COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CALLAGHAN AND COMPANY. STATE JOURNAL PRINTING COMPANY, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS, MADISON, WIS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. The publishers have arranged to issue uniform with the present work an edition of Marshall's constitutional decisions and writings annotated, with the assistance of the present Editor, by George S. Clay and John M. Dillon of the New York Bar. ILLUSTRATIONS, VOL. I.—EXPLANATORY NOTES. PORTRAIT OF MARSHALL Frontispiece The portrait of the Chief Justice, frontispiece of the present volume, is from a crayon by the celebrated French artist St. Mémin, made in March, 1808, when Marshall was in the fifty-third year of his age, that is, about six years after his appointment as Chief Justice. Chrétien, another French artist, had in 1786 invented an instrument called the "physionotrace," by means of which a profile outline of a face in figure and dimensions could be taken with the utmost precision, and St. Mémin had constructed such an instrument for himself, filling in the outline, as in this instance, with crayon, generally black on a pink background. He visited the United States and executed hundreds of portraits. The original of Chief Justice Marshall, of which the frontispiece engraving by Klackner is a copy, is now owned by Mr. Thomas Marshall Smith, of Baltimore, whose mother was a daughter of the Chief Justice's eldest son. The por trait is the only one of Marshall at that age, has always remained in the family, and is regarded by them as an excellent likeness. Of the present engraving after that portrait, made from the reproduction by Mr. Klackner of New York, Mr. Smith says that "it is in every respect most satisfactory." Portraits of the Chief Justice later in life are given in subsequent volumes of the present publication. The second engraving in the present volume is the Oak Hill home of the Chief Justice, concerning which Mr. Thomas Marshall Smith, in a letter which he obligingly wrote to the Editor, says: "The father of the Chief Justice in 1765 moved to Fauquier county, and in 1773 purchased ‘Oak Hill,' or 'The Oaks.' Here he built a frame house, which is the wing on the right in the picture. The main building was added in 1821, by Thomas Marshall, the eldest son of the Chief Justice. It was at Oak Hill that the future Chief Justice spent most of his boyhood, and in it commenced at eighteen the study of the law from the first completed edition of Blackstone, then recently published, and which tradition says was imported by the father for the son's use. It was from Oak Hill that the son walked twenty miles to drill the Company his father had organized, afterwards known as the 'Culpeper Minute Men.' The house still exists as shown in the picture. The estate has changed hands several times since it was owned by the family; the present owner keeps the same in good repair." The present engraving is from an oil painting which Mr. Thomas Marshall Smith says "gives a better idea of the country home of the Chief Justice than anything we know of. My mother, who was born at Oak Hill and spent most of her life there, says the picture hung over the mantel-piece in the parlor many years, and that the engraving recalls the old place very vividly. The house at Germantown, in Fauquier county, where the Chief Justice was born, was destroyed a number of years ago." A plate of the Richmond home of the Chief Justice illustrates a subsequent volume of the present work. FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE TO RICHARD PETERS We give in facsimile an interesting original letter written by Marshall when he was Secretary of State, October 30, 1800, that is the October preceding his appointment as Chief Justice, courteously furnished to the editor by Mr. Edward C. Perkins of the New York Bar, who stated that the original was given to his grandmother, Mrs. M. A. D. Bruen, by Mrs. John Field, of Philadelphia, who was a descendant of Judge Peters, to whom the letter was addressed. The letter is intrinsically interesting, is characteristic of Marshall, and contains a touch of humor where he says: "I pray devoutly (which is no very common practice with me) that the future administration [Mr. Jefferson's] may do as little harm as the present and the past." |