John Marshall is one of the most
famous Americans of all time. He was the third chief justice of the United
States and is credited at having created the modern Supreme Court. He also had
a nasty relationship with his distant cousin, Thomas Jefferson. Although their political
rivalry is one of the best known stories, some of the vitriol attributed to
Marshall about Jefferson actually accrued from a miscopied quotation.
In 1916, Albert Beveridge wrote
what would become the definitive biography of John Marshall. For decades, it
stood as the single most important work on the great chief justice. And for
decades, its quotations were copied by later scholars. Too lazy to look up the
original source of the quotation, they had no idea that they were perpetrating
a writing error—over and over again.
The story goes like this: When
Jefferson assumed the presidency, the nation was divided politically between
the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. As you might remember, Marshall
was of the Federalist persuasion and
Jefferson the leader of the new Democratic-Republicans. Writing about the new
president, Marshall said, “The democrats [today we would capitalize that word]
are divided into speculative theorists and absolute terrorists. With the
latter, I am not disposed to class Mr. Jefferson.” Sounds relatively mild and
reasonable, right?
Change one word in that quotation, though,
and the meaning becomes diametrically opposite Marshall’s intention; indeed, it
becomes downright vitriolic. Here’s how Beveridge misquoted Marshall: “The
democrats are divided into speculative theorists and absolute terrorists. With
the latter, I am disposed to class Mr. Jefferson.” Big historical oops.
The bigger oops, though, came from
the generation of scholars who accepted Beveridge’s quotation without going to
the original source to check for themselves. Marshall was, as Jean Edward Smith
has pointed out, painted as far more conservative than he actually was.[1]
Don’t make the historical oops.
Find the original source whenever you possibly can.
[1] Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation (New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), 18.
