efferson thereupon left a card deploring how
"unlucky" he had been. Commenting years afterwards upon the occurrence,
Marshall remarked that this was one time at least when Jefferson came
NEAR telling the truth.

Through the warm insistence of Washington, Marshall was finally
persuaded in the spring of 1799 to stand as Federalist candidate for
Congress in the Richmond district. The expression of his views at this
time is significant. A correspondent of an Alexandria newspaper signing
himself "Freeholder" put to him a number of questions intended to call
forth Marshall's opinions on the issues of the day. In answering a query
as to whether he favored an alliance with Great Britain, the candidate
declared that the whole of his "politics respecting foreign nations" was
"reducible to this single position.... Commercial intercourse with all,
but political ties with none." But a more pressing issue on which the
public wished information was that furnished by the Alien and Sedition
laws, which Marshall had originally criticized on grounds both of
expediency and of constitutionality. Now, however, he defended these
measures on constitutional grounds, taking the latitudinarian position
that "powers necessary for the attainment of all objects which are
general in their nature, which interest all America,... would be
naturally vested in the Government of the whole," but he declared
himself strongly opposed to their renewal. At the same time he denounced
the Virginia Resolutions as calculated "to sap the foundations of our
Union."

The election was held late in April, under conditions which must have
added greatly to popular interest. Following the custom in Virginia, the
voter, instead of casting a ballot, merely declared his preference
in the presence of the candidates, the election officials, and the
assembled multitude. In the intensity of the struggle no voter, halt,
lame, or blind, was overlooked; and a barrel of whisky near at hand lent
further zest to the occasion. Time and again the vote in the district
was a tie, and as a result frequent personal encounters took place
between aroused partisans. Marshall's election by a narrow majority in a
borough which was strongly pro-Jeffersonian was due, indeed, not to his
principles but to his personal popularity and to the support which he
received from Patrick Henry, the former Governor of the State.

The most notable event of his brief stay in Congress was his successful
defense