This was the first time, so far as is known, that Marshall had visited Washington at his Potomac home. No other guest except Washington's nephew seems to have been present at this conference, so decisive of Marshall's future. The time was September, 1798, and the conversations were held on the broad piazza,[860] looking out upon the river, with the new Capitol almost within sight. There, for "four or five days," his old commander used all his influence to induce Marshall to become the Federalist candidate.
"General Washington urged the importance of the crisis," writes Marshall in describing the circumstance; "every man," insisted Washington, "who could contribute to the success of sound opinions was required by the most sacred duty to offer his services to the public." Marshall doubted his "ability to do any good. I told him that I had made large pecuniary engagements which required close attention to my profession and which would distress me should the emoluments derived from it be abandoned."
Marshall told of his promise to the Federalist candidate who was then making his campaign for election. Washington declared that this candidate still would withdraw in Marshall's favor; but Marshall remained unshaken. Finally Washington gave his own conduct as an example. Marshall thus describes the final appeal which his old leader made to him: "He had withdrawn from office with a declaration of his determination never again, under any circumstances, to enter public life. No man could be more sincere in making that declaration, nor could any man feel stronger motives for adhering to it. No man could make a stronger sacrifice than he did in breaking a resolution, thus publicly made, and which he had believed to be unalterable. Yet I saw him," continues Marshall, "in opposition to his public declaration, in opposition to his private feelings, consenting, under a sense of duty, to surrender the sweets of retirement, and again to enter the most arduous and perilous station which an individual could fill. My resolution yielded to this representation."[861]
There is a tradition that, at one point in the conference, Marshall, becoming offended by Washington's insistence, which, runs the story, took the form of a peremptory and angrily expressed command, determined to leave so early in the morning that his host would have no opportunity to press the matter further; but, Washington noting Marshall's irritation and anticipating his purpose, was on the piazza when his departing guest appeared at dawn, and there made the final appeal which won Marshall's reluctant consent.
Marshall felt that he was making a heavy personal sacrifice; it meant to him the possible loss of the Fairfax estate. As we have seen, he had just declined appointment to the Supreme Bench[862] for this very reason, and this place later was given to Bushrod Washington, largely on Marshall's advice.[863] Adams had been reluctant to give Marshall up as one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court; "General Marshall or Bushrod Washington will succeed Judge Wilson," wrote the President to his Secretary of State[864] nearly three months after the first tender of the place to Marshall in Philadelphia. Later on the President again returned to Marshall.
"I still think that General Marshall ought to be preferred," he wrote. "Of the three envoys, the conduct of Marshall alone has been entirely satisfactory, and ought to be marked by the most decided approbation of the public. He has raised the American people in their own esteem, and, if the influence of truth and justice, reason and argument is not lost in Europe, he has raised the consideration of the United States in that quarter of the world.... If Mr. Marshall should decline, I should next think of Mr. [Bushrod] Washington."[865]
Washington's appeal to Marshall's patriotism and sense of duty, however, outbalanced the weighty financial reasons which decided him against becoming an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Thus, against his desire, he found himself once more in the hurly-burly of partisan politics. But this time the fight which he was forced to lead was to be desperate, indeed.
The moment Marshall announced his candidacy he became the center of Republican attack in Virginia. The virulence of the campaign against him was so great that it has become a tradition; and while scarcely any of the personal assaults, which appeared in print, are extant, they are known to have been ruthless, and utterly unrestrained both as to the charges made and the language used in making them.
In his scurrilous review of Adams's Administration, which Adams properly denounced as "a Mass of Lyes from the first page to the last,"[866] John Wood repeats the substance of some of the attacks which, undoubtedly, were launched against Marshall in this bitter political conflict. "John Marshall," says Wood, "was an improper character in several respects; his principles of aristocracy were well known. Talleyrand, when in America, knew that this man was regarded as a royalist and not as a republican, and that he was abhorred by most honest characters."[867]
The abuse must have been very harsh and unjust; for Marshall, who seldom gave way to resentment, complained to Pickering with uncharacteristic temper. "The whole malignancy of Anti-federalism," he writes, "not only in the district, where it unfortunately is but too abundant, but throughout the State, has become uncommonly active and considers itself as peculiarly interested in the reëlection of the old member [Clopton].