ever drawn. They declared that he vas "never absent from the Bench in term time even for a day; that he displayed such indul gence to counsel and suitors that everybody's convenience was consulted but his own; that he possessed a dignity sustained without effort, and apparently without care to sustain it, to which all men were solicitous to pay due respect; that he showed such equanimity, such dignity of temper, such amenity of man ners that no member of the Bar, no officer of the Court, no juror, no witness, no suitor, in any single instance, ever found or imag ined, in anything said, or done, or omitted by him, the slightest cause of offense."1
bunal was ever more dependent on this prin ciple than the Supreme Court of the United States, and no judge ever sustained the bur den with more unfailing strength than Chief Justice Marshall. Through all the intricacies of conflicting evidence or discordant principles his in tuitive perceptions saw the connection be tween premises and conclusion, and, with an unrivaled grasp of ever phase and bearing of the subject, his vigorous and unerring logic marked out the path with such cogent and convincing reasons as to meet the criticism of opposing views, and, still more, to stand the test of the future in the development of corollaries and consequences. His intel It would be too much to claim that even lectual integrity and courage took him the broad foresight of Marshall had mea straight to his conclusion, turning his eye sured the force of the undercurrent of de neither to right or left for irrelevant objects velopment leading to the splendid and unpre by the way. It is related of the great literary autocrat cedented career that lay before his country. But he knew his countrymen, their his of the eighteenth century that he said of a tory and their institutions. He knew that future Lord Chancellor, "I like Ned Thurthe spirit of the people was fast moulding a!ow; he lays his mind fairly against yours, harmonious and homogeneous nation, which and never flinches." If Dr. Johnson had must be bound together by a national Con known John Marshall he would have liked stitution. And he labored in the spirit of a him for the same reason. He never flinched. patriot, a statesman and, above all, a far- He never underestimated or understated the seeing Judge, to make the bond strong strength of his opponent's position or the enough to endure inevitable strains, yet difficulties of his own. He laid his reason elastic enough not to break with expanding bare for all men to see and to challenge, and empire. To be thus man of practical affairs those who would not be convinced against for his own day, yet prophet in his'foresight j their will were at least silenced by their in for the years to come, what higher summit ability to refute him. . . . By the uniform concurrence, alike of con could there be in the achievements of human temporaries and posterity, we unhesitatingly judgment, patriotism and wisdom? In the four and thirty years that he sat in claim for Marshall the foremost place in the judgment, the Court made fifty-one decis list of eminent judges. Pinkney said "he ions on constitutional questions, and the was born to be the Chief Justice of any Chief Justice wrote thirty-four of them. In country into which Providence should have only one did the majority of the Court fail cast him." The Bar of Charleston, never converts to his view of the Constitution, yet to agree with him. Half a century or more ago Henry Broug paid this tribute to the man in a resolution ham said that no judge could afford to be passed on hearing of his death: "Though often wrong, and the time had gone by when his authority as Chief Justice of the United any court could rest long on mere authority. States was protracted far beyond the ordi It must justify itself by its reasons. No tri- nary term of public life, no man dared to covet his place, or express a wish to see it 1 Hon. Wayne MacVeagh.
