heir
nature and hostilities not to be misunderstood. But this is a situation
of necessity, not of choice. It is one in which we are placed, not by
our own acts, but by the acts of others, and which we [shall] change so
soon as the conduct of others will permit us to change it."

For a month Marshall held both the office of Secretary of State and
that of Chief Justice; but at the close of John Adams' administration he
devoted himself exclusively to his judicial duties, never performing
thereafter any other public service, save that late in life he acted as
a member of the convention to revise the Constitution of Virginia.

It is an interesting fact that, prior to his appointment as Chief
Justice, Marshall had appeared only once before the Supreme Court, and
on that occasion he was unsuccessful. This appearance was in the case of
Ware _v_. Hylton, which was a suit brought by a British creditor to
compel the payment by a citizen of Virginia of a pre-Revolutionary debt,
in conformity with the stipulations of the treaty of peace. During the
Revolutionary War various States, among which was Virginia, passed acts
of sequestration and confiscation, by which it was provided that, if the
American debtor should pay into the State treasury the amount due to his
British creditor, such payment should constitute an effectual plea in
bar to a subsequent action for the recovery of the debt. When the
representatives of the United States and Great Britain met in Paris to
negotiate for peace, the question of the confiscated debts became a
subject of controversy, especially in connection with that of the claims
of the loyalists for the confiscation of their estates. Franklin and
Jay, though they did not advocate the policy of confiscating debts,
hesitated, chiefly on the ground of a want of authority in the existing
national government to override the acts of the States. But when John
Adams arrived on the scene, the situation soon changed. By one of those
dramatic strokes of which he was a master, he ended the discussion by
suddenly declaring, in the presence of the British plenipotentiaries,
that, so far as he was concerned, he "had no notion of cheating
anybody;" that the question of paying debts and the question of
compensating the loyalists were two; and that, while he was opposed to
compensating the loyalists, he would agree to a stipulation to secure
the payment of debts. It was therefore provided, in the fourth article
of the treaty