Person:Humphrey Marshall (6)

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Humphrey Marshall (1760 – July 3, 1841) 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. After Kentucky gained statehood in 1792, Marshall was elected to the state legislature despite the fact that he was a Federalist and zealously antireligious – both of which made him unpopular with many Kentuckians. The Federalist cause received a slight boost when federal forces were successful in quashing the Whiskey Rebellion and ending the Indian threat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. As a result, the General Assembly elected Marshall to the U.S. Senate in 1794. As a senator, Marshall clung to Federalist principles, supporting the Alien and Sedition Acts and voting to ratify the Jay Treaty. For the latter action, his constituents stoned him and tried to throw him in the Kentucky River. In 1801, he was defeated for reelection by John Breckinridge. He would once again be elected to the state legislature in 1807, 1808, and 1823. During the 1809 legislative session, a disagreement between him and Henry Clay led to a duel between the two men in which both were slightly wounded.

As early as 1786, Marshall had been implicating several prominent Kentucky politicians in a scheme to take Kentucky out of the Union and into alliance with Spain. After the expiration of his Senate term, he resumed these charges through the pages of the Western World newspaper. His allegations resulted in a legislative investigation of Kentucky Court of Appeals judge Benjamin Sebastian, who was found to be receiving a pension from Spain and resigned from the bench. Federal judge Harry Innes was also a target of Marshall's allegations, and the two became embroiled in a legal battle that lasted almost a decade. Innes hired William Littell to write and publish a book giving Innes' version of his dealings with Spain. Marshall countered by publishing his History of Kentucky in 1812. Although blatantly partisan, it became the most widely read history of the state at the time. Marshall and Innes ended their legal battle with an agreement, signed in 1815, that neither would publish anything negative about the other again. Innes upheld his part of the agreement, but in 1824, years after Innes' death, Marshall published an updated edition of his History of Kentucky which was just as vitriolic as the previous version had been. Marshall faded from public life during his later years. He died at the home of his son in Lexington, Kentucky on July 3, 1841.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Paxton, William McClung. The Marshall family: or a genealogical chart of the descendants of John Marshall and Elizabeth Markham, his wife, sketches of individuals, and notices of families connected with them. (R. Clarke & Company, 1885).

   Cited at [1]

2. ↑ Humphrey Marshall (Senator), in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
3.   Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
   [2].

   MARSHALL, Humphrey, (father of Thomas Alexander Marshall and cousin of John Marshall, and grandfather of Humphrey Marshall [1812-1872]), a Senator from Kentucky; born in Orlean, Fauquier County, Va., in 1760; pursued classical studies; became a surveyor; served with the Virginia forces in the Revolutionary War; moved to Kentucky in 1782; studied law; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Fayette County; delegate to the Danville convention in 1787 to consider the separation of Kentucky from Virginia, which he opposed; delegate to the Virginia convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States; member, Kentucky house of representatives 1793-1794; elected as a Federalist to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1795, to March 3, 1801; member, State legislature 1807-1809; engaged in literary pursuits and was the author of the first history of Kentucky, published in 1812; engaged in agricultural pursuits; died near Lexington, Ky., July 3, 1841; interment on his farm, Glen Willis, Leestown, Ky.
   
   Citing Dictionary of American Biography; Meredith, Howard. “The Historical Thought of Humphrey Marshall: A Note on Frontier Historicism.” Filson Club History Quarterly 47 (October 1973): 349-54; Quisenberry, Anderson C. The Life and Times of Honorable Humphrey Marshall. Winchester, Ky.: Sun Publishing Co., 1892.

4.   Kentucky Secretary of State. Humphrey Marshall, Kentucky Historian
   [3].