What was this, asked the Federalist leaders in dazed and angry amazement! Paralyze the arm of the law! Unloose the fingers of outraged authority from the guilty throat which Justice had clutched! What was to become of "law and order" when the Nation's head thus sanctioned resistance to both?[984] In his charge to the Federal Grand Jury, April 11, 1799, Justice Iredell declared that if "traitors" are not punished "anarchy will ride triumphant and all lovers of order, decency, truth & justice will be trampled under foot."[985]
How, now, could the Federalists repel Republican assaults on this direct tax? How, now, could they reply to the Republican attacks upon the army to support which the tax was provided! In pardoning Fries, Adams had admitted everything which the hated Jefferson had said against both tax and army.[986] If Adams was right in pardoning Fries, then Washington was wrong in suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion. The whole Federalist system was abandoned.[987] The very roots of the Federalist philosophy of government and administration were torn from their none too firm hold upon the scanty soil which Federalist statesmen had laboriously gathered for their nourishment. And why had Adams done this? Because, said the Federalist politicians, it was popular in Pennsylvania;[988] that was the President's motive—the same that moved him to send the new mission to France.[989]
Bending under heavy burdens of state, harassed by the politicians, Adams was enduring a private pain sharper than his public cares. His wife, the incomparable Abigail, was in Massachusetts and seriously ill. The President had left her to meet his Cabinet and dispatch the second mission to France. That done, he hastened back to the bedside of his sick wife. But the politicians made no allowances. Adams's absence "from the seat of government ... is a source of much disgust," chronicles the ardent Troup. "It ... has the air of an abdication."[990] A month later he records that the President "still continues at Braintree,[991] and the government, like Pope's wounded snake, drags its slow length along."[992]
Such was the condition of the country and the state of political parties when Marshall took his seat in Congress. For the Federalists, the House was a very "cave of the winds," with confusion, uncertainty, suspicion, anger, and all the disintegrating passions blowing this way and that. But the Republicans were a compact, disciplined, determined body full of spirit and purpose.
FOOTNOTES:
[856] Marshall to Paulding, April 4, 1835; Lippincott's Magazine (1868), ii, 624-25.
[857] Washington to Bushrod Washington, Aug. 27, 1798; Writings: Ford, xiv, 75.
[858] Ib. In September, 1797, when Marshall was absent on the X. Y. Z. mission, Washington received a letter from one "John Langhorne" of Albemarle County. Worded with skillful cunning, it was designed to draw from the retired President imprudent expressions that could be used against him and the Federalists. It praised him, denounced his detractors, and begged him to disregard their assaults. (Langhorne to Washington, Sept. 25, 1797; Writings: Sparks, xi, 501.) Washington answered vaguely. (Washington to Langhorne, Oct. 15, 1797; Writings: Ford, xiii, 428-30.) John Nicholas discovered that the Langhorne letter had been posted at Charlottesville; that no person of that name lived in the vicinity; and that Washington's answer was called for at the Charlottesville post-office (where Jefferson posted and received letters) by a person closely connected with the master of Monticello. It was suspected, therefore, that Jefferson was the author of the fictitious letter. The mystery caused Washington much worry and has never been cleared up. (See Washington to Nicholas, Nov. 30, 1797; ib., footnote to 429-30; to Bushrod Washington, March 8, 1798; ib., 448; to Nicholas, March 8, 1798; ib., 449-50.) It is not known what advice Marshall gave Washington when the latter asked for his opinion; but from his lifelong conduct in such matters and his strong repugnance to personal disputes, it is probable that Marshall advised that the matter be dropped.
[859] Paulding: Washington, ii, 191-92.
[860] Marshall to Paulding, supra.