Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ... been practicable. The excise law was numbered with the slain. Every vestige of the past dynasty was disappearing. A new generation, which partook of the opinions around it, was stepping on the stage. Now was the time for a master spirit to appear, who might not only recover the lost ground, but gain fresh conquests. Politicians of both parties had long known the abilities of John Marshall. He had broken the force of many a democratic measure in the House of Delegates. In the convention of 1788, he seized with great tact the phantoms which the genius of Henry had raised, reduced them to substantial forms, and broke them on the wheel of his resistless logic. His correspondence with the French Directory, and especially the celebrated letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, almost a book in itself, which, though signed by Gerry and Cotesworth Pinckney, was from his pen, and which was not only unanswered but unanswerable, had been published in all the papers, and was universally applauded. His speech in the case of Jonathan Robbins, which was his first great effort in the House of Representatives, into which he entered soon after his return from France, raised his reputation still higher in the estimation alike of friends and opponents. And it was hoped that a history from his hand of the federal party during the administration of Washington, and under the wing of his great name, would make a deep impression on the popular mind. But to be effectual it must come forth at once. The most courteous republican was not bound to wait for it. A princely sum, then unknown in the annals of American authorship, awaited its completion. And in due time, and in five volumes, it made its appearance. Mr. Jefferson was in the second year of his second...
