xt7mkk947z9h https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7mkk947z9h/data/mets.xml  1901  books b92-151-29579548 English s.n.], : [S.l. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Marshall, John, 1755-1835. Lawyers Kentucky Fayette County. Judges Kentucky Fayette County. Addresses delivered in honor of John Marshall Day, by members of the Fayette County Bar, February 4, 1901, Lexington, Ky. text Addresses delivered in honor of John Marshall Day, by members of the Fayette County Bar, February 4, 1901, Lexington, Ky. 1901 2002 true xt7mkk947z9h section xt7mkk947z9h 































































From photograph of portrait by Jan. R. Lambdin, now owned] by
      Mrs. T. J. Car-on, oif Dixiatia," Fayette Co., Ky.

          .JOHN     MIARSHALL.

 
      ADDRESSES




      Delivered in Honor of





John Marshall Day,



        By Members of the



Fayette



County



Bar



February 4, 1901,



Lexington, Kentucky.


 
















          John Marshall Day Program.


                   Morning Exerciaea.
              Chairman, Judge Watts Parker.
Invocation ....................................   Bishop Lewis W. Burton.
Introductory Address ............................ Col. WV. C. P. Breckinridge.
JOHN MARSHALL,the GreatChief Justice ............. J. H. Beauchamp.


                   Evening Exercisea.
             Chairman, Judge Watts Parker.
The E arly Bar of Fayette County ........ ........... Samuel M. Wilson.
The Bench of Fayette County prior to 1860 ....... ...... Charles Kerr.
Personal recollections of the Fayette Bar    J. Soule Smith.


Commemorative Exercises to be held in the Fayette Circuit
Court Room, commencing in the morning at half-past ten and in
the evening at half-past seven o'clock.
USHERS:-'Messrs. Geo. S. Shanklin, R. E. Lee Morgan, P. M.
Gastineau, Wm. Worthington, Geo. R. Hunt.

 
  Thanks to -he appreciative Interest and good taste of Mrs.
Fannie B. Bullock, the Circuit Court room was most attractively
decorated and the effect produced by flags and flowers was
greatly heightened by the presence of a handsome oil portrait of
Chief Justice Marshall, which had been loaned for the occasion
by Major T. J. Carson, of Fayette County. It Is worthy of note
that this portrait was painted from life by the celebrated artist,
James R. Lambdin, of Philadelphia, who painted many por-
traits at Washington, including several of the presidents and a
likeness of John Marshall which now hangs In the United States
Supreme Court room.
  The Fayette Circuit Court met as usual on the morning of
February 4, 1901, and after the court had called for and disposed
of motions in matters of a pressing nature, Mr. George C. Webb,
of the Arrangements Committee, arose and moved the courtthat
it adjourn forthwith out of respect to the memory of John Mar-
shall and in honor of the day set apart for the purpose of doing
him homage, and that this fact be noted of record on the Order
Book of the court. This motion was immediately granted, and the
court was thereupon ordered to stand adjourned in commemora-
t1on of the one-hundredth anniversary of John Marshall's inaug-
uration as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States. Commencing promptly at half-past ten o'clock, the
morning exercises proceeded and were concluded at about 1 P. M.
The exercises at night occupied about two hours, commencing
at half-past seven o'clock. At the conclusion of the program,
upon motion of Judge J. R. Morton, a unanimous vote of thanks
was tendered the gentlemen who had contributed to the day's
entertainment and also to Mrs. Bullock for her kindness in pro
viding the decorations.
At a bar meeting held in the Circuit Court room, on Tuesday
morning, February,., 1901, a resolution was offered by Mr. C. J.
Bronston, authorizing the Committee on Arrangements to have
the John Marshall Day addresses published in book forrm. This
resolution was carried unanimously, and the undersigned mem-
bers of the Committee on Arrangements have in this volume
undertaken to carry out the wishes of their constituents and
commend the work as a fitting memorial of the celebration con-
ducted by the Lexington Bar.
                       J. R. MORTON, Chairman,
                       JOHN R. ALLEN,         Committee.
                       C. SCYDAM SCOTT,
                       GEO. C. WEBB,  



4


 
JUDGE PARKER'S ADDRESS.



  The morning exercises were opened by Judge Watts
Parker, who presided, with the following remarks:
  A century and a quarter ago a small band of Virgin-
ians were gathered about a spring within bow-shot of
where we now stand, when the tidings reached them of
a battle fought in the cause of American liberty.
Straightway, in commemoration of the event, they
called this place-then a tangled wilderness-now a fair
city-,Lexington."
  A part of Virginia then, her offspring now, it is meet
that we, in this historic spot, should be among the first
to honor a gifted son of that wondrous Commonwealth.
  Glorious Old Virginia-mother of statesmen, of jurists
and of warriors! From the time of him, who was "first
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his
countrymen," to the coming and passing of the match-
less Lee, the pages of her history have been illumined
by the deeds of her mighty sons. In the front rank of
Virginia's immortal dead, stands the man in whose
honor we meet today. Endowed with a patriotism lofty
as that of Washington-with heart as strong and life as
pure as the stainless Lee-he laid his guiding hand
upon the helm of our untried Ship of State, and essayed
to steer her safely upon an unknown sea.
  How well he succeeded, how clearly the great naviga-
tor saw, and with what skill he avoided each peril in the
path of the craft he directed, let those attest who, rep-
resenting more than seventy millions of people, this day
publicly do homage to the name and memory of John
Marshall, the great Chief Justice.



5


 
THE INVOCATION.



  Bishop Lewis W. Burton then offered the following
invocation:
  0 God, Thou art the Judge of all the earth! 'Justice
and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne; mercy
and truth shall go before Thy face.' We thank Thee for
the good example of Thy servant, whom we remember
before Thee this day. We praise Thee that, as one of
the chief of our tathers, he was a man fearing Thee, and
that he finally accepted Thy Son as his divine Savior.
To Thee did he owe his well-balanced mind, his intuitive
insight into the eternal principles of righteousness, his
ability to recognize equity, when others were in doubt,
and his steadfastness in the pursuit of justice even in
the face of opposition.
  Thou didst raise him up to these, Thy people, that,
in erecting the foundation of our republic, he might
'lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the
plummet.'
  And now we pray Thee that his influence may be
potent over this whole land in this, our day, in reviving
among us the love of justice and the practice of right-
eousness. May the law of our God be in our hearts.
Incline our hearts to keep Thy law. May we reverence
those set to judge us; and, that they may be worthy of
our reverence, enlarge their human limitations; lessen
their natural infirmities, and keep them free from igno-
rance, prejudice, partisanship and corruption. May
our people be a people loving truth and order, respect-
ing authority, obedient to law, holding sacred their own
and others' rights, and treasuring their priceless, blood-
bought inheritance of freedom. May they love Thee,
the Lord their God, with all their heart, with all their
soul, and with all their mind, and their neighbors as
themselves.
                          6


 
  And finally, when we appear before the Judge of the
quick and the dead, to be rewarded or punished accord-
ing to the deeds done in the body, may we be justified
in Thy sight, for the sake of Jesus, who shed His blood
to wash away our guilt, and who was obedient to the
law, that we might find our righteousness in Him. And
in His name we offer all these petitions unto Thee, and
pray Thee to hear us for Christ's sake. Amen!


      INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS.

Col. W. C. P. Brecicimridge then delivered the followliug
               Introductory Address.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, and my Fellow-
    members of the Fayette Bar:
  The duty which I am now to perform was assigned to
my brother and associate, Col. John R. Allen, who has
been called to Chicago, and at the request of the Com-
mittee, I take his place.
  The duty assigned to me is to make an introductory
address and merely to lay before you the chief objects of
our celebration.
  Topics germane to this day are very numerous and
full of profound interest. At the request of the Nation-
al Bar Association the various bars of the Union are
assembled to do honor to the memory of John Marshall,
as the great Chief Justice. It is the centennial anniver-
sary of the assumption of his duties under his appoint-
ment by John Adams, as Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States.
  We in Kentucky have a peculiar personal in-
terest in John  Marshall and all  that pertains to
him as an individual. The Marshalls of Kentucky
                         7

 
have played a larger part in the history of this
State than of any other, even of Virginia, and per-
haps I might say a more prominent part in this State
than any other family. Those who bave become emi-
nent in their services to the State of Kentucky, or by
reason of their prominence here, have been given an
opportunity to serve the Republic, are more numerous
and more eminent than the Marshalls of Virginia, ex-
cept the great Chief Justice himself. The very founida-
tions of our civil fabric were laid in part by the hands
of the Marshalls, and its great and noble principles have
been upheld, advocated, defended and adorned by mem-
bers of that family. either bearing its name, or akin to
it in blood, up to the present day. This bar has today
no names upon its rolls more honorable and illustrious,
unless it is the name of Henry Clay, than of those who
were akin to the Chief Justice. I know that we are apt
in looking back upon the earlier days to say, "There
were giants in those days," and this is true as to this
particular bar; and among the most eloquent of those
earlier lawyers was Joseph Hamilton Daviess, who was
held to be the rival of Henry Clay, and the equal of John
Allen. He early fell in the forefront of battle in defense
of his country, His wife was a sister of John Marshall.
  Our early historian who was elected Senator over John
Breckinridge, the elder, in 1793, and who divided with
Henry Clay, the honors of great debates in the Kentucky
Legislature, out of which debates resulted the duel be-
tween him and Henry Clay, married another sister of
John Marshall, and was in blood his kinsman.
  At this bar Thomas A. Marshall, who made his early
reputation-a reputation which was increased by most
admirable service in the Federal House of Representa-
tives, and was made permanent in the judicial annals
of Kentucky by his long and incorruptible career as
Chief Justice of Kentucky-was a nephew of the Chief
                         8

 
Justice. Those of us who are old enough to have heard
Thos. F. Marshall, have memories which may excite the
envy of those who were less fortunate. In that old Court
House which has been replaced by this beautiful struct-
ure, perhaps no more eloquent advocate ever charmed
or misled a jury than Thomas Francis Marshall. Among
the sons of Kentucky born upon her soil, few were equal,
perhaps none superior, in native intellectual gifts, in the
extent and value of his attainments, in the keenness of
his wit, the clearness of his reasoning, the ludicity of
his speech, to this gifted but erratic and unfortunate
son of genius. And if he had not been so great a man,
it is not unlikely that in the judgment of Kentucky his
brother, Edward C. Marshall, would have held his place.
If Edward Marshall had a superior as a public orator, as
a humorist and wit, it was only his elder brother.
  Three Johnson brothers were members of the Lower
House of Congress; three of the Marshall brothers sat
in that same body. We know of no other instance in
Kentucky where one family gave three brothers to the
Federal Congress. In each case, however, other mem-
bers of the same family bearing the same name were
also thus honored. Two of the Marshalls, Thomas F.
Marshall and Dr. Alexander K. Marshall, represented
this District.  Edward C. Marshall represented the
State of California, of which he was afterwards Attor-
ney General,
  Among the later members of this bar whose memory
is fresh with us was another relative of the Chief Jus-
tice, Henry Marshall Buford, than whom no abler or
purer judge ever dispensed justice from this, or any
other bench.
  But in a broader view, Kentucky was part ot Virginia
when John Marshall was born, and we claim him as one
of our native sons. It is true that after he had won his
reputation as soldier and also after his wondrous argu
                         9

 
ments in favor of the ratification of the Federal Consti-
tution in the Virginia Convention, Kentucky    be-
came an independent state, co-equal with Virginia
in the sisterhood of states, but she did not sur-
render by that act her share in the glories of
the old mother-her part in the honors won or to be won
by her brothers who remained within the territorial
limits of the old State. Her immigrants had brought
from Virginia the laws, the customs, the traditions, the
glories of the Oid Dominion. They formed part, the
larger part, of our wealth when we became an independ-
ent state; they are an inalienable part of the heritage
which we have received from our ancestors; they were
inwrought in the fabric of our institutions; they have
been in wrought in the very nature of Kentuckians. To-
day we claim Washington, Jefferson, Marshall, Henry
and their compeers as if they were all children of the
same mother, sprung from the same womb, begotten of
the same loins. Therefore, we can say of Marshall that
he is ours, using the word in a sense in which it can be
used in no other state save in the State of Virginia. He
was trained in a Virginia family, he sprang from Virginia
stock; he was a Virginian of Virginians, and this can
be said of those who laid the foundations of Kentucky;
those who made Kentucky what she was in th early
davs of her hi-tory ; and the projective force of their
teaching-their lives, have marked the pathway in which
she has trod. the glorious pathway which she has
adorned with many a memorial of her devotion to those
principles of constitutional liberty and of domestic
honor which she shares with the children of Virginia.
  John Marshall is an illustration of what is sometimes
called a "round man." I am not a believer in the doc-
trine that holds that the human intellect is so narrow
that a predisposition to succeed in any one department
presurnes an incapacity to succeed in other depart-
                          10

 
ments; that great and eminent success in some line of
intellectual vocation is an indication that failure would
have followed if he had been called to another profes-
sion, and had attempted to work in other lines.  This
contradicts the history of mankind. I believe in the
integrity of the intellect: in its capacity to discharge all
of the duties of life; I believe that if a man is capable
of rising to eminence by faithful and patient daily dis-
charge of duty in any department, it is presumptive evi-
dence that he would have succeeded in any other de-
partment; and this has been singularly illustrated in
America. Our great soldiers have been our great citi-
zens; our great lawyers and judges have been our most
eminent statesmen. It is not an unusual life in which
a man has succeeded on the battle-field, at the bar, in
the halls of Congress, and wherever else he has been
called to display intellectual activity. There is a vast
difference between universality of intellect and versatil-
ity of intellect. It is a somewhat ignoble illustration,
but it is also somewhat apt, that great intellect has the
quality of the elephant's snout, which can tear down the
huge tree of the forest and pick up a pin from the
ground. This very bar has names upon its rolls that it
would be difficult to determine in which department of
activity the men achieved the highest eminence. Look-
ing upon him who stands in bronze in the middle of
Cheapside, what will the world hereafter say Was he
greater as orator, as statesman, as soldier, or as typical
Kentucky gentleman And the same cau be said of others
who have passed from us in life, but remain with us in
immortal influence. To this class John Marshall be-
longed. He undertook no work in which he did not suc-
ceed; he was called to no vocation in which he did not
rise to the eminence which his opportunities made pos-
sible; and he was called to vocations that are radically
antipodal and which called for qualities apparently es-
                          11

 
sentially unlike. As a soldier he exhibited qualities not
only of courage, but of persistence, endurance and
capacity. Leaving the army, he early exhibited the
highest qualities of a successful lawyer.
  In some way, I do not know exactly how, under a cold
exterior, he carried such warmth of nature, as to win
public affection, and was never defeated at the polls.
On the floor of the Virginia Constitutional Convention
to ratify the Federal Constitution, he showed himself in
argument the peer of the greatest of those men, which
is equivalent to saying the peer of any debaters the
world ever heard, for the world has never seen a
body of men in which higher intellectual qualities
were daily displayed. He met Talleyrand in diplomatic
struggle and was thie victor; on the floor of the House of
Representatives, he was easily a leader; as Secretary
of State he has had no superior in the one hundred
years since he lived, and but two or three equals; and
as Chief Justice he stands without a peer in the
history of the world. There has been no greater judge
presiding in any tribunal, speaking any language, than
he was. The qualities of a soldier seemed to be rad-
ically different from those which would give victory to
the diplomat who was to meet Talleyrand; those quali-
ties which would give success to such a contest would
seem to be wholly dissimilar to the qualities which would
give hope of victory in a forensic debate with Patrick
Henry, and that arena is essentially unlike the chair of
the Chief Justice of such a Court as our Supreme Court.
This is not mysterious; it is not unfrequent in the his-
tory of men. It is not very frequent because but too
few men are given such opportunities, and few men have
gifts equal in extent to those possessed by John Marshall,
but in various degrees and according to the opportunities
permitted it is not a unique life.
  But the man John Marshall was always greater than
                          12

 
the position which he filled, and the possibilities within
him larger than the call upon him. He, therefore, dis-
charged every duty with a certain marvelous simplicity,
with an air of ease as if it were a most ordinary event,
calling for no extraordinary effort. His fidelity to his
duties indeed often seemed to be equal if not superior to
the capacity exhibited. One peculiarity of his long and
illustrious career is that every position to which he was
called seemed to be the one for which he was best fitted,
and every act which he performed appeared to be that for
which he was best prepared. He never over-did his
duty; there was no appearance ot effort; no ostentation;
no show of extra force or energy. He was like unto the
ceaseless, invisible, inaudible forces of nature around us
-you see the sun in his orbit; your sense of beauty is
delighted at the flowers which bloom about us, and fill
the air with fragrance, but we neither see nor hear nor
are able to measure the subtle, silent, ceaseless forces
whose powers are thus illustrated. And so with him,-
there was a simplicity, an unostentation, a quiet develop-
ment which hid the tremendous intellectual power which
was necessary to create, and which did create these vari-
ous acts. It is still one of the unsolved mysteries of our
psychology and philosophy, how this human intellect of
ours does its work. We have not get seen into its hid-
den depths, nor do we understand its mysterious mechan-
ism. In what manner these conceptions are formed and
how they are turned in the alchemy of our intellect into
production has not yet been revealed.
  John Marshall was always and everywhere a simple
man, a Virginia gentleman. In the day of his obscurity
he knew no superior and bowed his head in no man's
presence. In the day of his greatest eminence, he per-
mitted no man to feel that he held himself above him.
In no act or word or deed did he ever wound any one by
an assumption of superiority. He was the equal of the
                          13

 
highest on every day of his life; he made himself the
equal of the lowest on every day of his life; the kindly
qualities were equal to the intellectual gifts; the domes-
tic affections were Perhaps greater than the scholarly at-
tainments, and this is one of the secrets of his perpetual
power. Peace is next to purity in the divine economy.
First pure then peaceable; and the world can never
estimate the wondrous power which peace gives to him
whose days are devoted to labor and whose nights do not
shirk toil.
  His career was as remakable as his varied gifts. In
that career were so many events that the subjects which
will be the topics of discussion today in various parts of
the country will be almost as numerous as are the cele-
brations. t is impossible for us to realize the circum-
stances which surrounded him when he assumed the office
of Chief Justice. We were then a very feeble folk;
we were trying an experiment which had been commenced
only eleven years before. That Court was a unique
judicial tribunal; no tribunal like unto it had ever before
been established; no tribunal like unto it has ever since
been erected in any other country. He was also en-
vironed by very peculiar personal and partisan circum-
stances. He had been a leader of his party; the confi-
dant of Washington, and Secretary of State under John
Adams, and the enemy of Thomas Jefferson. His party
had beeD driven from power, and he was passing from
the office of Secretary of State to a life tenure of his
judicial office. His great adversary had become Presi-
dent. He believed the priciples of Thomas Jefferson
were, to say the least, dangerous, if not adsolutely de-
structive to the perpetuation of the Union which he loved,
of the government whose powers he believed ought to be
conserved.
  The election of Mr. Jefferson was not merely the de-
feat of the Federal party; it was not a mere change of
                          14

 
the personnel of President and National Officers.  Mr
Jefferson himself fitly described it as a revolution; and
it was a revolution which seemed to be and was in cer-
tain senses permanent.  The Federal party had thrown
itself unwisely athwart the progress of the new Repub-
lic. There are two great elemental forces in constant
conflict; and they are represented by two great classes
of leaders-the one who believe in all that is of the
past; the other who look forward to all that is hopeful
in the future. The error of the one often is that they
will not see anything good that is not of the past; and
the error of the other is that they will not preserve what
is good of the past. Of neither Mr. Jefferson nor Justice
Marshall can this be properly said, and yet each was a
leader of his respective party. Jefferson always lived
in the future, but he al vays carried with him the wis-
dom, the power and the triumphs of the past. Marshall
was a conservative, but he was a radical conservative.
He believed in the old truths, the old traditions; he ac-
cepted nothing new without examination, but he was al-
ways ready to adapt the old principles to the new condi-
tions; to slough off whatever of the old had become use-
less and to build into the old house whatever was need-
ed for its new uses  They were also radically unlike in
their t emperament; they were neighbors, and neighbors
who differ and differ so radically, are more apt to be ene-
mies, for they have daily opportunity to feel aggrieved
at the differences which are daily presented to them
The success of Mr. Jefferson was a victory of the future,
and was soon followed by the great act of the purchase
of the Louisiana Territory, which I do not hesitate to
avow, was, next to the Declaration of Independence, and
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the third great
step forward of the American Republic. The power of
Mr. Jefferson controlled every department of the govern-
ment except the judicial department. The Executive and
                           15

 
the Legislative departments soon passed under his
control, and the popular will was on his side. The dif-
ference between Mr. Jefferson and Justice Marshall was
practically not as great as it seemed to be, and we, look-
ing back upon those days, can now see how nearly simi-
lar their acts became when they were called upon to act.
It is more than probable that if Marshall had been the
President he would have purchased the Louisiana Terri-
tory, and he certainly had clearer views of the Constitu-
tional power of the United States to acquire foreign ter-
ritory than did Mr. Jefferson, who doubted the Consti-
tutional power of this sovereign nation to acquire and
govern foreign territory, and this doubt never entered
the judicial mind of a great jurist like John Marshall.
It is not unlikely that if Mr. Jefferson had become the
Chief Justice that he would have construed the Constitu-
tion in a sense not very dissimilar to what is the Mar-
shall construction, when all the decisions by Justice Mar-
shall are carefully analyzed and reconciled. When Jef-
ferson purchased the Louisiana Territory, the perpetuity
and unity of the Government of the United States be-
came absolute. No act of governmental sovereignty
could be higher than the acquisition of such a territory,
for the purpose of being converted into equal states, which
states should enter the Union upon terms of absolute
equality with the older states. No dicta of John Mar-
shall, no opinion rendered by him is equal or can by any
possibility be made equal in its results to the consoli-
dating power of the acquisition of such a territory, for
such a purpose. When all of John Marshall's decisions
are reduced to their ultimate analysis, they merely mean
that the Constitution of the United States is to be con-
strued as an act of government, an organic statute giv-
ing vigor and power to the government. But Thomas
Jefferson went one step further and actually put into
operation all the powers of sovereignty, when he pur-
                          16

 

chased that territory, united it to the territory then
belonging to the United States, and with the avowed
purpose put into the treaty that that territory should be
divided into states, which states should enter the Union
as component and equal sovereign states.  In truth the
apparent difference between the Democratic and the
Federal party was never so great as is made to appear in
discussions in our history. Those leaders had all been
rebels; they had all been English subjects; they were
trained under the English Constitution; they were lovers
of the same principles; they were intense believers in
judicial liberty, liberty regulated not only by law, but
liberty protected by courts, and in spite of their apparent
differences, the fundamental principles were nearly in
accord. When they came to act there was hostility.
John Marshall found his party moribund; he was an ex-
ceedingly adroit and wily politician. Men do not be-
come translated by being transferred from the bar to the
bench. This translation is not the translation that hap-
pened to Enoch and Elijah. They remain the same
men. Marshall, therefore, did not undertake to form a
new party; nor did he undertake to keep alive the Fed-
eral party; nor did he undertake to organize around
him a political party; he accepted the powerlessness of
the judicial department at the polls and in legislation;
but with an adroitness that has never been surpassed, it
we may use so narrow a word as adroitness to describe
so great a policy, he elevated the judicial power to the
unequalled place it holds in American politics. I use the
word" politics" in a higher and broader sense than that of
partizan differences-in the broad Athenian sense. The
Supreme Court of the United States has a power which
no other tribunal ever had-the power of declaring the
acts of the Executive and the enactments of the legisla-
tive departments void; to judicially determine that the
act of the co-equal executive was absolutely without
                          17

 
effect, and that the enactment of the co-equal legislature
was absolutely void. And John Marshall put the de-
fense of this upon a ground that could not be denied.
His argument was irresistible, and has been accepted
without dispute and is a fundamental principle of our
Government, and necessarily must be so under our Con-
stitution. He put it in the simplest possible form,-the
Constitution is supreme or it is not; if it is supreme all
departments must obey it; the judicial department must
construe it,-that is, declare what it is; when it declares
it, the act of the Legislature or of the Executive is instant-
ly discovered to be in accordance or in hostility to that
Constitution,-if in accordance with it the judicial de
partment has nothing further to do than to enforce it;
if it is in hostility to it, to declare it void. It is not
true that he made a new constitution. He is Praised
with injustice and condemned without justice, when he
is either praised or condemned for making a new Con-
stitution. Interpretation, construction, exposition has
been well said to have been all that he ever claimed to
be within thescope of judicial power. But he construed it
in the light of his own belief of what the Constitution
ought to be, as far as the words and phrases would per-
mit; and his constructions of the powers were so great,
and his argumentations so unanswerable that the coun-
try has accepted most of the great principles of con-
struction which he announced.
  I do not hesitate to say that as between Marshall and
Jefferson, I admire Jefferson more than Marshall. I be-
lieve Jefferson was the greatest political philosopher the
world has ever seen; the noblest uninspired intellect
ever devoted to governmental studies and duties, and
the few sentences of the Declaration of Independence,
the most important uninspired sentences which the
world now possesses. I do not see, humanly speaking,
how the experiment of civil liberty in America could
                          18

 
have been entered upon with any reasonable hope of
success and the experiment made fairly successful, ex-
cept for the principles enunciated by Jefferson, under
the leadership which was given to him. With some of
the conclusions enunciated by John Marshall, .1 thor-
oughly disagree; his arguments do not convince, I be-
lieve in the modifications which the Supreme Court
under Taney and others made of those opinions. But
I do not hesitate to avow that the appointment of John
Marshall and his long life as Chief Justice, are two of
the most important and beneficent events in our history.
Out of the fires of conflicting dogmas; out of the acting
and counteracting operation of contending parties, the
truth finally emerges, and a wise compromise is finally
adopted. The Republic of today could not have been
builded as it is, if all the builders had been given the
same gifts, and had worked upon precisely the same
lines. It is the joint temple builded by many builders,
each doing his part, so that under a higher influence,
every part is fitted well into every other part. Today
instead of holding up any differences of opinions, or
any hostility between Jefferson and Marshall, I beg you
to walk around our temple, look upon its towers, read its
inscriptions, meditate upon its engravings, pause and
admire its chambers, and recollect that it is the joint
work, in large part, of these sons of Virginia, each of
whom builded himself into its walls, and whose hearts
are parts of its foundations. Under Jefferson we adopt-
ed a system under which two states can abide in peace,
and under which one hundred states can deve