У оlui Mayshall. set forth in writing and not to be violated or ignored except at the risk and cost of revo lution and civil war. The experiment thus inaugurated was unique in the history of civ ilized peoples, and believed to be of immense consequence both to the American people and to the human race. But there were also wheels within wheels, and the experiment of government according to a written text en tailed yet another, namely, that of a judicial branch designed to keep all other branches within their prescribed spheres. To that end it was not enough to make the judicial branch independent of the legislative and executive branches. It was necessary to make it the final judge, not only of the pow ers of those other departments, but of its own powers as well. Thus the national judi ciary became the keystone of the arch sup porting the new political edifice, and was in vested with the most absolute and far-reach ing authority. Since almost all legislative and executive action can in some way be put in issue in a suit, it is an authority often involving and controlling matters of high State policy, external as well as internal. At this very moment is it not believed, indeed proclaimed in high quarters, that the ques tion of Asiatic dependencies for the United States, and incidentally of its foreign policy generally, practically hinges upon judg ments of the National Supreme Court in cases requiring the exercise of its function as the final interpreter of the Constitution? What judicial tribunal in Christendom is, or has ever been, directly or indirectly, the arbiter of issues of that character? It was a national judiciary of this sort of which John Marshall became the head one hundred years ago. That he dominated his court on all constitutional questions is in dubitable. That he exercised his mastery with marvelous sagacity and tact, that he manifested a profound comprehension of the principles of our constitutional government and declared them in terms unrivaled for their combination of simplicity and exact ness, that he justified his judgments by rea
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soning impregnable in point of logic and irresistible in point of persuasiveness — has not all this been universally conceded for the two generations since his death, and will it not be found to have been universally voiced today wherever throughout the land this centenary has been observed? "All wrong," said John Randolph of one of Marshall's opinions; "all wrong — but no man in the United States can tell why or wherein he is wrong." If we consider the work to which he was devoted, it must be admitted to have been of as high a nature as any to which human faculties can be addressed. If we consider the manner in which the work was done, it must be admitted that anything better in the way of execution it is difficult to conceive. And if we consider both the greatness of the work and the excellence of its performance relatively to any opportuni ties of Marshall to duly equip himself for it, he must be admitted to be one of the exceptional characters of history, seemingly foreordained to some grand achievement be cause fitted and adapted to it practically by natural genius alone. If it be true — as it is beyond cavil — that to Washington more than to any other man is due the birth of the American nation, it is equally true beyond cavil that to Marshall more than to any other man is it due that the nation has come safely through the try ing ordeals of infantile weakness and youth ful effervescence, and has triumphantly emerged into well-developed and lusty man hood. Had the Constitution at the outset been committed to other hands, it could have been and probably would have been construed in the direction of minimizing its scope and efficiency — of dwarfing and frit tering away the powers conferred by it, and of making the sovereignty of the nation but a petty thing as compared with the sover eignty of the State. Under Marshall's aus pices, however, and his interpretation and exposition of the Constitution, the sentiment of nationality germinated and grew apace, a vigorous national life developed, and an
