This, in rough outline, is Marshall's historic speech which helped to direct a new nation, groping blindly and with infinite clamoring, to a straight and safe pathway. Pickering immediately reported to Hamilton: "Mr. Marshall delivered a very luminous argument on the case, placing the 27th article of the treaty in a clear point of view and giving constructions on the questions arising out of it perfectly satisfactory, but, as it would seem, wholly unthought of when the meaning of the article was heretofore considered. His argument will, I hope, be fully and correctly published; it illustrates an important national question."[1072]
The Republicans were discomfited; but they were not without the power to sting. Though Marshall had silenced them in Congress, the Republican press kept up the attack. "Mr. Marshall made an ingenious and specious defence of the administration, in relation to executive interference in the case of Robbins," [sic] says the "Aurora," "but he was compelled to admit, what certainly implicates both the President and Judge Bee.... He admitted that an American seaman was justifiable, in rescuing himself from impressment, to put to death those who kept him in durance.... Robbins [sic] claimed to be an American citizen, and asserted upon his oath, that he had been impressed and yet his claim was not examined into by the Judge, neither did the President advise and request that this should be a subject of enquiry. The enquiry into his citizenship was made after his surrender and execution, and the evidence exhibited has a very suspicious aspect.... Town clerks may be found to certify to anything that Timothy Pickering shall desire."[1073] Nevertheless, even the "Aurora" could not resist an indirect tribute to Marshall, though paying it by way of a sneer at Samuel W. Dana of Connecticut, who ineffectually followed him.
"In the debate on Mr. Livingston's resolutions, on Friday last," says the "Aurora," "Mr. Marshall made, in the minds of some people, a very satisfactory defense of the conduct of the President and Judge Bee in the case of Jonathan Robbins [sic]. Mr. Dana, however, thought the subject exhausted, and very modestly (who does not know his modesty) resolved with his inward man to shed a few more rays of light on the subject; a federal judge, much admired for his wit and humour, happened to be present, when Mr. Dana began his flourishes.
"The judge thought the seal of conviction had been put upon the case by Mr. Marshall, and discovered symptoms of uneasiness when our little Connecticut Cicero displayed himself to catch Mr. Speaker's vacant eye—'Sir,' said the wit to a byestander, 'what can induce that man to rise, he is nothing but a shakebag, and can only shake out the ideas that have been put into the members' heads by Mr. Marshall.'"[1074]
Marshall's argument was conclusive. It is one of the few speeches ever delivered in Congress that actually changed votes from one party to the other in a straight-out party fight. Justice Story says that Marshall's speech "is one of the most consummate juridical arguments which was ever pronounced in the halls of legislation; ... equally remarkable for the lucid order of its topics, the profoundness of its logic, the extent of its research,[1075] and the force of its illustrations. It may be said of that speech ... that it was 'Réponse sans réplique,' an answer so irresistible that it admitted of no reply. It silenced opposition and settled then and forever the points of international law on which the controversy hinged.... An unequivocal demonstration of public opinion followed. The denunciations of the Executive, which had hitherto been harsh and clamorous everywhere throughout the land, sunk away at once into cold and cautious whispers only of disapprobation.
"Whoever reads that speech, even at this distance of time, when the topics have lost much of their interest, will be struck with the prodigious powers of analysis and reasoning which it displays, and which are enhanced by the consideration that the whole subject was then confessedly new in many of its aspects."[1076]
The Republican leaders found their own members declaring themselves convinced by Marshall's demonstration and announcing their intentions of voting with the Administration. Gallatin, Livingston, and Randolph had hard work to hold their followers in line. Even the strongest efforts of these resourceful men would not rally all of their shattered forces. Many Republican members ignored the pleadings of their leaders and supported Marshall's position.
This is not to be wondered at, for Marshall had convinced even Gallatin himself. This gifted native of Switzerland was the Republican leader of the House. Unusually well-educated, perfectly upright, thorough in his industry, and careful in his thinking, Gallatin is the most admirable of all the characters attracted to the Republican ranks. He had made the most effective argument on the anti-Administration side in the debate over the Livingston resolutions, and had been chosen to answer Marshall's speech. He took a place near Marshall and began making notes for his reply; but soon he put his pencil and paper aside and became absorbed in Marshall's reasoning. After a while he arose, went to the space back of the seats, and paced up and down while Marshall proceeded.
When the Virginian closed, Gallatin did not come forward to answer him as his fellow partisans had expected. His Republican colleagues crowded around the brilliant little Pennsylvania Swiss and pleaded with him to answer Marshall's speech without delay. But Gallatin would not do it. "Answer it yourself," exclaimed the Republican leader in his quaint foreign accent; "for my part, I think it unanswerable," laying the accent on the swer.[1077]
Nicholas of Virginia then tried to reply, but made no impression; Dana spoke to no better purpose, and the House ended the discussion by a vote which was admitted to be a distinctively personal triumph for Marshall. The Republican resolutions were defeated by 61 to 35, in a House where the parties were nearly equal in numbers.[1078]