The Life of John Marshall
Chapter 161 : At last, more than three years after Marshall had decided to embark upon the uncertain

At last, more than three years after Marshall had decided to embark upon the uncertain sea of authors.h.i.+p, he finished the first of the five volumes. And such a ma.s.s of ma.n.u.script! "It will make _at least_ Eight hundred pages!!!!" moaned the distraught publisher. At that rate, considering the small number of subscribers and the greatly increased cost of paper and labor,[626] Wayne would be ruined. No t.i.tle-page had been sent, and Marshall's son, who had brought the ma.n.u.script to Philadelphia, "astonished" Wayne by telling him "that his father's name was not to appear in the t.i.tle."[627]

When Marshall learned that the publisher demanded a t.i.tle-page bearing his name, he insisted that this was unnecessary and not required by the copyright law. "I am unwilling," he hastened to write Wayne, "to be named in the book or in the clerk's office as the author of it, if it be avoidable." He cannot tell how many volumes there will be, or even examine, before some time in May, 1804, Was.h.i.+ngton's papers relating to the period of his two administrations. The first volume he wants "denominated _an introduction_." It is too long, he admits, and authorizes Wayne to split it, putting all after "the peace of 1763" into the second volume.[628]

Marshall objects again to appearing as the author: "My repugnance to permitting my name to appear in the t.i.tle still continues, but it shall yield to your right to make the best use you can of the copy." He does not think that "the name of the author being given or withheld can produce any difference in the number of subscribers"; but, since he does not wish to leave Wayne "in the Opinion that a real injury has been sustained," he would "submit scruples" to Wayne and Was.h.i.+ngton, "only requesting that [his] name may not be given but on mature consideration and conviction of its propriety." In any case, Marshall declares: "I wish not my t.i.tle in the judiciary of the United States to be annexed to it."

He writes at great length about punctuation, paragraphing, capital letters, and spelling, giving minute directions, but leaves much to Wayne's judgment. As to spelling: "In any doubtful case I wou^d decidedly prefer to follow Johnson."[629] Two other long letters about details of printing the first volume followed. By the end of March, 1804, his second volume was ready.[630]

He now becomes worried about "the inaccuracies ... the many and great defects in composition" of the first two volumes; but "the hurried manner in which it is press^d forward renders this inevitable." He begs Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton to "censure and alter freely.... You mistake me very much if you think I rank the corrections of a friend with the bitter sarcasms of a foe, or that I shou^d feel either wounded or chagrined at my inattentions being pointed out by another."[631]

Once more the troubled author writes his a.s.sociate, this time about the spelling of "Chesapeak" and "enterprise," the size of the second volume, and as to "the prospects of subscribers."[632] Not until June, 1804, did Marshall give the proof-sheets of the first volume even "a hasty reading" because of "the pressure of ... official business."[633]

Totally forgotten was the agreed plan to publish maps in a separate volume, although it was thus "stated in the prospectus."[634] He blandly informs the exasperated publisher that he must wait a long time after publis.h.i.+ng the volumes describing the Revolution and those on the Presidency of Was.h.i.+ngton before the ma.n.u.script of the last volume can be sent to press--this when many subscribers were clamoring for the return of the money they had paid, and the public was fast losing interest in the book. Large events had meanwhile filled the heavens of popular interest, and George Was.h.i.+ngton's heroic figure was already becoming dim and indistinct.

The proof-sheets of the second volume were now in Marshall's hands; but the toil of writing, "super-intending the copying," and various other avocations "absolutely disabled" him, he insists, from giving them any proper examination. He had no idea that he had been so careless in his writing and is anxious to revise the work for a second edition. He complains of his health and says he must spend the summer in the mountains, where, of course, he "cannot take the papers with [him] to prosecute the work." He will, however, read the pages of the first two volumes while on his vacation.

The ma.n.u.script of the third he had finished and sent to Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton.[635] When Wayne saw the length of it, his Quaker blood was heated to wrath. Did Marshall's prolixity know no limit? The first two volumes had already cost the publisher far more than the estimate--would not Was.h.i.+ngton persuade Marshall to be more concise?[636]

By midsummer of 1804 the first two volumes appeared. They were a dismal performance. Nevertheless, one or two Federalist papers praised them, and Marshall was as pleased as any youthful writer by a first compliment. He thanks Wayne for sending the reviews and comments on one of them: "The very handsome critique in the 'Political and Commercial Register' was new to me." He modestly admits: "I cou^d only regret that there was in it more of panuegyric than was merited. The editor ...

manifests himself to be master of a style of a very superior order and to be, of course, a very correct judge of the composition of Others."

Marshall is somewhat mollified that his parentage of the biography has been revealed: "Having, Heaven knows how reluctantly, consented against my judgement to be known as the author of the work in question I cannot be insensible to the opinions entertained of it. But, I am much more solicitous to hear the strictures upon it"--than commendation of it--because, he says, these would point out defects to be corrected. He asks Wayne, therefore, to send to him at Front Royal, Virginia, "every condemnatory criticism.... I shall not attempt to polish every sentence; that wou^d require repeated readings & a long course of time; but I wish to correct obvious imperfections & the animadversions of others wou^d aid me very much in doing so."[637]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PART OF MARSHALL'S LIST OF CORRECTIONS FOR HIS LIFE OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON]

Within three weeks Marshall had read his first volume in the form in which it had been delivered to subscribers, and was "mortified beyond measure to find that it [had] been so carelessly written." He had not supposed that so many "inelegancies ... cou^d have appeared in it," and regrets that he must require Wayne to reset the matter "so materially." He informs his publisher, nevertheless, that he is starting on his vacation in the Alleghanies; and he promises that when he returns he "will ... review the corrections" he has made in the first volume, although he would "not have time to reperuse the whole volume."[638]

Not for long was the soul of the perturbed author to be soothed with praise. He had asked for "strictures"; he soon got them. Wayne promptly sent him a "Magazine[639] containing a piece condemnatory of the work."

Furthermore, the books were not going well; not a copy could the publisher sell that had not been ordered before publication. "I have all those on hand which I printed over the number of subscribers," Wayne sourly informs the author.

In response to Marshall's request for time for revision, Wayne is now willing that he shall take all he wishes, since "present prospects would not induce [him] to republish," but he cautions Marshall to "let the idea of a 2^d edit. revised and corrected remain a secret"; if the public should get wind of such a purpose the stacks of volumes in Wayne's printing house would never be sold. He must have the ma.n.u.script of the "_fourth_ vol. by the last of September at furthest.... Can I have it?--or must I dismiss my people."

At the same time he begs Marshall to control his redundancy: "The first and second vols. have cost me (1500) fifteen hundred dollars more than calculated!"[640]

It was small wonder that Marshall's first two bulky books, published in the early summer of 1804, were not hailed with enthusiasm. In volume one the name of Was.h.i.+ngton was mentioned on only two minor occasions described toward the end.[641] The reader had to make his way through more than one hundred thousand words without arriving even at the cradle of the hero. The voyages of discovery, the settlements and explorations of America, and the history of the Colonies until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, two years before the Stamp Act of 1765, were treated in dull and heavy fas.h.i.+on.

The author defends his plan in the preface: No one connected narrative tells the story of all the Colonies and "few would ... search through the minute details"; yet this he held to be necessary to an understanding of the great events of Was.h.i.+ngton's life. So Marshall had gathered the accounts of the various authorities[642] in parts of the country and in England, and from them made a continuous history. If there were defects in the book it was due to "the impatience ... of subscribers" which had so hastened him.

The volume is poorly done; parts are inaccurate.[643] To Bacon's Rebellion are given only four pages.[644] The story of the Pilgrims is fairly well told.[645] A page is devoted to Roger Williams and six sympathetic lines tell of his principles of liberty and toleration.[646]

The Salem witchcraft madness is well treated.[647] The descriptions of military movements const.i.tute the least disappointing parts of the volume. The beginnings of colonial opposition to British rule are tiresomely set out; and thus at last, the reader arrives within twelve years of Bunker Hill.

Marshall admits that every event of the Revolutionary War has been told by others who had examined Was.h.i.+ngton's "immensely voluminous correspondence," and that he had copied these authors, sometimes using their very language. Still, he promises the reader "a particular account of his [Was.h.i.+ngton's] own life."[648]

One page and three lines at the beginning of the second volume are all that Marshall gives of the ancestry, birth, environment, upbringing, education, and experiences of George Was.h.i.+ngton, up to the nineteenth year of his age. On the second page the hero, fully uniformed and accoutred, is plunged into the French and Indian Wars. Braddock's defeat, already described in the first volume, is repeated and elaborated.[649] Six lines, closing the first chapter, disposes of Was.h.i.+ngton in marriage and describes the bride.[650]

About three pages are devoted to the Stamp Act speeches in the British Parliament; while but one short paragraph is given to the immortal resolutions of Patrick Henry and the pa.s.sage of them by the Virginia House of Burgesses. Not a word describes the "most b.l.o.o.d.y" debate over them, and Henry's time-surviving speech is not even referred to.[651]

All mention of the fact that Was.h.i.+ngton was a fellow member with Henry and voted for the resolutions is omitted. Henry's second epoch-making speech at the outbreak of the Revolution is not so much as hinted at, nor is any place found for the Virginia Resolutions for Arming and Defense, which his unrivaled eloquence carried.

The name of the supreme orator of the Revolution is mentioned for the second time in describing the uprising against Lord Dunmore,[652] and then Marshall adds this footnote: "The same gentleman who had introduced into the a.s.sembly of Virginia the original resolution against the stamp act."[653]

Marshall's account of the development of the idea of independence is scattered.[654] He gives with unnecessary completeness certain local resolutions favoring it,[655] while to the great Declaration less than two pages[656] are a.s.signed. It is termed "this important paper"; and a footnote disposes of the fact that "Mr. Jefferson, Mr. John Adams, Mr.

Franklin, Mr. Sherman, and Mr. R. R. Livingston, were appointed to prepare this declaration; and the draft reported by the committee has been generally attributed to Mr. Jefferson."[657] A report of the talk between Was.h.i.+ngton and Colonel Paterson of the British Army, concerning the t.i.tle by which Was.h.i.+ngton insisted upon being addressed,[658] is given one and one third times the s.p.a.ce that is bestowed upon the Declaration of Independence.

Marshall is satisfactory only when dealing with military operations. He draws a faithful picture of the condition of the army;[659] quotes Was.h.i.+ngton's remorseless condemnations of the militia,[660] short enlistments, and the democratic spirit among men and officers.[661] When writing upon such topics, Marshall is spirited; his pages are those of the soldier that, by nature, he was.

The earliest objection to Marshall's first two volumes came from American Tories, who complained of the use of the word "enemy" as applied to the British military forces. Wayne reluctantly calls Marshall's attention to this. Marshall replies: "You need make no apology for mentioning to me the criticism of the word 'enemy.' I will endeavor to avoid it where it can be avoided."[662]

Unoffended by such demands, Marshall was deeply chagrined by other and entirely just criticisms. Why, he asks, had not some one pointed out to him "some of those objections ... to the plan of the work" before he wrote any part of it? He wishes "very sincerely" that this had been done. He "should very readily have relinquished [his own] opinion ...

if [he] had perceiv^d that the public taste required a different course." Thus, by implication, he blames Wayne or Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton, for his own error of judgment.

Marshall also reproaches himself, but in doing so he saddles on the public most of the burden of his complaints: "I ought, indeed, to have foreseen that the same impatience which precipitated the publication wou^d require that the life and transactions of Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton should be immediately entered upon." Even if he had stuck to his original plans, still, he "ought to have departed from them so far as to have composed the introductory volume at leizure after the princ.i.p.al work was finished."

Marshall's "mortification" is, he says, also "increased on account of the careless manner in which the work has been executed." For the first time in his life he had been driven to sustained and arduous mental labor, and he found, to his surprise, that he "had to learn that under the pressure of constant application, the spring of the mind loses its elasticity.... But regrets for the past are unavailing," he sighs.

"There will be great difficulty in retrieving the reputation of the first volume.... I have therefore some doubts whether it may not be as well to drop the first volume for the present--that is not to speak of a republication of it."

He a.s.sures Wayne that he need have no fears that he will mention a revised edition, and regrets that the third volume is also too long; his pen has run away with him. He would shorten it if he had the copy once more; but since that cannot be, perhaps Wayne might omit the last chapter. Brooding over the "strictures" he had so confidently asked for, he grows irritable. "Whatever might have been the execution, the work wou^d have experienced unmerited censure. We must endeavor to rescue what remains to be done from such [criticism] as is deserved. I wish you to consult Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton."[663]

Another very long letter from Front Royal quickly follows. Marshall again authorizes the publisher himself to cut the bulk of the third volume, in the hope that it "will not be so defective.... It shall be my care to render the 4th more fit for the public eye." He promises Wayne that, in case of a second edition,[664] he will shorten his interminable pages which shall also "receive very material corrections." But a corrected and improved edition! "On this subject ... I remain silent....

Perhaps a free expression of my thoughts ... may add to the current which seems to set against it." Let the public take the first printing "before a second is spoken of."[665]

Was.h.i.+ngton drew on the publisher[666] and wrote Wayne that "the disappointment will be very great if it is not paid." In December, 1804, Wayne sent the first royalty. It amounted to five thousand dollars.[667]

Our author needed money badly. "I do not wish to press you upon the subject of further remittances but they will be highly acceptable,"

Was.h.i.+ngton tells Wayne, "particularly to Mr. Marshall, whose arrangements I know are bottomed upon the expectation of the money he is to receive from you."[668] In January, 1805, Wayne sent Was.h.i.+ngton another thousand dollars--"which I have paid," says Was.h.i.+ngton, "to Mr.

Marshall as I shall also do of the next thousand you remit."[669] Thus pressed, Wayne sends more money, and by January 1, 1805, Marshall and Was.h.i.+ngton have received the total sum of eight thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars.[670]

Toward the end of February, 1805, Marshall completed the ma.n.u.script of the fourth volume. He was then in Was.h.i.+ngton, and sent two copies from there to Philadelphia by Joseph Hopkinson, who had just finished his notable work in the Chase impeachment trial. "They are both in a rough state; too rough to be sent ... but it was impossible to have them recopied," Marshall writes Wayne. He admits they are full of errors in capitalization, punctuation, and spelling, but adds, "it has absolutely been impossible to make corrections in these respects."[671] This he "fears will produce considerable difficulty." Small wonder, with the Chase trial absorbing his every thought and depressing him with heavy anxiety.

Marshall's relief from the danger of impeachment is at once reflected in his correspondence with Wayne. Two weeks after the acquittal of Chase, he placidly informs his publisher that the fifth volume will not be ready until the spring of 1806 at the earliest. It is "not yet commenced," he says, "but I shall however set about it in a few days."

He explains that there will be little time to work on the biography.

"For the ensuing twelve months I shall scarcely have it in my power to be five in Richmond."[672] Three months later he informs Wayne that it will be "absolutely impossible" to complete the final volume by the time mentioned. "I regret this very seriously but it is a calamity for which there is no remedy."

The cause of this irremediable calamity was "a tour of the mountains"--a journey to be made "for [his] own health and that of [his] family" from which he "cannot return till October." He still "laments sincerely that an introductory volume was written because [he] finds it almost impossible to compress the civil administration into a single volume. In doing it," he adds, "I shall be compelled to omit several interesting transactions & to mutilate others."[673]

At last Marshall's eyes are fully opened to what should have been plain to him from the first. n.o.body wanted a tedious history of the discovery and settlement of America and of colonial development, certainly not from his pen. The subject had been dealt with by more competent authors.

But the terrible years following the war, the Const.i.tutional period, the Administrations of Was.h.i.+ngton and the first half of that of Adams, the decisive part played by Was.h.i.+ngton throughout this critical time of founding and constructing--all these were virgin fields. They const.i.tuted, too, as vital an epoch in American history as the Revolution itself. Marshall's own life had been an important part of it, and he was not unequipped to give it adequate treatment.

Had Marshall written of these years, it is probable that the well-to-do Federalists alone would have purchased the thirty thousand sets that Marshall originally counted on to be sold. He would have made all the money he had expected, done a real public service, and achieved a solid literary fame. His "Life of Was.h.i.+ngton" might have been the great social, economic, political, and Const.i.tutional history of the foundation processes of the Government of the American Nation. His entire five volumes would not have been too many for such a work.

But all this matter relating to the formative years of the Nation must now be crowded between two covers and offered to an indifferent, if not hostile, public--a public already "disgusted," as the publisher truly declared, by the unattractive rehash of what had already been better told.

Wayne again presses for a change in the contract; he wants to buy outright Marshall's and Was.h.i.+ngton's interests, and end the bankrupting royalty he is paying them: "If you were willing to take 70000$ for 30000 Sub^s I thought it would not be deemed illiberal in offering twenty thousand dollars for four thousand subscribers--this was two-sevenths of the original sum for less than _one-seventh_ of the subscribers contemplated." Wayne asks Marshall and Was.h.i.+ngton to "state the lowest sum" they will take. Subscriptions have stopped, and in three years he has sold only "_two copies_ ... to non-subscribers." But the harried publisher sends two thousand dollars more of royalty.[674]

In the autumn of 1805, upon returning from his annual vacation, Marshall is anxious to get to work, and he must have the _Aurora_ and _Freneau's Gazette_ quickly. His "official duties recommence ... on the 22^d of November from which time they continue 'till the middle of March."

Repeating his now favorite phrase, he says, "It is absolutely impossible to get the residue of the work completed in the short time which remains this fall." He has been sorely vexed and is a cruelly overworked man: "The unavoidable delays which have been experienced, the immense researches among volumes of ma.n.u.script, & chests of letters & gazettes which I am compelled to make will impede my progress so much that it is absolutely impossible" to finish the book at any early date.[675]

Want of money continually embarra.s.ses Marshall: "What payments my good Sir, will it be in your power to make us in the course of this & the next month?" Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton asks Wayne. "I am particularly anxious,"

he explains, "on account of Mr. M.... His princ.i.p.al dependence is upon this fund."[676] Marshall now gets down to earnest and continuous labor and by July, 1806, actually finishes the fifth and only important volume of the biography.[677]

During all these years the indefatigable Weems continued his engaging career as book agent, and, like the subscribers he had ensnared, became first the victim of hope deferred and then of unrealized expectations.