] Catterall, 33.

[565] Monster, Hydra, Cerberus, Octopus, and names of similar import were popularly applied to the Bank of the United States. (See Crawford's speech, _supra_, 175.)

[566] Niles, XV, 5.

[567] Act of April 3, 1811, _Laws of New York_, 1811, 205-21.

[568] Niles, XVI, 257.

[569] _Ib._

[570] _Ib._ XVII, 147.

[571] "I have known several to _calculate_ upon the 'relief' from them, just as they would do on an accommodation at bank, or on the payment of debts due to them! If we succeed in such and such a thing, say they--very well; if not, we can get the benefit of the insolvent laws.... Where one prudent and honest man applies for such benefit, one hundred rogues are facilitated in their depredations." (Niles, XVII, 115.)

[572] _Ib._

[573] _Ib._ XV, 283.

[574] The bankruptcy law which Marshall had helped to draw when in Congress (see vol. II, 481-82, of this work) had been repealed in 1803.

(_Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 215, 625, 631. For reasons for the repeal see _ib._ 616-22.)

[575] _Annals_, 16th Cong. 1st Sess. 505.

[576] _Ib._ 513.

[577] _Ib._ 517-18.

[578] Flint's Letters, _E.W.T._: Thwaites, IX, 225.

In reviewing _Sketches of America_ by Henry Bradshaw Fearon, an Englishman who traveled through the United States, the _Quarterly Review_ of London scathingly denounced the frauds perpetrated by means of insolvent laws. (_Quarterly Review_, XXI, 165.)

[579] None of these letters to Marshall have been preserved. Indeed, only a scant half-dozen of the original great number of letters written him even by prominent men during his long life are in existence. For those of men like Story and Pickering we are indebted to copies preserved in their papers.

Marshall, at best, was incredibly negligent of his correspondence as he was of all other ordinary details of life. Most other important men of the time kept copies of their letters; Marshall kept none; and if he preserved those written to him, nearly all of them have disappeared.

[580] Niles, XV, 385.

[581] _Ib._

[582] _Ib._ XVI, 261.

[583] _Ib._ XVII, 85.