JOHN MARSHALL.

IN his brilliant speech at the trial of Lord George Gordon, Mr. Erskine speaks of the illustrious judge who, for thirty-two years, had presided in the Court of King's Bench, as "that great and venerable magistrate who had presided so long in this great and high tribunal, that the oldest of us do not remember him with any other impression than the awful form and figure of Justice!" What the celebrated English advocate could thus appropriately say of Lord Mansfield, the American lawyer, who, twenty years ago, frequented the Supreme Court at Washington, might with equal truth and propriety have said of the venerable judge then presiding in that august tribunal. The long and honorable career of Chief-Justice Marshall upon the bench of the Supreme Court; the purity and dignity of his character, and his eminent judicial services, naturally suggest a comparison with the great English jurist. Marshall has been called the American Mansfield. Such a comparison to almost any other jurist would be no ordinary compliment, for it implies the most exalted worth and the highest grade of judicial ability. But, to Marshall, the compliment, though just, cannot be deemed flattering. It is suggestive, at least, of an imitative greatness, and a borrowed and reflected lustre, and can add no new dignity to a character like his, of native, innate strength, and original independent greatness. Marshall is the American Mansfield, as Washington-greater than the noblest Roman of them all-is the American Cincinnatus. The

skillful pen of some future Plutarch may run an ingenious parallel; but that parallel soon ends; for the antique virtue of the old Roman, though it may suggest a comparison with Washington, cannot measure the moral elevation of a nature like his.

"None but himself can be his parallel."

And so with the comparison between the American and the great English judge. Gifted with a more elegant intellect, and endowed with more profound learning and varied accomplishments-with a dignity of character that could rise superior to the assaults of Camden, and the bitter invective of Pitt-with a virtue whose panoply of proof could ward off the keen and glittering shafts of Junius himself-and with those stupendous and unrivalled powers of judicial investigation which have made his name a synonym for all that is great in jurisprudence -with all these, Mansfield himself is not the prototype, and does not furnish a standard by which to measure the full capacity of Marshall. The American Chief-Justice is something more than a Mansfield. Equally endowed with every moral as well as intellectual attribute which can adorn the highest judicial character, but with a firmer temper and a loftier courage, a more solid and compact intellect, a more robust and rugged manhood, he stands before us, if not superior as a judge, yet greater as a man. Erskine could say of Mansfield, not in the warm and glowing language of eulogy, but in the sober words of truth, that he was "a man of whom any country might be proud;" and in like manner could Pinkney

-the Erskine of the American bar-say of the venerable Marshall, that he was "born to be the Chief-Justice of any country into which Providence should have cast him."

I approach the task of attempting to sketch the life and judicial services of this eminent man with much hesitation. I am sensible of its magnitude, and of the difficulty of executing it in an acceptable manner. His judicial career alone extends through a continuous period of thirty-five years. I believe, if not the longest, it is

the most successful, the most brilliant, the most honorable of any on record. Its history is the history of the Supreme Court through this entire period. Its published decisions alone fill more than thirty volumes of Reports. Nothing, therefore, but a general survey, a mere glance at the judicial labors of Marshall will be practicable within the plan I have marked out. Independent of this, and before coming to the Bench of the Supreme Court, he has a history of no ordinary interest-a life full of incident, full of honorable action, and intimately interwoven with the civil and diplomatic history of the times. This portion of his career I approach with the more confidence, for it is not entirely a new and untrodden path. The copious narrative* of a brother on the bench, who, for twenty-three years, sat by his side in the same high tribunal-a narrative drawn with a nicely discriminating pen, but all glowing in the warm sunshine of a sincere, a generous, a profound, an almost reverential admiration-will throw light upon that path, and enable me to pursue it with unerring certainty. This narrative of Judge Story bears the highest marks of authenticity; most of its facts are evidently drawn from the lips of the Chief-Justice himself, and its estimate of Judge Marshall's judicial services and character is made with a personal knowledge derived from an intimate and unbroken friendship, and an almost daily association of a quarter of a century. I shall avail myself of its statements so far as it may be useful or proper to do so, supplying from authentic historical and other sources such details of Judge Marshall's public and political career as I have been able to obtain and the subject may require.† The grandfather of Chief-Justice Marshall was a native

* A discourse before the Suffolk bar on the "Life, Character, and Services of Chief-Justice Marshall," by Joseph Story. October 15th, 1835.

It may be remarked, that in 1828, Judge Story published a 'Sketch of Chief-Justice Marshall" in the "North American Review." This was subsequently retouched by him for the " National Portrait Gallery," and

became the basis of his more elaborate discourse before the Suffolk bar. The latter may be found in Story's "Miscellanies," edited by his son, and recently published.

of Wales. He settled in Westmorland county, Virginia, about the year 1730, where he married Elizabeth Markham, a native of England. This gentleman's eldest son, Thomas, the father of the Chief-Justice, inherited the family estate called "Forest," consisting of a few hundred acres of poor land in Westmorland. He removed from this county to Fauquier, soon after attaining the age of manhood, and having intermarried with Mary Keith, by which he became connected with the Randolphs, he settled upon a small farm at a place called Germantown, where John Marshall was born. The great proprietor of the Northern neck of Virginia, including Fauquier county, was at that time Lord Fairfax, who gave George Washington the appointment of surveyor in the Western part of his territory. Washington employed Thomas Marshall in the same business. They had been near neighbors from birth, associates from boyhood, and were always friends.*

Thomas Marshall, though a planter of retired habits and narrow fortune, was a man of great energy of character and vigor of intellect. When Washington received the command of the American armies in the war of the Revolution, his friend and associate, Colonel Marshall, left his estate and his large family, and embarked in the same cause. He was placed in command of the third Virginia Regiment in the Continental establishment, and served with distinction under the immediate orders of Washington, during the darkest and most eventful period of the war. This regiment performed very severe duties during the campaigns of 1776 and 1777. It was present under the orders of Marshall at the battle of Trenton, and subsequently on the bloody fleld of Brandywine, where father and son served in different regiments, and each distinguished himself by good conduct and heroism.

Though without the advantages of an early education, Colonel Marshall was a man not only of great native en

*Sketch of Chief-Justice Marshall, and eulogy by Horace Binney, delivered before the Councils of Philadelphia, September 24th, 1835.