William Branch Giles: a biography

Front matter

^oo^

.0^^,

N c

Chapter I Early Years

If legend could be accepted as truth the biographer of William Branch Giles would be compelled to go back at least as far as Roman days. For Caius Licinius Stolo, author of the Licinian rogations, also discovered "the best method of clearing away" "useless suckers" from trees and furnished to his family occasion to place the "verdant branch" upon their coat of arms. All the Branches, Brancos, Braunches, Branshes and the rest, whether found in Spain, France, Italy, England, or America, according to the story, owe the origin of their name to the horticultural genius of the ancient patriot. It may, as says the family genealogist, to whom the present writer is much indebted, be "a deal more easy to shrug aside the Licinian origin of the Branches than it is to disprove it."^ But this writer will attempt to do neither, and will pass on therefore, to the next items in the list. The reliable history of that portion of the Branch famil}"^ in which we are interested, begins with Richard Branch who moved to Abingdon in Berkshire County, England, in the latter part of the fifteenth century. This Richard was a woolen draper by trade and likewise master of the important guild entitled, the Fraternity of the Holy Cross. His second son was William Branch, mayor of Abingdon, who married into the ancient family of Bostock. Lionel, third son of the aforesaid William, was an "unthrifty and disobedient son" and left his son Christopher with such small support that at the age of seventeen years Christopher and wife set sail for the new land of promise — the land of the Virgin Queen.

They settled at "Arrowhattocks" in that part of Henrico County subsequently to be called the County of Chesterfield.

* James Branch Cabell, — "Branch of Abingdon." To this book and its companion, "Branchiana", I am indebted for some genealogical matter.

Christopher Branch's son and grandson bore the same Christian name as himself. The third of that prenomen had a son Henry by name, to whom was given in the providence of God a daughter, Ann. Ann Branch married William Giles, father of the subject of our biography.

William Giles, the father of William Branch Giles, was the son of John Giles, who was the son of William Giles and Bethenia Knowles, the only child of Captain John Knowles who left any issue. William Branch Giles, born August 12, 1762, was the youngest child of William Giles and Ann Branch. There was an older brother, John, who served in the Revolutionary war and received bounty lands in Kentucky which on his earl}'^ death he is said to have left to his younger brother.^ Of John an interesting story is told by Colonel William Fontaine in a letter dated October 26, 1781, seven days after the surrender at Yorktown of which he writes: "All property taken from the inhabitants by the British is liable to be claimed by them. In consequence Master Tarleton met with a most severe mortification yesterday. The hero was prancing through the streets of York on a very fiery, elegant horse, and was met by a spirited young fellow of the country, who stopped him, challenged the horse and ordered him instantly to dismount. Tarleton halted and paused a while through confusion, then told the lad if it was his horse, he supposed he must be given up, but insisted to ride him some distance out of town to dine with a French officer. This was more, however, than Mr. Giles was disposed to indulge him in, having been forced when he and his horse were taken to travel good part of the night on foot at the point of the bayonet; he therefore refused to trust him out of sight, and made him dismount in the midst of the street crowded with spectators. Many such instances have since happened on the road."^

^ MS. Memoirs of Mrs. William Overton, a granddaughter of William B. Giles.

* Memoirs of a Huguenot Family. Translated and compiled from the original autobiography of the Rev. James Fontaine, etc., by Ann Maury, N. Y. 1853, pp. 444-447.

Eaely Years 3

The father of the statesman was a man of influence in the county of Amelia and vestryman of the parish church.* When he died his son William Branch became executor under a bond of 5000 pounds and on the death of the widow, William B. was to receive her five hundred and seventy-six of the nine hundred and seventy-six acres belonging to the home place.^ To these five hundred and seventy-six acres Congressman Giles — for the father died in 1793 — was to add many hundred more.

To understand the life of Giles one must understand the section and county of Virginia in which he and his people for two generations before him had lived. Amelia county is one of the eastern counties of the great Piedmont section of Virginia. Set off from Prince George in 1734, it bore during the youth of Giles some of the characteristics of a semifrontier region. It was sparsely settled, its roads were bad, and though rich in gentle blood and distinguished citizens, gave to the traveler no very pleasant impression. According to a neighboring clergyman writing in 1776 "it had for many years been notorious for carelessness, profaneness, and immoralities of all kinds. Gaming, swearing, drunkenness, and the like, were their delight, while things sacred were their scorn and contempt."^ Francis Asbury, however, writing in 1804 speaks of "solitary Amelia, with its worn out fields of hundreds of acres, and old houses falling into ruins."' Into Amelia as into the rest of the Piedmont and western portions of the state dissenting sects and preachers found their way. The wave of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians passing from Hanover west and the wave from the valley passing east made their contribution to the population of the circle of counties within which Amelia lay.^ In 1771, also, the separatist Baptists of Virginia had in this county their largest congregation.^ And in May 1780, dissenters from Amelia sent a petition to the legislature desiring that the vestries in

* See Order Book of Amelia County 1780-1782, 26. Meade's Old Churches, Ministers, and Families, ii, 22.

^ Will Book of Amelia County 5:107.

*Asbury's Journal, vol. i, 211 (3 volume edition, N. Y., 1852).

nbid, vol. iii, 169.

* Meade, ii, 20.

•Semple, Virginia Baptists (Beale's revision), 70.

the several parishes be dissolved and hereafter be freely elected by the people ; further also, that marriages by dissenting ministers be declared lawful.''' The established church of which William Giles was vestryman had fallen into a bad way. From 1773 to 1776, the minister in Raleigh "parish- was Rev. John Brunskill — and to his unpopularity is attributed some of the misfortunes of the established church in the county. Brunskill was a loyalist — an imprudent loyalist. He is alleged to have declared from his pulpit that to take part in the Revolution was rebellion. The Archers, the Tabbs, the Egglestons, and probabl}^ the Gileses arose on this occasion and walked deliberately from the building threatening bodily chastisement on the "execrable parricide. "^^ What Episcopalians remained faithful, no doubt, were not far removed in faith and practice from the dissenting sects. The soil of Amelia, therefore, was suitable for a gospel of discontent and democracy. Amelia county was fated to follow Jefferson and Giles.

In such an environment was Giles born and brought up. Nothing whatever of his j^outh has come down to us. His father was anxious that his youngest son should receive an education and therefore sent him to the newly-established college of Hampden-Sidne3^ Hampden-Sidney College, located in Prince Edward county, the next county southwest from Amelia, was established by the Presbyterian Scotch-Irish of Virginia and was liberally patronized by ambitious young men of the Piedmont section of the state. At Hampden-Sidney, Giles was under the immediate care of President Samuel Stanhope Smith, an eloquent preacher as well as able administrator. When President Smith resigned in 1779 to accept the chair of Moral Philosophy in another Presbyterian College dear to the hearts of Piedmonters, the college of New Jersey, he took along with him a number of Virginians and Hampden-Sidney students. Indeed it was no unusual occurrence for sprightly young men from the regions of the south to make their educational pilgrimages to the famous Presbyterian College at the north. James

" See Copy in James's Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia, 70.

" Meade, Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia, ii, 21.

Early Years 6

Madison and Henry Lee both had done so, and many of Giles's associates in Virginia were Princeton men. He and his negro^^ under the especial care of Professor Smith went along with the rest. Giles's most cherished friend, Abraham B. Venable, his predecessor in the Senate of the United States, and a victim of the horrible theatre fire in Richmond in 1811, was a fellow student as were the two other Venable boys, Samuel and Richard N. Also many of his associates in national politics were fellow students during a part of his course. The most distinguished of his classmates in 1781 was Edward Livingston, afterwards member of Congress, Secretary of State, and Minister to France.'^ Livingston and Giles, with four others received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at the Commencement of 1781. From Princeton, Giles went to William and Mary, following another precedent established by eminent men — to study under the great legal teacher. Chancellor Wythe. In the Amelia County Order Book under date of December 22, 1785, occurs the following item : "On motion of William B. Giles Gent this court doth recommend the said William B. Giles to the Examiners appointed by laAv as a Person of Probity Honesty and Grand Demesne." On the twenty-third of March, 1786, the said "William B. Giles Gent." produced his license, and was admitted to practice in the Court." Launching into the practice of the law, he qualified in the courts of Petersburg and the neighboring counties.

Petersburg, where by 1790 Giles had a "house,"'^ "was a tojerably neat little town, built along the riverside, only two streets deep, and a mile and a half in extent, on a hill of pretty rapid elevation." Its society was "polite, obliging, and hospitable." Its principal business was the tobacco trade. Wagons bearing hogsheads of this product came in from the ^The wealthier Virginians took negroes with them when they went off to school. For instance in 1754 eight of the students at M'illiam and Mary had negroes to wait on them.

"See Samuel Davies Alexander— "Princeton during the Eighteenth Century," N. Y., 1873. This gives a list of the graduating classes and very brief biographical sketches.

" Amelia County Order Book.

« Letter of Edward Bland, May 27, 1790. Ms. Va. Historical Society.

surrounding counties of Virginia, but especially from North Carolina for which Petersburg served as an emporium. As at Richmond, flour mills were in abundance, and churches scarce.^® But this deficiency bothered young Giles no whit for he had in early days no great reputation for piety — however much the court of Amelia may have found him to be a "Person of Probity Honesty and Grand Demesne." "Giles's career at the bar," says a friend, "was rapid and successful beyond precedent." In opposition to Patrick Henry in a case, he won the praise of the great orator for his manner of conducting his side of the controversy.^" Frequently he was called upon to plead the cases of British creditors.

It has proved impossible to find details of Giles's professional career ; it is known that his career at the bar was notable. He continued the practice of the law during his congressional life, and was called by Jefferson a lawyer of eminence.^'"^ According to Giles himself, by 1792 he had been employed in at least one hundred British debt cases, and was "as successful in collecting monies under judgments as is usually the case with citizens of the state of Virginia." It is interesting to note his remark that "in all cases within my recollection in which the debts were established by competent testimony, judgments were rendered for the plaintiff."^ ^ This was also the opinion of Monroe, who says that it was always the contention of ablest counsel at the bar that there was no state law in the way of the collection of debts due British creditors, and that if there had been the Treaty would control it. However, Monroe admits that British merchants declined bringing suits before the formation of the National Government, but claims that since the peace of 1783 they had been progressing with great success in amicable settlements.'"

** The Jom-nal of Latrobe, 107-110. See also description by Schoepf in his Travels (translation by Morrison), vol. 2, 72.

" Richmond Enquirer, December 16, 1830.

"Am. State Papers, Foreign, I, 234.

^ Letter of Jefferson, May 6, 1792. Jefferson MSS. Library of Congress. See also Am. St. Papers, For. I, 234.

^^ Am. State Papers, For. I, 234. Monroe was in a position to know, as he went all over the State pleading for the creditors.

Early Years 7

Because of the prominence of these cases in Giles's law practice it will be desirable to give some account of the question at issue. Before the Revolution Virginia planters sent their tobacco to England in payment for British goods brought up to their very doors by British ships. The balance, however, was generally against the planter, and when the Revolution came, Virginians owed much to creditors in the old country.^^ An act of the General Assembly in 1 777^2 allowed the debtor to pay his debt into the loan ofBce of the state. Another act of 1779"'^ vested British property in the Commonwealth by escheat and forfeiture. The Treaty of 1783, however, stipulated that creditors on neither side should meet with lawful impediment to the recovery of their bona fide debts. But despite the treaty, the British failed to surrender the western posts which they held or to make payment for negroes which they had carried off. Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in June, 1784, declared that "so soon as reparation is made for the aforesaid infraction [carrying off negroes], or Congress shall judge it indispensably necessary such acts of the legislature passed during the late war, as inhibit the recovery of British debts, ought to be repealed, and payment made thereof in such time and manner as shall consist with the exhausted situation of this commonwealth."^* An act of December 12, 1787, repeals all laws preventing the recovery of debts due British subjects but suspends this repeal until the posts have been surrendered and negroes paid for;"^ another act left to the courts the determination as to whether debts paid into the loan office were discharged.^® In the meantime the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties made under the authority of the United States had become the supreme law of the land. The cases in which Giles was interested probably all fell after 1787.

^ The British claimed the amount was £2,000,000. The Complete Anas of Jefferson, 78.

^^ Journal House of Delegates, May Session, 1784, 74.

^ Act, January 3, 1788.

The argument which Giles offered was probably that known to have been offered in other cases. The laws of Virginia passed during tlie Revolution, said British creditors, did not confiscate debts, for debts are in international law not subject to confiscation. But in any case the Treaty of 1783 was superior to the laws of the States and the Treaty had not been abrogated by violations committed by Englishmen. The cases were probably the most valuable which Giles could have argued — they necessitated a study of the statutes and history of Virginia, a reading of Vattel and all the great authorities on international law; and an interpretation of the Federal Constitution. They offered him an education, useful in his public career. But the nationalistic inclination which he immediately received was to be very quickly outgrown.

Although a faithful lawyer and little of a politician down to 1790, Giles was an interested observer of all that was going on. During the sessions of the convention of 1788 when the great struggle between the giants was taking place over the question of the ratification by Virginia of the Federal Constitution, William B. Giles was among the young men who crowded to Richmond to be spectators of the wonderful contest."^ George Mason heard him discuss the merits of the great question at a hotel, and later in the day is said to have reported : "there was a stripling of a lawyer at the Hotel this morning who has as much sense as one-half of us, though he is on the wrong side."'^ Giles was an enthusiastic supporter of the new Constitution, and as is well-known, Mason was one of its leading opponents.

The Constitution was ratified, the government organized, Giles continued to practice law. However, in 1790 a vacancy occurred in the representation in Congress from his district through the death of Theodorick Bland. Entering the race for the vacant seat the young lawyer found himself opposed by Colonel Edmunds, a wounded veteran of the Revolutionary' war, and very popular. Vigorously espousing the cause of the new

^ Collections of the Va. Hist. Society, New Series, vcls. IX, X. Grigsby's History of the Virginia Convention of 1788 edited by R. A. Brock. =* Enquirer, Dec. 16, 1830.

Early Years 9

Constitution, disdaining to ask for a vote or adopt any questionable means to secure the victory, he won by virtue of his cause and his ability. ^^ He entered the national service at the early age of twenty-eight and was to remain in it almost continuously for a quarter of a century. He was to play one of the most prominent roles in the history of our national legislature.

Chapter II Fighting The Federalists

To anyone who has followed the subsequent career of Giles it is diverting to learn that he bore with him to Philadelphia a letter of introduction to Madison written by John Marshall who calls the young Petersburg attorney "my friend. "^° The future chief justice, however, must have been very cautious in recommending his friends, if this letter is a fair sample of his recommendations: "My friend Mr. Giles," he says, "will present you this. He is particularly desirous of being known to you. I should not presume so far on the degree of your acquaintance with which I have been honored as to introduce a gentleman to your attention if I did not persuade myself that you will never regret or change any favorable opinion you may form of him." If Giles took the liberty of reading this letter of recommendation, one will have to admit he had good reason for his almost lifelong and bitter enmity to the great Federalist lawyer. All men of prominence were not as reticent about Giles's qualifications as was John Marshall. For a letter from Edward Carrington to Madison follows him to Philadelphia, and is interesting enough to quote in full:

"It was my intention to have committed to Mr. Giles the successor of Colo, Bland for the district^^ in which I reside, a letter of introduction to you, but his recovering from a spell of sickness and setting out for Philadelphia earlier than I expected prevented my doing so. You must before this have formed some acquaintance with him yet I cannot forbear to recommend him as my valuable friend to your particular attention — though yet a very young man he has acquired high reputation in both the superior and inferior Courts of this State — you will find him upon trial to possess real genius,

*" Madison MSS. Library of Congress.

"The District was composed of the following counties: Brunswick, Sussex, Greensville, Prince George, Dinwiddie, Mecklenburg, Lunenburg, Amelia, Cumberland and Powhatan. See Act of Virginia Legislature passed November 20, 1788— Acts 1788, 4.

acquired knowledge, and solid honesty such as will make him a valuable coadjutor^^ in our representation."^^

Although Giles entered Congress as a staunch supporter of the new government, he did not favor a government strong at the expense of the states nor a government dependent on stock jobbers and speculators. Coming from the upcountry hills of a state predominantly rural, chaperoned by James Madison, he would find no difficulty in convincing himself that the cause of the Constitution and the new government was not the same as the cause of Hamilton's policies. He was ready to accept all the ideas of Jefferson, to throw himself eagerly into the struggle against the "fearful monarchical" danger, and to stand guard over Republican principles. He reached the seat of the National Legislature too late to take part in the first fight on Assumption, bitterly opposed in his state, but he found ample opportunity to show his principles and powers in the third session of the First Congress,"'* which he entered December 7, 1790.

Placed on the Committee on Military Affairs^^ at the beginning of his Congressional service, he was for many years in House and in Senate to hold a position of influence in the discussion of military policies. On December 16, he opposed an amendment to the militia bill on the ground of "improper interference with the authority of the state Government." Thus he sounded the keynote of much of his career — defence of State Rights. Though departing, as we shall see, from this principle at times, he stood by it with more than the usual consistency of a politician. For it he was to make his last tragic struggle, when Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams were forming another party, which was to inherit Federalist conceptions of statesmanship.

** The word is repeated in the original,

''Madison MSS. Library of Congress.

** However, in the Second CJongress he fought Hamilton's recommendations for "an immediate general assumption." Annals, 3nd Cong., 1st Sess., 495.

*^ Annals, First Congress, vol. ii, 1971.

The most important matters, however, engaging the attention of this session of Congress were the excise and the National Bank. On December 13, 1790, Hamilton sent to Congress two reports, one recommending an excise on the manufacture of spirituous liquors, the other recommending the establishment of a National Bank. On the first bill Giles seemed much more vacillating than was to be characteristic of him; he had as yet not found himself. At first seeming to favor the excise on the ground of necessity, he soon urged the recommitment of the bill in order that its defects might be remedied. He favored a motion to limit the period of the excise and declared he was afraid there was too much sympathy in the House with public creditors. Finally he swung over into oppositon to the measure,^" and had committed himself against the policies of Alexander Hamilton. However, the bill became a law on March 3, 1791. Southern members resisted its passage as long as possible ; it would, they declared, be a heavier burden on the south than on the other sections of the country. North Carolina, they claimed, would have to pay ten times as much as Connecticut, and Virginia and Georgia would suffer in like degree.

At the same time that the excise bill was under discussion, the Bank bill was also before Congress. Against it the Anti- Federalists threw their strength. Admitting that the proposed bank would do all that Hamilton claimed for it — increase the "active capital," afford the Federal Government greater facilities in the management of its financial operations, and provide a medium of exchange for the public, one must concede that there were grave dangers to be expected from its establishment.^^ A combination of government and individuals in a large financial corporation, however expedient otherwise, was certainly open to serious abuses. Large opportunities were offered for the promotion of the interests of legislators of a financial turn of mind or their friends, and the concentration of the moneyed resources of the country at one center would not improbably be a drain on the resources of remote districts. There might,

^Annals of Congress, First Cong., 3rd Sess., 1851, 1875, 1881, 1883, 1884, 1971. Madison voted for it.

" Schouler, History of the United States, vol. i, 175.

from the point of view of a Virginia farmer, be unlimited opportunity for the northern interests to expand at the expense of their less shrewd and less favorably situated brethern of the south. New York and New England, the proteges of Hamilton's various financial enterprises, naturally favored the Bank bill; the farmers of the South who had alread}^ suffered from the scheming beneficiaries of these policies could but view this project with alarm. '^ Then, too, banks at the South were an unusual spectacle and in the West, the ally of the South, they were known only by reputation. Southern and western people felt no need for financial institutions, and least of all for an institution which enjoyed special privileges and could maintain a monopoly. When they did discover a use for banks, they wished local banks, representing their own interests, responding to their control,^^ and not subject to the restraining influence of a great moneyed corporation. To his dying day Giles viewed with suspicion any kind of bank and looked with bitter hostility on a central financial corporation.^^ The opposition

**See attitude of Patrick Henry who controlled Virginia at this time. He saw in Hamilton's policies a subordination of southern to northern interests. Henry's Henry, ii, 460.

See an interesting article by C. A. Beard on "Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy" in American Historical Review, XIX, 382.

Beard says (p. 294) "The major portion [of Virginia certificates funded] had been bought up by brokers and speculators in Virginia towns and in Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and other financial centers". Virginians received in 1795 from the Federal Government $63,300, while citizens of Massachusetts received $309,500.

^ There is no careful study of banking in Virginia. The only book on the subject is "A History of Banks and Banking Prior to the Civil War" by William L. Royall, N. Y. and Washington, 1907, Prior to 1804, according to Royall, there was no banking in Virginia carried on in the modern way. There were, as there had been in Colonial and Revolutionary days, unchartered banks. In 1792, with apologetic preambles, the Bank of Alexandria (Act of Nov. 33) and the Bank of Richmond (Act of Dec. 23) were chartered. The latter does not seem to have been established or must have been short-lived, and the first chartered bank to be permanently established in Richmond was the Bank of Virginia chartered January 30, 1804. See Christian, W. A. — "Richmond, her Past, Present, and Future" 59. However, by act of December 10, 1795, the Bank of the United States was authorized to establish branches in Virginia.

*" Giles was made director of the Bank of Virginia. He soon retired. This bank was presided over by his closest friend, A. B. Venable.

of the Anti-Federalists was, therefore, not a mere artificial and partisan opposition designed for factional advantage or based on mere political theory; it was perfectly conscientious, perfectly logical, and perfectly in harmony with the desires of their constituents. The great difficulty was their inability to devise a system which could be offered as an adequate substitute for the banking system.

On the subject of the Bank, Giles spoke February 7, 1791. As the Bank was to be the theme of many of his subsequent speeches and essays, an examination of his views on this occasion is desirable. He attacked both the constitutionality of the measure and its expediency. It was, he said, authorized neither directly nor indirectly by the Constitution. Inference from no specific clause would allow it, nor would a proper interpretation of the preamble, or the general welfare, or the elastic clause allow it. The word, "necessary," as it appears in the eighteenth of the clauses enumerating the powers of Congress, meant only "without which the end could not be produced." It was true that the context of the Constitution included all the ends of government, but the execution of these purposes was distributed between state and nation. This was, he thought, a Federal, not a consolidated government. Constitutionality did not grow out of "incidentality to the mere creation and existence of government," nor did it grow out of expediency. Such doctrines, if accepted, he feared would have evil effects on the position of the states, for "their dignity and consequence will not only be prostrated by it, but their very existence radically subverted." If it were claimed that Congress had been in the habit of doing unconstitutional things, it was high time to make a correction. This act, he declared, was an unprovoked advance in the scramble for authority between the United States and the individual states. A continuance in such a policy would increase the jealousies of the people and would result either in the abandonment of the policy or in a radical change in the government.*^

"Annals of Congress, under date, Feb. 7, 1791.

FlGHTIKG THE FEDERALISTS 15

The Bank was established and the controversies shifted to other policies. Meanwhile, however, Jefferson had begun to organize his followers into a party. It was not sufficient to fight against individual measures proposed by Hamilton. The men who were generally found on the side opposite the financial dictator must be fused into a body, with one soul and one spirit, ready to combat whatever purposes the Secretary of Treasury might choose to assert, and looking ultimately to the time when they themselves should be able to dictate the policies of government and fill the offices. To weld together the forces of opposition was a work for which the Secretary of State was wonderfully endowed. Possessed of tact and patience, of magnetism and kindly tolerance, of unusual facility in smoothing away party differences and jealousies, and withal endowed with genuine conviction and devotion to high idealism, Jefferson was the one man to found a great national party. Ignorant of the complex and effective party machinery and weapons of our own day, by skillful use of tongue and pen in the quietest of ways he brought others to do his will and to fight the men and the evils he hated. In Virginia he had effectively marshalled his upcountry farmers, his Baptists and Presbyterians, and abolished entails and primogeniture and established freedom of religion. Piedmont and western Virginia in 1776 was but a prototype of the Piedmont and Transmontane regions of the United States in 1791. Why not bind the rest of the nation together to fight the battle of Democracy, as the west of Virginia had been bound together to fight in a smaller field that same battle.?