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xxil PREFACE TO VOLUME TEN

there is a striking picture of the personages—lawyers
and judges—who clashed so strongly in the celebrated
trial of James Thompson Callender (p. 813).

It waa a picturesque gathering of Virginians that awaited the
opening of the United States Circuit Court on that summer mora-
ing, for the ugly fashions of the French Revolution had not as yet
found much favor in the Old Dominion, and kneebreeches, lw
shoes, buckles, buttons and queues tled with ribbons, were atill in
vogue. And yet it was not their dress but their faces and bearing
which particularly distinguished these gentlemen as they stood
talking with another under tha wide-sproading trees at the edge of
the public square, Many of them were clothed like Englleh farm-
ers, but they wore their dusty garments with an unmistakable air
of distinction, and their clean-shaven, clearcut features bespoke
dignity and intelligence. The center of one group was expecially
noticeable, hls strong and somewhat stern face indicating char-
acter in every line and the ease with which he held his auditors
singled him out as a master of men, This was John Marshall, dip-
Jomat and jurist and soon to become the official chief of the hated
Judge whose official program was summoning all the country-side.
In another group near Marshall stood a handsome, neatly-dressed
man about thirty years of age, tall, well formed and graceful, with
& hearty laugh and a confident manner that seemed to fascinate
those about him, particularly one keen, boylah-looking listener who
hung upon bis every word, for William Wirt was already the beau-
ideal of the junior bar, and Philip Nicholas had reason to felicttate
himself on being aasoclated with such a rising young advocate. In
thla same group stood George Hay, soon to become one of the best
known lawyers in the country, and beside him stood the distin-
guished leader of the Virginia bar, Edmund Randolph.

All these men were to meet again. under very different conditions
to conduet one of the most famous trials in American history, but for
the time being all profeastonal and political differences were mergod
tu their loyalty to the Virginia bar whose dignity and influence bade
fair to be seriously affected in the trial of James Thompson Callen-
der for seditious libel against the President of the United States.

That this was the first law passed by the national legislature
againat the freedom of the press and that its enforcement in Vir-
ginia threatened to provoke a confilct between the atate and the
Federal authorities, possibly involving the stability of the union,
was quite sufficient to arouse unprecedented interest in Callender’s
case, for these facts indicated a cause of vital importance which bade
tair to remult in the first State trial upon record In the Common-

2 Impeachment of Juége Samuel Chase, 11 Am. St, Trials,

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