[183] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 58. Tracy's speech performed the miracle of making one convert. After he closed he was standing before the glowing fireplace, "half dead with his exertions." Senator Colhoun of South Carolina came to Tracy, and giving him his hand, said: "You are a stranger to me, sir, but by ---- you have made me your friend." Colhoun said that he "had been told a thousand lies" about the Federalist Judiciary Act, particularly the manner of passing it, and he had, therefore, been in favor of repealing it. But Tracy had convinced him, and Colhoun declared: "I shall be with you on the question." "May we depend upon you?" asked Tracy, wringing the South Carolina Senator's hand. "By ---- you may," was the response. (Morison: _Life of the Hon. Jeremiah Smith_, footnote to 147.) Colhoun kept his word and voted with the Federalists against his party's pet measure. (_Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 185.)
The correct spelling of this South Carolina Senator's name is _Colhoun_, and not C_a_lhoun, as given in so many biographical sketches of him. (See _South Carolina Magazine_ for July, 1906.)
[184] See Grigsby: _Virginia Convention of 1788_, II, 260-262.
This was the same Senator who, in violation of the rules of the Senate, gave to the press a copy of the Jay Treaty which the Senate was then considering. The publication of the treaty raised a storm of public wrath against that compact. (See vol. II, 115, of this work.) Senator Mason's action was the first occurrence in our history of a treaty thus divulged.
[186] In that case Marshall had issued a rule to the Secretary of State to show cause why a writ of mandamus should not be issued by the court ordering him to deliver to Marbury and his associates commissions as justices of the peace, to which offices President Adams had appointed them. (See _infra_, chap. III.)
[189] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 66. The eloquence of the Virginia Senator elicited the admiration of even the rabidly Federalist _Columbian Centinel_ of Boston. See issue of February 6, 1802.
[195] Morris notes in his diary that, on the same day, the Senate resolved "to admit a short-hand writer to their floor. This is the beginning of mischief." (Morris, II, 416-17.)