John Marshall. It is true that these principles are now re garded as axioms of civilized society too ob vious to be questioned in a nation capable of constitutional government, but the uni versal respect in which they are held is en tirely due to the vigilance, resolution and ability with which Marshall asserted and vin dicated them. If no attempt to violate them had ever been made by the States or by Con gress no occasion would have arisen for the decisions which vindicate them so clearly that no respectable authority can now be found to challenge them. It is true that the distin guished Chairman of this banquet claims for another Judge priority in asserting the su premacy of the Constitution over Congress and the executive, and he supports the claim by reading from Judge Paterson's charge to a jury delivered long before Mar shall assumed the ermine. It is equally true that at a still earlier period — in 1788 — Al exander Hamilton devoted a number of the Federalist — I think it was the seventyeighth — to proving that it was the right and duty of the judiciary to set aside a law which contravened the Constitution. Indeed, I be lieve the principle had been asserted in some of the colonies before the Revolution. But there is nothing new under the sun. Mar shall did. not discover or establish any new principle of liberty, nor did this Constitution embrace one, but Marshall did devise means of making declarations of ancient principles effective for the protection of the citizen. Man can no more invent a new principle than he can invent a new force. The limit of hu man ingenuity is exhausted when new de vices are found for utilizing forces which are external. The force which moves the steam engine existed since the beginning of the world, but it was not till Watts devised an effective machine that it became available for the use of man. Liberty was always an asspiration for man to cherish, but never till Marshall made this Constitution effective did liberty become a possession for man to enjoy. . . . If I were to summarize Marshall's service I
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should say that on the solid foundation of the Constitution he erected the four great pillars of our governmental system — na tional strength by establishing the sovereign ty of the general government over the State, thus making it the most powerful nation in the world; justice by establishing the domin ion of the Constitution over all the depart ments of government; peace by establishing freedom of intercourse between all the States; prosperity by establishing the inviolability of private contracts. The decisions of Marshall's successors, without disturbing these pillars, have strengthened them, and the stately fabric of government which they support.1 Marshall may not have been as deeply read in the literature of the law as some of his professonal brethren, or as some of his judicial associates; in statecraft he may have had his superiors; in constructive ability he was not the equal of Hamilton, and as a po litical philosopher was inferior to Jefferson, but no man of his day, not even Madison, was more thoroughly imbued with the spirit of {he Constitution or more familiarly ac quainted with the causes that led to its form ation, or with the ends and purposes it was intended to accomplish, or more capable of applying its provisions to the events that necessarily followed its adoption. The key of John Marshall's character was that he was not "afraid of the face of man." His sublime courage, his discriminating judgment, his judicial temperament, his directness and simplicity of statement, his irresistible and irrefutable logic, com bined to prepare him for the position he ultimately reached in public estimation — the first and the greatest interpreter and ex pounder of the Federal Constitution and of the checks and balances of the complex sys tem of government resulting from its adop tion. . . . Under the leadership of Marshall, the court rejected the dogma of strict construc 1 Honorable W. Bourke Cockran, of New York.
