page_title: Humphrey Marshall (politician)
section_title: Early political career
hierarchical_section_title: Humphrey Marshall (politician) / Early political career
caption_attribution_description: English: General James Wilkinson, painted by John Wesley Jarvis (1780-1840) circa 1820-1825
context_page_description: Humphrey Marshall was a politician from the U.S. states of Virginia and Kentucky. He served in the state legislatures of both states and represented Kentucky in the United States Senate from 1795 to 1801. He was a member of the Marshall political family which included his cousins Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, federal judge James Markham Marshall, and noted educator Louis Marshall. All the prominent members of this family were Federalists. Marshall was also the father of Congressman Thomas Alexander Marshall and the grandfather of Congressman and Confederate General Humphrey Marshall.
  During the Revolutionary War, Marshall served with the Virginia State Regiment of Artillery. After the war, he moved to the Kentucky District of Virginia where he became extremely wealthy as a farmer and surveyor. He was a delegate to two of the ten Kentucky statehood conventions and was one of only three delegates from the Kentucky District to vote in favor of ratifying the U.S. Constitution at the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention.
context_section_description: A 1788 letter in the Kentucky Gazette indicated that Marshall had unsuccessfully sought election to the Virginia General Assembly, although the year of the contest is not given. The letter continued that the defeat convinced Marshall that he could not win elected office in Fayette County and that he subsequently lobbied for the creation of Bourbon County, hoping that he might gain an office in that new county. When the county was created in 1785, he immediately applied to become the county lieutenant, but that office had apparently already been promised to someone else. Marshall applied for appointment as deputy lieutenant, and received the appointment.
  Although it is not known when Marshall began studying law, nor who his tutor was, he was practicing as early as 1785. In that year, he discovered a flaw in the original 1774 survey of the town of Frankfort. Due to the flaw, several choice acres of land in the northern part of Frankfort remained unclaimed, and Marshall quickly entered claims for them at the land office. Marshall also gained membership in the Kentucky Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, a Danville-based society dedicated to disseminating information to farmers, mechanics, and other common citizens. He apparently was not accepted for membership in the Danville Political Club, although some sources report that he was accepted as a member after initially being rejected.
  Around 1786, Marshall gained public attention by expressing his suspicions about James Wilkinson's negotiations with Spain for free use of the Mississippi River and the possibility of Kentucky's secession from the United States to affiliate with Spanish possessions. For the remainder of his life, he vigorously opposed Wilkinson and anyone else he suspected of being involved with the Spanish Conspiracy.
  Marshall was a delegate to a 1787 convention in Danville to consider separating Kentucky from Virginia. There were, at that time, two primary positions with regard to the question of separation. The first favored an immediate separation with or without Virginia's consent, while the other favored waiting for legal approval from Virginia and the U.S. Congress. Marshall was among the latter group, and his uncle Thomas was the primary spokesman for this position. Biographer Anderson Chenault Quisenberry notes, "As to Humphrey Marshall's prominence in the Danville convention, or as to what notable part he acted there, nothing is said by the historians."
  In 1788, Marshall announced his candidacy to be a delegate to the Virginia Ratifying Convention. The proposed constitution was very unpopular in all parts of Kentucky except Jefferson County, but Marshall openly favored its ratification. Hoping to wreck Marshall's candidacy, a man named Jordan Harris charged that Marshall had, in a letter to John Crittenden, Sr., acknowledged himself to be a liar. In the pages of the Kentucky Gazette, Marshall called on Harris to publish the letter. Harris was so insulted by Marshall's demand that he threatened to cane him. At their next meeting, Harris fired two pistols at Marshall. Neither shot injured Marshall, who retaliated by beating Harris with a stick severely enough to force his retreat from the encounter.
  Despite his favorable position toward the proposed federal constitution, Marshall was chosen as a delegate to the convention from Fayette County. On June 25, 1788, he joined Jefferson County delegates Robert Breckinridge and Rice Bullock in voting for ratification. Ten other Kentucky delegates opposed ratification and one abstained. The final convention vote was 89–79 in favor of ratification. It was reported that even the Jefferson County delegates were beginning to waver in their commitment to the proposed constitution, but that Marshall steeled their resolve and also influenced several delegates from other parts of Virginia to favor it.
  In 1789 Marshall was elected again to a convention to consider separation from Virginia. After Kentucky's separation from Virginia in 1792, he was elected to represent Woodford County in the Kentucky House of Represent
caption: James Wilkinson, accused by Marshall of conspiring with Spain
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