At the inn was an old gentleman from the country who had come to Richmond where a lawsuit, to which he was a party, was to be tried. The venerable litigant had a hundred dollars to pay to the lawyer who should conduct the case, a very large fee for those days. Who was the best lawyer in Richmond, asked he of his host? "The man who just passed us, John Marshall by name," said the tavern-keeper. But the countryman would have none of Marshall. His appearance did not fill the old man's idea of a practitioner before the courts. He wanted, for his hundred dollars, a lawyer who looked like a lawyer. He would go to the court-room itself and there ask for further recommendation. But again he was told by the clerk of the court to retain Marshall, who, meanwhile, had ambled into the court-room.
But no! This searcher for a legal champion would use his own judgment. Soon a venerable, dignified person, solemn of face, with black coat and powdered wig, entered the room. At once the planter retained him. The client remained in the court-room, it appears, to listen to the lawyers in the other cases that were ahead of his own. Thus he heard the pompous advocate whom he had chosen; and then, in astonishment, listened to Marshall.
The attorney of impressive appearance turned out to be so inferior to the eccentric-looking advocate that the planter went to Marshall, frankly told him the circumstances, and apologized. Explaining that he had but five dollars left, the troubled old farmer asked Marshall whether he would conduct his case for that amount. With a kindly jest about the power of a black coat and a powdered wig, Marshall good-naturedly accepted.[457]
This not too highly colored story is justified by all reports of Marshall that have come down to us. It is some such picture that we must keep before us as we follow this astonishing man in the henceforth easy and giant, albeit accidental, strides of his great career. John Marshall, after he had become the leading lawyer of Virginia, and, indeed, throughout his life, was the simple, unaffected man whom the tale describes. Perhaps consciousness of his own strength contributed to his disregard of personal appearance and contempt for studied manners. For Marshall knew that he carried heavier guns than other men. "No one," says Story, who knew him long and intimately, "ever possessed a more entire sense of his own extraordinary talents ... than he."[458]
Marshall's most careful contemporary observer, William Wirt, tells us that Marshall was "in his person, tall, meagre, emaciated; his muscles relaxed and his joints so loosely connected, as not only to disqualify him, apparently, for any vigorous exertion of body, but to destroy everything like elegance and harmony in his air and movements.
"Indeed, in his whole appearance, and demeanour; dress, attitudes, gesture; sitting, standing, or walking; he is as far removed from the idolized graces of lord Chesterfield, as any other gentleman on earth.
"To continue the portrait; his head and face are small in proportion to his height; his complexion swarthy; the muscles of his face being relaxed; ... his countenance has a faithful expression of great good humour and hilarity; while his black eyes—that unerring index—possess an irradiating spirit which proclaims the imperial powers of the mind that sits enthroned within....
"His voice is dry, and hard; his attitude, in his most effective orations, often extremely awkward; as it was not unusual for him to stand with his left foot in advance, while all his gesture proceeded from his right arm, and consisted merely in a vehement, perpendicular swing of it from about the elevation of his head to the bar, behind which he was accustomed to stand."[459]
During all the years of clamorous happenings, from the great Virginia Convention of 1788 down to the beginning of Adams's Administration and in the midst of his own active part in the strenuous politics of the time, Marshall practiced his profession, although intermittently. However, during the critical three weeks of plot and plan, debate and oratory in the famous month of June, 1788, he managed to do some "law business": while Virginia's Constitutional Convention was in session, he received twenty fees, most of them of one and two pounds and the largest from "Colọ W. Miles Cary 6.4." He drew a deed for his fellow member of the Convention, James Madison, while the Convention was in session, for which he charged his colleague one pound and four shillings.
But there was no time for card-playing during this notable month and no whist or backgammon entries appear in Marshall's Account Book. Earlier in the year we find such social expenses as "Card table 5.10 Cards 8/ paper 2/-6" and "expenses and loss at billiards at dift times 3" (pounds). In September, 1788, occurs the first entry for professional literature, "Law books 20/-1"; but a more important book purchase was that of "Mazai's book sur les etats unis[460] 18" (shillings), an entry which shows that some of Marshall's family could read French.[461]