John Marshall

“ For the first time, most Republicans approved of the opinion of John Marshall. In the fanatical politics of the time there was enough of honest adherence to the American ideal, that all men are equal in the eyes of the law, to justify the calling of a President, even Thomas Jefferson, before a court of justice.
Such a militant Republican and devotee of Jefferson as Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, the party organ in Virginia, did not criticize Marshall, nor did a single adverse comment on Marshall appear in that paper during the remainder of the trial. ”

“ Not more was John Marshall the chief of the accomplished and able men who sat with him on the Supreme Bench at Washington than, even in his advancing years, he was the leader of the convivial spirits who gathered to pitch quoits, drink julep and punch, tell stories, sing songs, make speeches, and play pranks under the trees of Richmond. ”

“ While Thomas Marshall and his Third Virginia Line were thus checking Cornwallis's assault on the right, the British charged, in dense masses, across the Brandywine, at Chadd's Ford, upon Wayne's division, to which Captain-Lieutenant John Marshall had been assigned. The Americans made a show of resistance, but, learning of the rout of their right wing, quickly gave way. ”

“ Sir William Marshall, regent of the kingdom of England and restorer of Magna Charta; a Captain John Marshall, who distinguished himself at the siege of Calais in 1558; and finally, the Irish captain who fought Cromwell and fled to Virginia as above mentioned. (Paxton, 7 et seq.)
Senator Humphrey Marshall rejected this story as "a myth supported by vanity." (Ib.) Colonel Cary declares that "there is no evidence whatever in support of it." (Cary Papers, MSS.) Other painstaking genealogists have reached the same conclusion. ”

“ Each division, each regiment, each company, was given plain and practical orders for the expected conflict. And we may be sure that each man, private as well as officer, took heart as he looked upon the giant figure and listened to the steady directions and undismayed encouragement of his chief. Certain it is that John Marshall so felt and thought. A rare picture, this, full of life and color, that permits us to behold the growth in the young soldier's soul of that faith in and devotion to George Washington, seeds of which had been planted in his childhood days in the Blue Ridge home. ”

“ With good-natured contempt for the maneuvers of the politicians and the rage of the public, yet carefully and coolly weighing every element of the situation, John Marshall, when the appointed day of May came around, was ready to take his seat upon the bench and to conduct the historic trial of Aaron Burr with that kindly forbearance which never deserted him, that canny understanding of men and motives which served him better than learning, and that placid fortitude that could not be shaken. ”

“ Every contemporary student of Marshall's method and equipment notes the meagerness of his learning in the law. "Everyone has heard of the gigantick abilities of John Marshall; as a most able and profound reasoner he deserves all the praise which has been lavished upon him," writes Francis Walker Gilmer, in his keen and brilliant contemporary analysis of Marshall. ”

“ A book was placed in the hands of John Marshall, at this time, that influenced his mind even more than his reading of Pope's poetry when a small boy. Blackstone's "Commentaries" was published in America in 1772 and one of the original subscribers was "Captain Thomas Marshall, Clerk of Dunmore County, Virginia." [175] The youthful backwoodsman read Blackstone with delight; for this legal classic is the poetry of law, just as Pope is logic in poetry. Also, Thomas Marshall saw to it that his son read Blackstone as carefully as circumstances permitted. ”

“ Conspicuous in the ranks of Federalists, and unsurpassed in debate, was a tall and gaunt young man, with beaming countenance, eyes of piercing brilliancy, and an indescribable kingliness of bearing, who was by and by to become chief justice of the United States, and by his masterly and far-reaching decisions to win a place side by side with Madison and Hamilton among the founders of our national government. John Marshall, second to none among all the illustrious jurists of the English race, was then, at the age of thirty-three, the foremost lawyer in Virginia. ”

“ When Washington was preparing the final stroke, darkness fell. The exhausted Americans, their clothing drenched with sweat, slept on their arms upon the field of battle, their General-in-Chief himself lying on the ground among the living, the wounded, and the dead. Somewhere on that hard-fought ground, Captain-Lieutenant John Marshall stretched himself by his comrades. Washington was determined to press the attack at break of day. But at midnight the British stole away so silently that the Americans did not hear a sound from their retreat. ”

“ He appears to us as a gigantic figure looming, indistinctly, out of the mists of the past, impressive yet lacking vitality, and seemingly without any of those qualities that make historic personages intelligible to a living world of living men. Yet no man in our history was more intensely human than John Marshall and few had careers so full of movement and color. ”

“ Thomas Marshall was the son of a very small planter in Westmoreland County, Virginia. October 23, 1727, three years before Thomas was born, his father, John Marshall "of the forest," acquired by deed, from William Marshall of King and Queen County, two hundred acres of poor, low, marshy land located on Appomattox Creek. ”

“ About this time John Marshall was given his second fragment of formal teaching. He was sent to the school of the Reverend Archibald Campbell in Westmoreland County. [178] This embryo "academy" was a primitive affair, but its solitary instructor was a sound classical scholar equipped with all the learning which the Scottish universities could give. He was a man of unusual ability, which, it appears, was the common possession of his family. He was the uncle of the British poet Campbell. ”

“ In chapter after chapter of clever arguments, illumined by the sparkle of such false gems as these quotations, Taylor prepares the public mind for his direct attack on John Marshall. He is at a sad disadvantage; he, "an unknown writer," can offer only "an artless course of reasoning" against the "acute argument" of Marshall's opinion, concurred in by the members of the Supreme Court whose "talents," "integrity," "uprightness," and "erudition" are universally admitted. ”

“ Such are examples of Marshall's expositions of international law and typical illustrations of his method in statement and reasoning. His opinion in the case of the Nereid is notable, too, because Story dissented [355] —and for Joseph Story to disagree with John Marshall was a rare event. Justice Livingston also disagreed, and the British High Court of Admiralty maintained the contrary doctrine. But the principle announced by Marshall, that enemy bottoms do not make enemy goods and that neutral property is sacred, remained and still remains the American doctrine. ”

“ Horse-racing, runaway slaves, politics, and other picturesque matters were the subjects discussed. [619] Outsiders stood in no awe of these lawgivers of the people and voiced their contempt, ridicule, or dislike quite as freely as their approval or admiration. [620]
Into this assembly came John Marshall in the fall of 1782. Undoubtedly his father had much to do with his son's election as one of Fauquier County's representatives. His predominant influence, which had made Thomas Marshall Burgess, Sheriff, and Vestryman before the Revolution, had been increased by his admirable war record ”

“ Education is not the chips of arithmetic and grammar. (Wendell Phillips.)
John Marshall was never out of the simple, crude environment of the near frontier for longer than one brief space of a few months until his twentieth year, when, as lieutenant of the famous Culpeper Minute Men, he marched away to battle. The life he had led during this period strengthened that powerful physical equipment which no strain of his later years seemed to impair; and helped to establish that extraordinary nervous equilibrium which no excitement or contest ever was able to unbalance. ”

“ Washington tells us that in his surveying trips, he frequently slept on the floor in the room of a settler's cabin where the fireplace was and where husband, wife, children, and visitors stretched themselves for nightly rest; and he remarks that the person was lucky who got the spot nearest the fireplace. [168]
[Pg 54] At the end of a year the embryo Scottish clergyman's character, ability, and services having met the approval of Thomas Marshall and his fellow vestrymen, Thompson returned to England for orders. [169] So ended John Marshall's first instruction from a trained teacher. ”

“ The very sound of this man's name is an insult upon truth and justice"; and the dissolute scribbler then pours the contents of his ink-pot over Marshall's X. Y. Z. dispatches, bespatters his campaign for election to Congress, and continues thus:—
"John Adams first appointed John Jay in the room of Ellsworth. A strong suspicion exists that [Pg 557] John did this with the previous certainty that John Jay would refuse the nomination. It was then in view to name John Marshall: first, because President Jefferson will not be able to turn him out of office, unless by impeachment ”

“ It is time to be old,
To take in sail. (Emerson.)
The last years of Marshall's life were clouded with sadness, almost despair. His health failed; his wife died; the Supreme Court was successfully defied; his greatest opinion was repudiated and denounced by a strong and popular President; his associates on the Bench were departing from some of his most cherished views; and the trend of public events convinced him that his labor to construct an enduring nation, to create institutions of orderly freedom, to introduce stability and system into democracy, had been in vain. ”

“ A month later Morris again writes John Marshall that he is "extremely anxious & fearing that it [the [Pg 206] Amsterdam loan] may fall through I am trying to obtain a loan here for the purposes of your Brother in London. This," says the now desperate financier, "is extremely difficult, for those who have money or credit in Europe seem to dread every thing that is American." He assures John Marshall that he will do his utmost. "My anxiety ... [to make good the Fairfax purchase] is beyond what I can express." ”

“ For the one and only time in his career on the Supreme Bench, Marshall had pronounced a "popular" opinion. The press acclaimed him as the deliverer of the Nation from thralldom to monopoly. His opinion, records the New York Evening Post, delivered amidst "the most unbroken silence" of a "courtroom ... crowded with people," was a wonderful exhibition of intellect—"one of the most powerful efforts of the human mind that has ever been displayed from the bench of any court. ”

“ Judge Marshall was born in 1755 and died in 1835. By recalling what events happened during his lifetime and what great men were his contemporaries, you will get a clearer idea of the setting of the story. In reading it try to picture costumes, houses, etc.
Among the great men of Virginia, John Marshall
will always be remembered with honor and esteem.
He was the son of a poor man, and his early life was spent
in poverty ”

“ John Marshall has been heretofore recognized as a man of great ability, and now he takes a position which he holds for life, and where his influence is paramount. On one occasion a young house-keeper was swearing lustily because he could find no one to carry his turkey home for him. ”

“ So ended the first skirmish of the historic battle soon to be fought out in Virginia, which would determine whether the American people should begin their career as a Nation. Just as John Marshall was among the first in the field with rifle, [Pg 249] tomahawk, and scalping-knife, to fight for Independence, so, now, he was among those first in the field with arguments, influence, and political activities, fighting for Nationalism. ”

“ Marshall, in the account of this transaction given by him as biographer of Washington, omits all mention of his own name; saying only, that "a member rose in his place," &c. That House of Representatives abounded in talents of the first order for debate: and none were more conspicuous than those of John Marshall. Indeed, where the law or constitution was to be discussed, "he was confessedly the first man in the House. ”

“ The interpretation of John Marshall as the constructing architect of American Nationalism is not satisfactorily accomplished by a mere statement of his Nationalist opinions and of the immediate legal questions which they answered. ”

“ Above all other influences upon his associates on the bench, and, indeed, upon everybody who knew him, was the sense of trustworthiness, honor, and uprightness he inspired. [249] Perhaps no public man ever stood higher in the esteem of his contemporaries for noble personal qualities than did John Marshall. ”

“ John Marshall himself wrote: "As must ever be the case in new-raised armies, unused to danger and from which undeserving officers have not been expelled, their conduct was not uniform. Some regiments, especially those which had served the preceding campaign, maintained their ground with the firmness and intrepidity of veterans, while others gave way as soon as they were pressed." [318]
But the inefficiency of the American equipment gave some excuse for the fright that seized upon so many of them. For, testifies Marshall, "many of their muskets were scarcely fit for service ”