Marshall was appointed on the committee to bring in bills for proceeding against absent debtors;[135] on another to amend the penal code;[136] and he was made chairman of the special committee to examine the James River Company,[137] of which he was a stockholder. Such are examples of his routine activities in the Legislature of 1789.
The Legislature instructed the Virginia Senators in Congress "to use their utmost endeavors to procure the admission of the citizens of the United States to hear the debates of their House, whenever they are sitting in their legislative capacity."[138]
An address glowing with love, confidence, and veneration was sent to Washington.[139] Then Jefferson came to Richmond; and the Legislature appointed a committee to greet him with polite but coldly formal congratulations.[140] No one then foresaw that a few short years would turn the reverence and affection for Washington into disrespect and hostility, and the indifference toward Jefferson into fiery enthusiasm.
The first skirmish in the engagement between the friends and foes of a stronger National Government soon came on. On November 30, 1789, the House ratified the first twelve amendments to the Constitution,[141] which the new Congress had submitted to the States; but three days later it was proposed that the Legislature urge Congress to reconsider the amendments recommended by Virginia which Congress had not adopted.[142] An attempt to make this resolution stronger was defeated by the deciding vote of the Speaker, Marshall voting against it.[143]
The Anti-Nationalist State Senate refused to concur in the House's ratification of the amendments proposed by Congress;[144] and Marshall was one of the committee to hold a conference with the Senate committee on the subject.
After Congress had passed the laws necessary to set the National Government in motion, Madison had reluctantly offered his summary of the volume of amendments to the Constitution recommended by the States "in order," as he said, "to quiet that anxiety which prevails in the public mind."[145] The debate is illuminating. The amendments, as agreed to, fell far short of the radical and extensive alterations which the States had asked and were understood to be palliatives to popular discontent.[146]