"Thank you, sir," said the lank, easy-mannered Federalist candidate.
"Hurrah for Marshall!" shouted the compact band of Federalists.
"And I vote for Clopton," cried another freeholder.
"May you live a thousand years, my friend," said Marshall's competitor.
"Three cheers for Clopton!" roared the crowd of Republican enthusiasts.
Both Republican and Federalist leaders had seen to it that nothing was left undone which might bring victory to their respective candidates. The two political parties had been carefully "drilled to move together in a body." Each party had a business committee which attended to every practical detail of the election. Not a voter was overlooked. "Sick men were taken in their beds to the polls; the halt, the lame, and the blind were hunted up and every mode of conveyance was mustered into service." Time and again the vote was a tie. No sooner did one freeholder announce his preference for Marshall than another gave his suffrage to Clopton.
"A barrel of whisky with the head knocked in," free for everybody, stood beneath a tree; and "the majority took it straight," runs a narrative of a witness of the scene. So hot became the contest that fist-fights were frequent. During the afternoon, knock-down and drag-out affrays became so general that the county justices had hard work to quell the raging partisans. Throughout the day the shouting and huzzaing rose in volume as the whiskey sank in the barrel. At times the uproar was "perfectly deafening; men were shaking fists at each other, rolling up their sleeves, cursing and swearing.... Some became wild with agitation." When a tie was broken by a new voter shouting that he was for Marshall or for Clopton, insults were hurled at his devoted head.
"You, sir, ought to have your mouth smashed," cried an enraged Republican when Thomas Rutherford voted for Marshall; and smashing of mouths, blacking of eyes, and breaking of heads there were in plenty. "The crowd rolled to and fro like a surging wave."[931] Never before and seldom, if ever, since, in the history of Virginia, was any election so fiercely contested. When this "democratic" struggle was over, it was found that Marshall had been elected by the slender majority of 108.[932]
Washington was overjoyed at the Federalist success. He had ridden ten miles to vote for General Lee, who was elected;[933] but he took a special delight in Marshall's victory. He hastened to write his political protégé: "With infinite pleasure I received the news of your Election. For the honor of the District I wish the majority had been greater; but let us be content, and hope, as the tide is turning, the current will soon run strong in your favor."[934]
Toward the end of the campaign, for the purpose of throwing into the contest Washington's personal influence, Marshall's enthusiastic friends had published the fact of Marshall's refusal to accept the various offices which had been tendered him by Washington. They had drawn a long bow, though very slightly, and stated positively that Marshall could have been Secretary of State.[935] Marshall hastened to apologize:—