"Guilty!"; on the fifth, the Senate was unanimous for Chase.

Upon the eighth article - Chase's political charge to the Baltimore grand jury-the desperate Republicans tried to recover, Giles now leading them. Indeed, it may be for this that he cast his first vote with his party brethren from the North - he may have thought thus to influence them on the one really strong charge against the accused Justice. If so, his stratagem was futile. The five Northern Republicans (Bradley and Smith of Vermont, Mitchell and Smith of New York, and John Smith of Ohio) stood firm for acquittal as did the obstinate John Gaillard of South Carolina.1

The punctilious Burr ordered the names of Senators and their recorded answers to be read for verification. He then announced the result: "It appears that there is not a constitutional majority of votes finding Samuel Chase, Esq. guilty of any one article. It therefore becomes my duty to declare that Samuel Chase, Esq. stands acquitted of all the articles exhibited by the House of Representatives against him.” 3

The fight was over. There were thirty-four Senators, nine of them Federalists, twenty-five Republi1 Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 665-69; Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, 1, 362-63. 2 Ib. 363.

Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 669. By this time Burr had changed to admiration the disapproval with which the Federalist Senators had, at first, regarded his conduct of the trial. "Mr. Burr has certainly, on the whole, done himself, the Senate, and the Nation honor by the dignified manner in which he has presided over this high and numerous court," testifies Senator Plumer, notwithstanding his deep prejudice against Burr. (Plumer, March 1, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)

cans. Twenty-two votes were necessary to convict. At their strongest the Republicans had been able to muster less than one fifth of their entire strength. Six of their number — the New York and Vermont Senators, together with John Gaillard of South Carolina and John Smith of Ohio had answered "not guilty" on every article.

For the first time since his appointment, John Marshall was secure as the head of the Supreme Bench.1 For the first time since Jefferson's election, the National Judiciary was, for a period, rendered independent. For the first time in five years, the Federalist members of the Nation's highest tribunal could go about their duties without fear that upon them would fall the avenging blade of impeachment which had for half a decade hung over them. One of the few really great crises in American history had passed.2

"The greatest and most important trial ever held in this nation has terminated justly," wrote Senator Plumer to his son. "The venerable judge whose head bears the frost of seventy winters, is honorably acquitted. I never witnessed, in any place, such a display of learning as the counsel for the accused exhibited." 4

Chagrin, anger, humiliation, raged in Randolph's heart. His long legs could not stride as fast as his 1 See Adams: U.S. II, 243.

2 See Plumer, 324; Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, 1, 371; Adams: John Randolph, 131-32, 152; Channing: Jeff. System, 120; Adams: U.S. II, 243.

an unusual inaccu

Plumer here adds six years to Chase's age racy in the diary of that born newspaper reporter. Plumer to his son, March 3, 1805, Plumer, 325.

frenzy, when, rushing from the scene of defeat, he flew to the floor of the House. There he offered an amendment to the Constitution providing that the President might remove National judges on the joint address of both Houses of Congress.1 "Tempest in the House," records Cutler.2

Nicholson was almost as frantic with wrath, and quickly followed with a proposal so to amend the Constitution that State Legislatures might, at will, recall Senators.3

Republicans now began to complain to their party foes of one another. Over a "rubber of whist" with John Quincy Adams, Senator Jackson of Georgia, even before the trial, had spoken "slightingly both of Mr. John Randolph and of Mr. Nicholson";1 and this criticism of Republicans inter se now increased,

Jefferson's feelings were balanced between grief and glee; his mourning over the untoward result of his cherished programme of judicial reform was ameliorated by his pleasure at the overthrow of the unruly Randolph," who had presumed to dissent from the President's Georgia land policy. The great politician's cup of disappointment, which the acquittal of Chase had filled, was also sweetened by the knowledge that Republican restlessness in the Northern States would be quieted; the Federalists who were ready, on other grounds, to come to his 1 Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1213; and see Annual Report, Am. Hist. Assn. 1896, II, 64; also Adams: U.S. II, 240.

2 Cutler, II, 185.

Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1213; and see J. Q. Adams to his father, March 14, 1805, Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, III, 117.

Jan. 30, 1805, Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, 1, 341.

See Adams: U.S. ш, 243.

See infra, chap. x.

standard would be encouraged to do so; and the New England secession propaganda would be deprived of a strong argument. He confided to the gossipy William Plumer, the Federalist New Hampshire Senator, that "impeachment is a farce which will not be tried again.” 1

1

The Chief Justice of the United States, his peril over, was silent and again serene, his wonted composure returned, his courage restored. He calmly awaited the hour when the wisdom of events should call upon him to render another and immortal service to the American Nation. That hour was not to be long delayed.

fold.

Plumer, 325. Jefferson soon took Plumer into the Republican

CHAPTER V

BIOGRAPHER

Marshall has written libels on one side. (Jefferson.)

What seemed to him to pass for dignity, will, by his reader, be pronounced dullness. (Edinburgh Review.)

That work was hurried into the world with too much precipitation. It is one of the most desirable objects I have in this life to publish a corrected edition. (Marshall.)

ALTHOUGH the collapse of the Chase impeachment made it certain that Marshall would not be removed from office, and he was thus relieved from one source of sharp anxiety, two other causes of worry served to make this period of his life harried and laborious. His heavy indebtedness to Denny Fairfax 1 continuously troubled him; and, worse still for his peace of mind, he was experiencing the agonies of the literary composer temperamentally unfitted for the task, wholly unskilled in the art, and dealing with a subject sure to arouse the resentment of Jefferson and all his followers. Marshall was writing the "Life of Washington."

In a sense it is fortunate for us that he did so, since his long and tiresome letters to his publishers afford us an intimate view of the great Chief Justice and reveal him as very human. But the biography itself was to prove the least satisfactory of all the labors of Marshall's life.

Not long after the death of Washington, his nephew, Bushrod Washington, had induced Marshall 1 See vol. II, 210-12, of this work.