While the politics of the stormy period of 1800 were at the height, Gen.
Marshall, as the since illustrious Chief Justice was then called, having
accepted from Mr. Adams an invitation to the department of State,
vacated his seat in the House of Representatives; and young Tazewell,
then in his twenty-sixth year, and younger than John Randolph was when
the orator first took his seat, was elected by an overwhelming majority,
over Col. Mayo, the federal candidate, in his place, and made his
appearance in the House on the 26th day of November, 1800. Of Mr.
Tazewell's short term of service in Congress, I shall pass over all
details in this rapid sketch, except to remark that he was present at
that fearful contest in the House of Representatives, when a deliberate
effort was made by the federal party to elect a man as president of the
United States, who had not received a single vote in the electoral
colleges for that office, over Jefferson, who had received a plurality
of votes for president. The painful excitement of that scene, which
lasted continuously day and night, and during which sick members were
brought in beds to the House and kept there, Tazewell never forgot; nor
do I think the events of that day made a favorable impression on his
mind of the morals of politics.
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