1. Surveyor Isaac Shelby (1750–1826), originally of Hagerstown, Md., was governor of Kentucky from 1792 to 1796 and again from 1812 to 1816. Lawyer Humphrey Marshall (1760–1841), originally of Fauquier County, Va., represented Kentucky in the Senate from 1795 to 1801. Shelby enclosed a memorial from Kentucky legislators informing U.S. senators that a pamphlet published after Marshall was elected alleged he was guilty of fraud and perjury in a suit James Wilkinson brought against him. Noting that politicians “should be Men of unshaken Virtue & Integrity,” the legislature asked the Senate to investigate and if it found Marshall guilty, to expel him.

JA laid the memorial before the Senate on 26 Feb. 1796, and a committee was formed. Samuel Livermore of New Hampshire reported on 11 March that the suit was eighteen months before Marshall’s election to the Senate, that there were mutual accusations between Marshall and the judges of the court, that the Kentucky legislature had provided no documents to prove the accusations against Marshall, and that although Marshall was willing to be tried by the Senate, the committee did not think the Senate had jurisdiction; therefore, the committee recommended that the Senate dismiss the memorial. On 19 March the Senate voted to postpone any decision until after a Kentucky state trial could be held, requesting that JA relay its decision to Shelby (ANB description begins John A. Garraty, Mark C. Carnes, and Paul Betz, eds., American National Biography, New York, 1999–2002; 24 vols. plus supplement; rev. edn., www.anb.org. description ends ; AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 10:347; Amer. State Papers description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1832–1861; 38 vols. description ends , Miscellaneous, 1:141, 144; U.S. Senate, Jour. description begins Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., 1789– . description ends , 4th Cong., 1st sess., p. 225).