"Though Marshall will be able to embarras [sic] the republican party in the assembly a good deal," wrote Jefferson to Madison, "yet upon the whole his having gone into it will be of service. He has been, hitherto, able to do more mischief acting under the mask of Republicanism than he will be able to do after throwing it plainly off. His lax lounging manners have made him popular with the bulk of the people of Richmond; & a profound hypocrisy, with many thinking men of our country. But having come forth in the plenitude of his English principles the latter will see that it is high time to make him known."[399]
Such was Jefferson's inability to brook any opposition, and his readiness to ascribe improper motives to any one having views different from his own. So far from Marshall's having cloaked his opinions, he had been and was imprudently outspoken in avowing them. Frankness was as much a part of Marshall's mental make-up as his "lax, lounging manners" were a part of his physical characteristics. Of all the men of the period, not one was cleaner of hypocrisy than he. From Patrick Henry in his early life onward to his associates on the bench at the end of his days the testimony as to Marshall's open-mindedness is uniform and unbroken.
With the possible exception of Giles and Roane, Jefferson appears to have been the only man who even so much as hinted at hypocrisy in Marshall. Although strongly opposing his views and suggesting the influence of supposed business connections, Madison had supreme confidence in Marshall's integrity of mind and character. So had Monroe. Even Jefferson's most panegyrical biographer declares Marshall to have been "an earnest and sincere man."[400]
The House of Delegates having refused to approve Washington, even indirectly, the matter went to the State Senate. There for a week Washington's friends fought hard and made a slight gain. The Senate struck out the House resolution and inserted instead: "The General Assembly entertain the highest sense of the integrity, patriotism and wisdom of the President of the United States, and in approving the vote of the Senators of the State in the Congress of the United States, relative to the treaty with Great Britain, they in no wise mean to censure the motives which influenced him in his conduct thereupon." To this the House agreed, although by a slender majority, Marshall, of course, voting for the Senate amendment.[401]
During this session Marshall was, as usual, on the principal standing committees and did his accustomed share of general legislative work. He was made chairman of a special committee to bring in a bill "authorizing one or more branches of the bank of the United States in this commonwealth";[402] and later presented the bill,[403] which finally passed, December 8, 1795, though not without resistance, 38 votes being cast against it.[404]
But the Republicans had not yet finished with the Jay Treaty or with its author. On December 12, 1795, they offered a resolution instructing Virginia's Senators and Representatives in Congress to attempt to secure amendments to the Constitution providing that: "Treaties containing stipulations upon the subject of powers vested in Congress shall be approved by the House of Representatives"; that "a tribunal other than the Senate be instituted for trying impeachments"; that "Senators shall be chosen for three years"; and that "U.S. Judges shall hold no other appointments."[405]
The Federalists moved to postpone this resolution until the following year "and print and distribute proposed amendments for the consideration of the people"; but they were beaten by a majority of 11 out of a total vote of 129, Marshall voting for the resolution. The instruction to secure these radical constitutional changes then passed the House by a majority of 56 out of a total vote of 120, Marshall voting against it.[406]
Marshall's brother-in-law, United States Marshal Carrington, had a hard time explaining to Washington his previous enthusiasm. He writes: "The active powers of the [Republican] party ... unveiled themselves, & carried in the House some points very extraordinary indeed, manifesting disrespect towards you." But, he continues, when the Virginia Senate reversed the House, "the zealots of Anarchy were backward to act ... while the friends of Order were satisfied to let it [the Virginia Senate amendment] remain for farther effects of reflection"; and later succeeded in carrying it.
"The fever has raged, come to its crisis, and is abating." Proof of this, argued Carrington, was the failure of the Republicans to get signatures to "some seditious petitions [against the Jay Treaty] which was sent in vast numbers from Philadelphia" and which "were at first patronized with great zeal by many of our distinguished anarchists; but ... very few copies will be sent to Congress fully signed."[407]
Never was appointive officer so oblivious of facts in his reports to his superior, as was Carrington. Before adjournment on December 12, 1795, the Legislature adopted part of the resolution which had been offered in the morning: "No treaty containing any stipulation upon the subject of powers vested in Congress by the eighth section of the first article [of the Constitution] shall become the Supreme law of the land until it shall have been approved in those particulars by a majority in the House of Representatives; and that the President, before he shall ratify any treaty, shall submit the same to the House of Representatives."[408]