Note 1127 — Chapter X

Lee to Randolph, Oct. 16, 1787; Elliott, i, 503. Upon the publication of this correspondence a young Richmond attorney, Spencer Roane, the son-in-law of Patrick Henry, in an article signed "Plain Dealer," published in the Virginia Gazette, attacked Randolph for inconsistency. "Good God! How can the first magistrate and father of a pure republican government ... before his proposed plan of amendment has been determined upon, declare that he will accept a Constitution which is to beget a monarchy or an aristocracy?... Can he foretell future events? How else can he at this time discover what the 'spirit of America' is?... How far will this principle carry him? Why, ... if the dominion of Shays, instead of that of the new Constitution, should be generally accepted, and become 'the spirit of America,' his Excellency would turn Shayite." (Plain Dealer to Randolph, Feb. 13, 1788; Ford: Essays on the Constitution, 385; also Branch Hist. Papers, 47.) Roane's letter is important as the first expression of his hostility to the Constitution. He was to become the determined enemy of Marshall; and, as the ablest judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals, the chief judicial foe of Marshall's Nationalism. (See vol. III of this work.)