John Marshall, of course, voted for it. While there is no record that he took part in the debate, yet it is plain that the contest strengthened his fast-growing Nationalist views. The extravagance of those who saw in the Bill of Rights only a hazy "liberty" which hid evil-doers from the law, and which caused even the cautious Madison to favor a "qualified interpretation" of that instrument, made a lasting impression on Marshall's mind.
But Marshall's support was not wholly influenced by the prudence and Nationalism of the measure. He wished to protect the Indians from the frontiersmen. He believed, with Henry, in encouraging friendly relations with them, even by white and red amalgamation. He earnestly supported Henry's bill for subsidizing marriages of natives and whites[743] and was disappointed by its defeat.
"We have rejected some bills," writes Marshall, "which in my conception would have been advantageous to the country. Among these, I rank the bill for encouraging intermarriages with the Indians. Our prejudices however, oppose themselves to our interests, and operate too powerfully for them."[744]
During the period between 1784 and 1787 when Marshall was out of the Legislature, the absolute need of a central Government that would enable the American people to act as a Nation became ever more urgent; but the dislike for such a Government also crystallized. The framing of the Constitution by the Federal Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 never could have been brought about by any abstract notions of National honor and National power, nor by any of those high and rational ideas of government which it has become traditional to ascribe as the only source and cause of our fundamental law.
The people at large were in no frame of mind for any kind of government that meant power, taxes, and the restrictions which accompany orderly society. The determination of commercial and financial interests to get some plan adopted under which business could be transacted, was the most effective force that brought about the historic Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Indeed, when that body met it was authorized only to amend the Articles of Confederation and chiefly as concerned the National regulation of commerce.[745]
Virginia delayed acting upon the Constitution until most of the other States had ratified it. The Old Dominion, which had led in the Revolution, was one of the last Commonwealths to call her Convention to consider the "new plan" of a National Government. The opposition to the proposed fundamental law was, as we shall see, general and determined; and the foes of the Constitution, fiercely resisting its ratification, were striving to call a second general Convention to frame another scheme of government or merely to amend the Articles of Confederation.
To help to put Virginia in line for the Constitution, John Marshall, for the third time, sought election to the Legislature. His views about government had now developed maturely into a broad, well-defined Nationalism; and he did not need the spur of the wrathful words which Washington had been flinging as far as he could against the existing chaos and against everybody who opposed a strong National Government.
If Marshall had required such counsel and action from his old commander, both were at hand; for in all his volcanic life that Vesuvius of a man never poured forth such lava of appeal and denunciation as during the period of his retirement at Mount Vernon after the war was over and before the Constitution was adopted.[746]
But Marshall was as hot a Nationalist as Washington himself. He was calmer in temperament, more moderate in language and method, than his great leader; but he was just as determined, steady, and fearless. And so, when he was elected to the Legislature in the early fall of 1787, he had at heart and in mind but one great purpose. Army life, legislative experience, and general observation had modified his youthful democratic ideals, while strengthening and confirming that Nationalism taught him from childhood. Marshall himself afterwards described his state of mind at this period and the causes that produced it.
"When I recollect," said he, "the wild and enthusiastic notions with which my political opinions of that day were tinctured, I am disposed to ascribe my devotion to the Union and to a government competent to its preservation, at least as much to casual circumstances as to judgment. I had grown up at a time when the love of the Union, and the resistance to the claims of Great Britain were the inseparable inmates of the same bosom; when patriotism and a strong fellow-feeling with our suffering fellow-citizens of Boston were identical; when the maxim, 'United we stand, divided we fall,' was the maxim of every orthodox American.