Marshall's attitude in the Batture litigation intensified Jefferson's hatred for the Chief Justice, while Jefferson's conduct in the whole matter still further deepened Marshall's already profound belief that the great exponent of popular government was dishonest and cowardly. Story shared Marshall's views; indeed, the Batture controversy may be said to have furnished that personal element which completed Story's forming antagonism to Jefferson. "Who ... can remember, without regret, his conduct in relation to the batture of New Orleans?" wrote Story many years afterward.[296]
The Chief Justice attributed the attacks which Jefferson made upon him in later years to his opinion in Livingston vs. Jefferson, and to the views he was known to have held as to the merits of that case and Jefferson's course in relation to it. "The Batture will never be forgotten," wrote the Chief Justice some years later when commenting on the attacks upon the National Judiciary which he attributed to Jefferson.[297] Again: "The case of the mandamus[298] may be the cloak, but the batture is recollected with still more resentment."[299]
Events thus sharpened the hostility of Jefferson and his following to Marshall, but drew closer the bonds between the Chief Justice and Joseph Story. Once under Marshall's pleasing, steady, powerful influence, Story sped along the path of Nationalism until sometimes he was ahead of the great constructor who, as he advanced, was building an enduring and practicable highway.
FOOTNOTES:
[156] Jefferson to Madison, May 25,1810, Works: Ford, xi, 140.
"There is no man in the court that strikes me like Marshall.... I have never seen a man of whose intellect I had a higher opinion." (Webster to his brother, March 28, 1814, Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster: Webster, i, 244.)
[157] "In the possession of an ordinary man ... it [the office of Chief Justice] would be very apt to disgrace him." (Story to McLean, Oct. 12, 1835, Story, ii, 208.)
[158] Justice Duval's name is often, incorrectly, spelled with two "l's."
[159] "No man had ever a stronger influence upon the minds of others." (American Jurist, xiv, 242.)
[160] Ingersoll: Historical Sketch of the Second War between the United States and Great Britain, 2d Series, i, 74.