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and cloudless summer's day; a strain of music, perfect to the close, with not one rude note to grate upon the ear. He had laid his first fruits upon the altar of duty, and his last breath was spent in its service. It is not too much to say that this spotless virtue enforced every opinion that he gave, and that his country felt the advantage of it, to a degree hardly to be exaggerated. It bade the murmurs of opposition, which might have swelled into a torrent-like roar, die away in faint whispers. It disposed candid men to believe that he who had always acted right, must also, of necessity, think right.

The manners of Chief Justice Marshall were marked by that unaffected dignity and simplicity, which so well become a great magistrate. That calmness which gave so much strength to his mind, imparted itself to his whole nature. His temperament was of that placid kind, which is most favorable to wisdom, and without which a man can hardly be a practical philosopher. Nothing had power to disturb his equanimity, or ruffle the smoothness of his temper. He had none of that nervous excitability, which good men often find such a "thorn in the flesh." Neither vain repetition, nor frothy verbiage, nor declamatory nonsense, (and how much of all, must have been inflicted upon his "naked ears,") ever wrung from him a peevish remark, or an irritable gesture. In his carriage and deportment was seen a mixture of dignity and sweetness; the gravity of the judge tempered with the courtesy of the gentleman. His moderation was known in all things. He was a stranger to the extremes of excitement and depression, and the even flow of his cheerfulness betokened a perpetual sunshine of the breast. His conversation never dazzled by its brilliancy, or eloquence, or exuberance, but was characterized by quiet good sense, more than any thing else. He was never engrossing or obtrusive, and rather required to be drawn out. He was no social tyrant, trampling on opponents, with that overbearing intolerance which so often disgraces men who are conspicuous for their talents and station. Many who met him, were disappointed in not finding in his conversation, those striking qualities which they had anticipated; but no one left his presence, without carrying away the most gratifying recollection of his kindness, his sincerity and his entire want of pretension. His simplicity was indeed proverbial. It seemed sometimes to puzzle and disconcert those who saw him for the first time, so unprepared were they to find so great a man, so very plain and unpretending.

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They expected to see the Chief Justice of the United States, keeping up a sort of official state, even in private. But he was above this poor affectation, which is generally the disguise of conscious weakness, fearful of detection. He never desired to pass for any other than what he really was, and did not wish that the Chief Justice should receive a consideration which was not due to John Marshall. No man ever bore his honors more meekly. His dignity was not of that flimsy and unsubstantial texture, which cannot bear a near approach or a rude touch. He had none of that uneasy self-consciousness, which is ever on the watch to see that every one pays the exact amount of deference which is due. He sympathized readily and cordially with others, and was warm and constant in his affections. In particular, he felt a lively interest in the young, and seemed to grow young himself, in watching the glowing hues which paint life's "pleasant morning." He had nothing of that austerity and moroseness which, in old age, sometimes blight the genial charities of the heart. He did not feel cut off and apart from the generations that came after him, nor think that the glory would pass away from the earth, with that to which he belonged. As his youth was tempered with the wisdom and serenity of age, so his age was graced with much of that unworn freshness of feeling, which is so lovely in youth. Not only his early attachments, but his early tastes, even in amusements, were retained by him unimpaired, and he might be seen, in the very last years of his life, engaged with the keen relish of boyhood, in a game of quoits. His fondness for this exercise is one of those characteristic traits which ought to be preserved, and which mark the manly simplicity of his character and his disdain of affectation. If there be any one who thinks this an undignified amusement for a Chief Justice, we will remind him of the story of the Spartan king, who being engaged in some cheerful sport, and observing a solemn coxcomb approaching, remarked to his companions: "My friends, we must be grave, for here comes a fool."

There are some interesting points in the private and domestic character of Chief Justice Marshall, which are given with so much beauty and feeling, by Mr. Justice Story, that we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of transcribing the passages in question.

"He was a man of deep sensibility and tenderness; nay, he was an enthusiast in regard to the domestic virtues. He was en

dowed by nature with a temper of great susceptibility, easily excited, and warm, when roused. But it had been so schooled by discipline, or rather so moulded and chastened by his affections, that it seemed in gentleness, like the distilling dews of evening. It had been so long accustomed to flow in channels, where its sole delight was to give or secure happiness to others, that no one would have believed, that it could ever have been precipitate or sudden in its movements. In truth, there was, to the very close of his life, a romantic chivalry in his feelings, which, though rarely displayed, except in the circle of his most intimate friends, would there pour out itself with the most touching tenderness. In this confidential intercourse, when his soul sought solace from the sympathy of other minds, he would dissolve in tears at the recollection of some buried hope, or lost happiness. He would break out into strains of almost divine eloquence, while he pointed out the scenes of former joys, or recalled the memory of other days, as he brought up their images from the dimness and distance of forgotten years, and showed you at once the depth, with which he could feel, and the lower depths, in which he could bury his own closest, dearest, noblest emotions. After all, whatever may be his fame in the eyes of the world, that, which, in a just sense, was his highest glory, was the purity, affectionateness, liberality, and devotedness of his domestic life. Home, home, was the scene of his real triumphs. There, he indulged himself in what he most loved, the duties and the blessings of the family circle. There, his heart had its full play; and his social qualities, warmed, and elevated, and refined by the habitual elegancies of taste, shed around their beautiful and blended lights. There, the sunshine of his soul diffused its softened radiance, and cheered and soothed and tranquillized the passing hours.

"May I be permitted also in this presence to allude to another trait in his character, which lets us at once into the inmost recesses of his feelings with an unerring certainty. I allude to the high value, in which he held the female sex, as the friends, the companions, and the equals of man. I do not here mean to refer to the courtesy and delicate kindness, with which he was accustomed to treat the sex; but rather to the unaffected respect, with which he spoke of their accomplishments, their talents, their virtues, and their excellencies. The scoffs and jeers of the morose, the bitter taunts of the satirist, and the lighter ridicule of the witty, so profusely, and often so ungenerously, poured out upon transient follies or fashions, found no sympathy in his bosom. He was still farther above the common-place flatteries, by which frivolity seeks to administer aliment to personal vanity, or vice to make its approaches for baser purposes. He spoke to the sex, when present, as he spoke of them, when absent, in language of

just appeal to their understandings, their tastes, and their duties. He paid a voluntary homage to their genius, and to the beautiful productions of it, which now adorn almost every branch of literature and learning. He read those productions with a glowing gratitude. He proudly proclaimed their merits, and vindicated on all occasions their claims to the highest distinction. And he did not hesitate to assign to the great female authors of our day a rank, not inferior to that of the most gifted and polished of the other sex. But, above all, he delighted to dwell on the admirable adaptation of their minds, and sensibilities, and affections to the exalted duties assigned to them by Providence. Their superior purity, their singleness of heart, their exquisite perception of moral and religous sentiment, their maternal devotedness, their uncomplaining sacrifices, their fearlessness in duty, their buoyancy in hope, their courage in despair, their love, which triumphs most, when most pressed by dangers and difficulties; which watches the couch of sickness, and smooths the bed of death, and smiles even in the agonies of its own sufferings; These, these were the favorite topics of his confidential conversation; and on these he expatiated with an enthusiasm, which showed them to be present in his daily meditations." pp. 53-56.

Among the qualifications which were possessed by Chief Justice Marshall, for an office as laborious as it is responsible, we must not overlook a healthy physical organization and great soundness of constitution. Without vigor of body, there cannot be permanent vigor of mind, and great intellectual efforts require great physical energies. He was capable of uncommon exertions, both of body and mind, and his habits of exercise and temperance preserved his powers unimpaired to the last. He was very athletic in his youth, fond of field sports, and excelled in all exercises which require strength or agility. The mountain breezes filled his veins with health, and braced his frame with that robust energy, which carried him so triumphantly through the exhausting duties, alike of the camp and the forum. His arduous judicial labors he discharged with an ease which seemed unconscious of their weight. Without doubt, much of that uniformity of health which he enjoyed was due to the calmness of his moral temperament, to his pure and simple tastes, his self-command, and to his never having been, at any period of his life, the slave of wasting passions. Still, without an uncommonly favorable constitution of body, he could never have gone on, nearly to the age of fourscore, performing the duties of his high and laborious office, without the least

decay of his faculties, and with a vigor of mind which burned clear to the last. Nor is it one of the least remarkable facts about him, that his ablest opinions were written after the age of sixty, when, by the laws of the largest State in the Union, a man ceases to be qualified for a judicial office.

Had he

We have been considering Chief Justice Marshall exclusively in his judicial capacity, and have endeavored to shew how admirably the whole constitution of his nature was adapted to the place which he occupied during the last thirty-four years of his life. In doing this, we have by no means overlooked his previous career, nor been insensible to the merit displayed by him as a legislator, a diplomatist, and a statesman. died at the age of forty-five, he would have left behind him a most honorable name, and been gratefully remembered by his country, as one of the most able and high-minded of her sons. But the splendor of his judicial reputation throws a shade over the other efforts of his intellect, imposing as these appear, when contemplated singly. His mind, his character and his temperament were so well calculated for the Bench, that we have preferred to consider all that he did, previous to his appointment, rather as a course of preparatory exercises to educate him for that great station to which he had received a sort of native bias, than as constituting by themselves any considerable portion of his fame. Indeed, his speeches, his arguments, and his writings were all imbued with a kind of judicial character, and in his whole course as a public man, he appeared more like a wise judge, seeking after and announcing the truth, than as a reckless partizan, who wanted to know only on what side he was to fight. His speech in the legislature of Virginia on the occasion of Mr. Jay's treaty with Great Britain, in which he maintained the constitutional right of the Executive to conclude a commercial treaty, (and which has been preserved only by tradition,) had all the characteristics and also all the effect of a judicial opinion. It caused a most important modification in the resolutions of the Assembly, which silently abandoned the constitutional objection, though it had been previously pressed with great warmth and confidence. His well known argument in the House of Representatives of the United States, in the case of Jonathan Robbins, has been preserved. It enjoys an authority almost unknown to any judicial argument. It settled the question under debate entirely at

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