This item was widely published in the Administration newspapers, including the Richmond Whig and Advertiser. To this paper Marshall wrote, denying the statement of the Baltimore publication: "Holding the situation I do ... I have thought it right to abstain from any public declarations on the election; ... I admit having said in private that though I had not voted since the establishment of the general ticket system, and had believed that I never should vote during its continuance, I might probably depart from my resolution in this instance, from the strong sense I felt of the injustice of the charge of corruption against the President & Secretary of State: I never did use the other expressions ascribed to me."[1272] This "card" the Enquirer reproduced, together with the item from the Marylander, commenting scathingly upon the methods of Adams's supporters.
Clay, deeply touched, wrote the Chief Justice of his appreciation and gratitude; but he is sorry that Marshall paid any attention to the matter "because it will subject you to a part of that abuse which is so indiscriminately applied to ... everything standing in the way of the election of a certain individual."[1273]
Marshall was sorely worried. He writes Story that the incident "provoked" him, "not because I have any objection to its being known that my private judgement is in favor of the re-election of Mr Adams, but because I have great objections to being represented in the character of a furious partisan. Intemperate language does not become my age or office, and is foreign from my disposition and habits. I was therefore not a little vexed at a publication which represented me as using language which could be uttered only by an angry party man."
He explains that the item got into the Marylander through a remark of one of his nephews "who was on the Adams convention" at Baltimore, to the effect that he had heard Marshall say that, although he had "not voted for upwards of twenty years" he "should probably vote at the ensuing election." His nephew wrote a denial, but it was not published. So, concludes Marshall, "I must bear the newspaper scurrility which I had hoped to escape, and which is generally reserved for more important personages than myself. It is some consolation that it does not wound me very deeply."[1274]
It would seem that Marshall had early resolved to go to any length to deprive the enemies of the National Judiciary of any pretext for attacking him or the Supreme Court because of any trace of partisan activity on his part. One of the largest tasks he had set for himself was to create public confidence in that tribunal, and to raise it above the suspicion that party considerations swayed its decisions. He had seen how nearly the arrogance and political activity of the first Federalist judges had wrecked the Supreme Court and the whole Judicial establishment, and had resolved, therefore, to lessen popular hostility to courts, as far as his neutral attitude to party controversies could accomplish that purpose.
It thus came about that Marshall refrained even from exercising his right of suffrage from 1804 to 1828—perhaps, indeed, to the end of his life, since it is not certain that he voted even at the election of 1828. Considering the intensity of his partisan feelings, his refusal to vote, during nearly all the long period when he was Chief Justice, was a real sacrifice, the extent of which may be measured by the fact that, according to his letter to Story, he did not even vote against Madison in 1812, notwithstanding the violence of his emotions aroused by the war.[1275]
On March 4, 1829, Marshall administered the oath of office to the newly elected President, Andrew Jackson. No two men ever faced one another more unlike in personality and character. The mild, gentle, benignant features of the Chief Justice contrasted strongly with the stern, rigid, and aggressive countenance of "Old Hickory." The one stood for the reign of law; the other for autocratic administration. In Jackson, whim, prejudice, hatred, and fierce affections were dominant; in Marshall, steady, level views of life and government, devotion to order and regularity, abhorrence of quarrel and feud, constancy and evenness in friendship or conviction, were the chief elements of character. Moreover, the Chief Justice personified the static forces of society; the new President was the product of a fresh upheaval of democracy, not unlike that which had placed Jefferson in power.
Marshall had administered the Presidential oath seven times before—twice each to Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, and once to John Quincy Adams. And now he was reading the solemn words to the passionate frontier soldier from whose wild, undisciplined character he feared so much. Marshall briefly writes his wife about the inauguration: "We had yesterday a most busy and crowded day. People have flocked to Washington from every quarter of the United States. When the oath was administered to the President the computation is that 12 or 15000 people were present—a great number of them ladies. A great ball was given at night to celebrate the election. I of course did not attend it. The affliction of our son[1276] would have been sufficient to restrain me had I even felt a desire to go."[1277] In a previous letter to his wife he forecast the crowds and commotion: "The whole world it is said will be here.... I wish I could leave it all and come to you. How much more delightful would it be to me to sit by your side than to witness all the pomp and parade of the inauguration."[1278]
Much as he had come to dislike taking part in politics or in public affairs, except in the discharge of his judicial duties, Marshall was prevailed upon to be a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-30. He refused, at first, to stand for the place and hastened to reassure his "dearest Polly." "I am told," he continues in his letter describing Jackson's induction into office, "by several that I am held up as a candidate for the convention. I have no desire to be in the convention and do not mean to be a candidate. I should not trouble you with this did I not apprehend that the idea of my wishing to be in the convention might prevent some of my friends who are themselves desirous of being in it from becoming candidates. I therefore wish you to give this information to Mr. Harvie.[1279]... Farewell my dearest Polly. Your happiness is always nearest the heart of your J. Marshall."[1280]
He yielded, however, and wrote Story of his disgust at having done so: "I am almost ashamed of my weakness and irresolution when I tell you that I am a member of our convention. I was in earnest when I told you that I would not come into that body, and really believed that I should adhere to that determination; but I have acted like a girl addressed by a gentleman she does not positively dislike, but is unwilling to marry. She is sure to yield to the advice and persuasion of her friends.... The body will contain a great deal of eloquence as well as talent, and yet will do, I fear, much harm with some good. Our freehold suffrage is, I believe, gone past redemption. It is impossible to resist the influence, I had almost said contagion of universal example."[1281]