In 1796 Oliver
Ellsworth had been appointed Chief Justice by General Washington in the
place of Jay, who resigned, and in 1799 John Adams sent Ellsworth as an
envoy to France to try to negotiate a treaty which should reestablish
peace between the two countries. Ellsworth succeeded in his mission, but
the hardships of his journey injured his health, and he, in turn,
resigned in the autumn of 1800. Then Adams offered the Chief Justiceship
to Jay, but Jay would not return to office, and after this the President
selected his Secretary of State, John Marshall, one of the greatest of
the great Virginians, but one of Jefferson's most irreconcilable
enemies. Perhaps at no moment in his life did John Adams demonstrate his
legal genius more convincingly than in this remarkable nomination. Yet
it must be conceded that, in making John Marshall Chief Justice, John
Adams deliberately chose the man whom, of all his countrymen, he thought
to be the most formidable champion of those views which he himself
entertained, and which he conceived that he had been elected President
to advance. Nor was John Adams deceived.
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