So dependent were the States, that a publisher who dared to bring out a native work did so at a financial peril. The first edition of Trumbull's Poems lost one thousand dollars. Morse's Geography, text-books, and the classics were the only remunerative publications. But soon after the War of 1812, evidences of a change were manifest. The attention of American writers heretofore had been occupied largely with the rights of man and other political theories borrowed from the Old World. Democracy had now adjusted itself to the conditions of the New World and had become practical. Wild-eyed theory had given way to plain fact. Economic questions, begotten of the new domestic conditions, were beginning to occupy public attention. Abstract political rights became secondary to the price and production of cotton, the encouragement of manufactures, the invention of machinery, means of transportation, the employment of emigrants, and the economic value of the slavery system. In 1819, Irving refused a remunerative offer to contribute to the London Quarterly, because it had been unremitting in its abuse of his countrymen. He preferred to patronise a home publication.
This declaration of literary independence was indicative of the times. Between the close of the war and the end of Jackson's second administration, probably one hundred and fifty periodicals, entirely separate from the newspapers, were established in the United States. About one-third of them was of a religious character, and as many more devoted to some kind of philanthropic purpose, like temperance, African colonisation, and missionary work. Their nature may be indicated by such titles as The New York Mirror, The Casket, The Evangelical Guardian, The Portico, The Lady Book, The Boston Pearl, The Cincinnati Mirror, and The Family Lyceum. Many of these lived only a year or two, yet they show a desire among the people for a native literature, however crude and sentimental it might be. During this period also came the evanescent "Annual," a species of vapid literature borrowed from Germany through England. Upon the centre-table, near the case of stuffed birds, you could find The Token or The Pearl. Perhaps the giver had preferred The Casket or The Western Souvenir. Symptoms of a more advanced regard were denoted by the choice of the Remember Me.
The largest number of these ephemeral periodicals appeared in New York, and the next largest in Philadelphia. Boston ranked third. Philadelphia, the home of Franklin, of Hopkinson, and of Rittenhouse, had been the literary head of America before the War of 1812. So long as the Ohio River remained the natural highway to the West, her literary products found a market which no competitor could take away. But with the development of other ways, and especially with the opening of the Erie Canal, New York and Boston gradually won these laurels from her.
Indeed, the West began to supply its own wants. Of these transitory publications, no less than seventeen were established west of the Alleghenies. As early as 1803, a literary magazine had been founded at Lexington, Kentucky, the seat of the Transylvania University and the centre of culture for the Ohio valley. Even villages aspired to be "the Athens of the West." Mt. Pleasant and Oxford in the State of Ohio vied with Rogersville, Tennessee, and Vandalia, Illinois, in establishing literary magazines and fostering literary pursuits.
All this marks simply a stage in the development of American literature, as it shows a step in the growth of American nationality. Permanent literature awaited better printing facilities, larger patronage of letters, improved postal accommodations, the growth of cities, and more leisure and more refinement. Prophecies of a true national awakening are to be sought not alone in the Monroe doctrine, the tariff and bank issues, and the spread of internal improvements,—political events which commonly eclipse the intellectual aspects of nationality; but also in the Unitarian revolt of 1815, led by Channing, which loosed New England from the stiffening bonds of Calvinism, the Quaker schism in the Middle States, and the birth of the Campbellites in the West. The goodness of man was beginning to attract more attention than the total depravity of man. The North American Review was founded in 1815. Four years later, Irving published the Sketch-Book. Bryant's first volume of poems, treating generally of local themes, appeared in 1820. During the ensuing ten years Cooper gave out eleven novels, the scenes of which were laid almost exclusively in America. Only the world-reform movement of 1830 was needed to develop fully an American literature.
Although not so immediately connected with the people, this story must not lose sight of another function of the government of the States which was steadily making for their unification. The Federal Judiciary, the one branch of the national frame which the Republicans in their twenty years of national control had not been able to curb or get possession of, was following the bias which John Marshall's first decisions gave to it. Abuses in the Legislative and Executive branches could be corrected by an appeal to the ballot. Substantial proof of the efficacy of this corrective was to be found in the Alien and Sedition laws, according to the Republicans. They claimed to have appealed to the people in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and the people had cast the offending party from power. But the Judiciary was entrenched in life tenure and not susceptible to this remedy. It was a constant regret to Jefferson to the end of his life that the corrective measures taken by him and his party against the national courts had not included an amendment changing the life tenure of the judges to a definite period of years. The idea of a permanent Judiciary had been one of the results of the political struggle with Great Britain preceding the Revolution. Jefferson also regretted that no one in the Convention of 1787 had thought of changing the vote necessary for removing a judge by impeachment from two-thirds to a majority.
Year after year, during the Republican administrations, the national Judiciary had been quietly shoring up by its decisions the fabric of the Union, as fate compelled the Jeffersonians to erect it. The "formative decisions" of John Marshall, during his thirty-four years on the Supreme bench, maintained constantly the rights of the Federal courts and added to the prerogatives of the Central Government against the States. Scarcely a decision favoured the reserved rights theory. By the opinion in Marbury vs. Madison, already quoted, the Executive branch, presumably entirely divorced from the Judiciary, was found to be under a certain control. The case of Cohens vs. Virginia sustained the power of the Federal court over an appeal from a State court. It often happened that in a decision, as in the case of Insurance Company vs. Canter, Marshall took occasion to bring out deductions remotely germane to the pending case, but tending to broaden the scope of the Federal power. In this instance, he declared that the constitutional power to make a treaty carried the implied power to acquire territory. This really gave authority to unauthorised acts of the Republicans in purchasing Louisiana; but their remedy was an amendment and not a decision which made the legislative and executive powers still more dependent upon the judiciary.
Jefferson complained of these "obiter dissertations," which suggested consolidating actions to other parts of the Federal Government. In the trial of Aaron Burr for treason, Justice Marshall held that, according to the Constitution, some overt act was necessary to constitute treason. This practical release of his former political opponent was to Jefferson as sore a grievance as Marshall's action in sending to him for certain papers connected with the case. He declared the latter act a presumptuous infringement upon the dignity of the Chief Executive.
The case of McCulloch vs. Maryland, in 1819, denying the right of a State to tax a branch of the United States bank, afforded the court an opportunity of dwelling upon the implied powers in the Constitution and of giving judicial sanction to the various legislative acts already done under them. To charter a bank was not among the powers given to the National Government, but was "implied," as Marshall held. The decision gave great offence to the particularists and called general attention to this silent Union-making factor. Various Southern writers took up pens against this new menace to individual rights. Some State Legislatures adopted protests. Madison alluded sarcastically to the "projectile capacity" of the court, whereby it extended the power of Congress from the exclusive jurisdiction reserve of ten miles square constituting the District, even to the uttermost parts of the country. The "twistifications" of Marshall, said Jefferson, showed how dexterously he could reconcile law to his personal biasses. Indeed, Jefferson confessed that he did not look for unbiassed opinions between the National Government, of which the court was so eminent a part, and individual States, from which they had nothing to fear. "They are then in fact the corps of sappers and miners," said he, "steadily working to undermine the independent rights of the States, and to consolidate all powers in the hands of that Government in which they have so important a freehold estate." He could see no hope for the future. Even more would he have despaired if he could have known that this silent factor in making the Union was to continue until the eighty years of John Marshall's life were ended, before a strict constructionist could be appointed to the head of the court and bring its decisions back to the confines of individualism.
[Illustration: JOHN MARSHALL Chief Justice of the United States, 1801- 1836.]