THE FINAL CONFLICT
Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable. (Daniel Webster.)
Fellow citizens, the die is now cast. Prepare for the crisis and meet it as becomes men and freemen. (South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification.)
The Union has been prolonged thus far by miracles. I fear they cannot continue. (Marshall.)
It is time to be old,
To take in sail. (Emerson.)
The last years of Marshall's life were clouded with sadness, almost despair. His health failed; his wife died; the Supreme Court was successfully defied; his greatest opinion was repudiated and denounced by a strong and popular President; his associates on the Bench were departing from some of his most cherished views; and the trend of public events convinced him that his labor to construct an enduring nation, to create institutions of orderly freedom, to introduce stability and system into democracy, had been in vain.
Yet, even in this unhappy period, there were hours of triumph for John Marshall. He heard his doctrine of Nationalism championed by Daniel Webster, who, in one of the greatest debates of history, used Marshall's arguments and almost his very words; he beheld the militant assertion of the same principle by Andrew Jackson, who, in this instance, also employed Marshall's reasoning and method of statement; and he witnessed the sudden flowering of public appreciation of his character and services.
During the spring of 1831, Marshall found himself, for the first time in his life, suffering from acute pain. His Richmond physician could give him no relief; and he became so despondent that he determined to resign immediately after the ensuing Presidential election, in case Jackson should be defeated, an event which many then thought probable. In a letter about the house at which the members of the Supreme Court were to board during the next term, Marshall tells Story of his purpose: "Being ... a bird of passage, whose continuance with you cannot be long, I did not chuse to permit my convenience or my wishes to weigh a feather in the permanent arrangements.... But in addition, I felt serious doubts, although I did not mention them, whether I should be with you at the next term.
"What I am about to say is, of course, in perfect confidence which I would not breathe to any other person whatever. I had unaccountably calculated on the election of P[residen]t taking place next fall, and had determined to make my continuance in office another year dependent on that event.
"You know how much importance I attach to the character of the person who is to succeed me, and calculate the influence which probabilities on that subject would have on my continuance in office. This, however, is a matter of great delicacy on which I cannot and do not speak.
"My erroneous calculation of the time of the election was corrected as soon as the pressure of official duty was removed from my mind, and I had nearly decided on my course, but recent events produce such real uncertainty respecting the future as to create doubts whether I ought not to await the same chances in the fall of 32 which I had intended to await in the fall of 31."[1390]
Marshall steadily became worse, and in September he went to Philadelphia to consult the celebrated physician and surgeon, Dr. Philip Syng Physick, who at once perceived that the Chief Justice was suffering from stone in the bladder. His affliction could be relieved only by the painful and delicate operation of lithotomy, which Dr. Physick had introduced in America. From his sick-room Marshall writes Story of his condition during the previous five months, and adds that he looks "with impatience for the operation."[1391] He is still concerned about the court's boarding-place and again refers to his intention of leaving the Bench: "In the course of the summer ... I found myself unequal to the effective consideration of any subject, and had determined to resign at the close of the year. This determination, however, I kept to myself, being determined to remain master of my own conduct." Story had answered Marshall's letter of June 26, evidently protesting against the thought of the Chief Justice giving up his office.
Marshall replies: "On the most interesting part of your letter I have felt, and still feel, great difficulty. You understand my general sentiments on that subject as well as I do myself. I am most earnestly attached to the character of the department, and to the wishes and convenience of those with whom it has been my pride and my happiness to be associated for so many years. I cannot be insensible to the gloom which lours over us. I have a repugnance to abandoning you under such circumstances which is almost invincible. But the solemn convictions of my judgement sustained by some pride of character admonish me not to hazard the disgrace of continuing in office a mere inefficient pageant."[1392]
Had Adams been reëlected in 1828, there can be no doubt that Marshall would have resigned during that Administration; and it is equally certain that, if Jackson had been defeated in 1832, the Chief Justice would have retired immediately. The Democratic success in the election of that year determined him to hold on in an effort to keep the Supreme Court, as long as possible, unsubmerged by the rising tide of radical Localism. Perhaps he also clung to a desperate hope that, during his lifetime, a political reaction would occur and a conservative President be chosen who could appoint his successor.
When Marshall arrived at Philadelphia, the bar of that city wished to give him a dinner, and, by way of invitation, adopted remarkable resolutions expressing their grateful praise and affectionate admiration. The afflicted Chief Justice, deeply touched, declined in a letter of singular grace and dignity: "It is impossible for me ... to do justice to the feelings with which I receive your very flattering address; ... to have performed the official duties assigned to me by my country in such a manner as to acquire the approbation of" the Philadelphia bar, "affords me the highest gratification of which I am capable, and is more than an ample reward for the labor which those duties impose." Marshall's greatest satisfaction, he says, is that he and his associates on the Supreme Bench "have never sought to enlarge the judicial power beyond its proper bounds, nor feared to carry it to the fullest extent that duty required."[1393] The members of the bar then begged the Chief Justice to receive them "in a body" at "the United States Courtroom"; and also to "permit his portrait to be taken" by "an eminent artist of this city."[1394]
With anxiety, but calmness and even good humor, Marshall awaited the operation. Just before he went to the surgeon's table, Dr. Jacob Randolph, who assisted Dr. Physick, found Marshall eating a hearty breakfast. Notwithstanding the pain he suffered, the Chief Justice laughingly explained that, since it might be the last meal he ever would enjoy, he had determined to make the most of it. He understood that the chances of surviving the operation were against him, but he was eager to take them, since he would rather die than continue to suffer the agony he had been enduring.
While the long and excruciating operation went on, by which more than a thousand calculi were removed, Marshall was placid, "scarcely uttering a murmur throughout the whole procedure." The physicians ascribed his recovery "in a great degree ... to his extraordinary self possession, and to the calm and philosophical views which he took of his case."[1395]
Marshall writes Story about his experience and the results of the treatment, saying that he must take medicine "continually to prevent new formations," and adding, with humorous melancholy, that he "must submit too to a severe and most unsociable regimen." He cautions Story to care for his own health, which Judge Peters had told him was bad. "Without your vigorous and powerful co-operation I should be in despair, and think the 'ship must be given up.'"[1396]
On learning of his improved condition, Story writes Peters from Cambridge: "This seems to me a special interposition of Providence in favor of the Constitution.... He is beloved and reverenced here beyond all measure, though not beyond his merits. Next to Washington he stands the idol of all good men."[1397]
While on this distressing visit to Philadelphia, Marshall writes his wife two letters—the last letters to her of which any originals or copies can be found. "I anticipate with a pleasure which I know you will share the time when I may sit by your side by our tranquil fire side & enjoy the happiness of your society without inflicting on you the pain of witnessing my suffering.... I am treated with the most flattering attentions in Philadelphia. They give me pain, the more pain as the necessity of declining many of them may be ascribed to a want of sensibility."[1398]
His recovery assured, Marshall again writes his wife: "I have at length risen from my bed and am able to hold a pen. The most delightful use I can make of it is to tell you that I am getting well ... from the painful disease with which I have been so long affected.... Nothing delights me so much as to hear from my friends and especially from you. How much was I gratified at the line from your own hand in Mary's letter.[1399]... I am much obliged by your offer to lend me money.[1400] I hope I shall not need it but can not as yet speak positively as my stay has been longer and my expenses greater than I had anticipated on leaving home. Should I use any part of it, you may be assured it will be replaced on my return. But this is a subject on which I know you feel no solicitude.... God bless you my dearest Polly love to all our friends. Ever your most affectionate J. Marshall."[1401]
On December 25, 1831, his "dearest Polly" died. The previous day, she hung about his neck a locket containing a wisp of her hair. For the remainder of his life he wore this memento, never parting with it night or day.[1402] Her weakness, physical and mental, which prevailed throughout practically the whole of their married life, inspired in Marshall a chivalric adoration. On the morning of the first anniversary of her death, Story chanced to go into Marshall's room and "found him in tears. He had just finished writing out for me some lines of General Burgoyne, of which he spoke to me last evening as eminently beautiful and affecting.... I saw at once that he had been shedding tears over the memory of his own wife, and he has said to me several times during the term, that the moment he relaxes from business he feels exceedingly depressed, and rarely goes through a night without weeping over his departed wife.... I think he is the most extraordinary man I ever saw, for the depth and tenderness of his feelings."[1403]
But Marshall had also written something which he did not show even to Story—a tribute to his wife:
"This day of joy and festivity to the whole Christian world is, to my sad heart, the anniversary of the keenest affliction which humanity can sustain. While all around is gladness, my mind dwells on the silent tomb, and cherishes the remembrance of the beloved object which it contains.
"On the 25th of December, 1831, it was the will of Heaven to take to itself the companion who had sweetened the choicest part of my life, had rendered toil a pleasure, had partaken of all my feelings, and was enthroned in the inmost recess of my heart. Never can I cease to feel the loss and to deplore it. Grief for her is too sacred ever to be profaned on this day, which shall be, during my existence, marked by a recollection of her virtues.
"On the 3d of January, 1783, I was united by the holiest bonds to the woman I adored. From the moment of our union to that of our separation, I never ceased to thank Heaven for this its best gift. Not a moment passed in which I did not consider her as a blessing from which the chief happiness of my life was derived. This never-dying sentiment, originating in love, was cherished by a long and close observation of as amiable and estimable qualities as ever adorned the female bosom. To a person which in youth was very attractive, to manners uncommonly pleasing, she added a fine understanding, and the sweetest temper which can accompany a just and modest sense of what was due to herself.
"She was educated with a profound reverence for religion, which she preserved to her last moments. This sentiment, among her earliest and deepest impressions, gave a colouring to her whole life. Hers was the religion taught by the Saviour of man. She was a firm believer in the faith inculcated by the Church (Episcopal) in which she was bred.
"I have lost her, and with her have lost the solace of my life! Yet she remains still the companion of my retired hours, still occupies my inmost bosom. When alone and unemployed, my mind still recurs to her. More than a thousand times since the 25th of December, 1831, have I repeated to myself the beautiful lines written by General Burgoyne, under a similar affliction, substituting 'Mary' for 'Anna':
"'Encompass'd in an angel's frame,
An angel's virtues lay:
Too soon did Heaven assert its claim
And take its own away!
My Mary's worth, my Mary's charms,
Can never more return!
What now shall fill these widow'd arms?
Ah, me! my Mary's urn!
Ah, me! ah, me! my Mary's urn!'"[1404]
After his wife's death, Marshall arranged to live at "Leeds Manor," Fauquier County, a large house on part of the Fairfax estate which he had given to his son, James Keith Marshall. A room, with very thick walls to keep out the noise of his son's many children, was built for him, adjoining the main dwelling. Here he brought his library, papers, and many personal belongings. His other sons and their families lived not far away; "Leeds Manor" was in the heart of the country where he had grown to early manhood; and there he expected to spend his few remaining years.[1405] He could not, however, tear himself from his Richmond home, where he continued to live most of the time until his death.[1406]
When fully recovered from his operation, Marshall seemed to acquire fresh strength. He "is in excellent health, never better, and as firm and robust in mind as in body," Story informs Charles Sumner.[1407]
The Chief Justice was, however, profoundly depressed. The course that President Jackson was then pursuing—his attitude toward the Supreme Court in the Georgia controversy,[1408] his arbitrary and violent rule, his hostility to the second Bank of the United States—alarmed and distressed Marshall.
"Leeds Manor"
The principal house in the Fairfax purchase and the home of Marshall's son,
James Keith Marshall, where he expected to spend his declining years.
The Bank had finally justified the brightest predictions of its friends. Everywhere in the country its notes were as good as gold, while abroad they were often above par.[1409] Its stock was owned in every nation and widely distributed in America.[1410] Up to the time when Jackson began his warfare upon the Bank, the financial management of Nicholas Biddle had been as brilliant as it was sound.[1411]
But popular hostility to the Bank had never ceased. In addition to the old animosity toward any central institution of finance, charges were made that directors of certain branches of the Bank had used their power to interfere in politics. As implacable as they were unjust were the assaults made by Democratic politicians upon Jeremiah Mason, director of the branch at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Had the Bank consented to Mason's removal, it is possible that Jackson's warfare on it would not have been prosecuted.[1412]
The Bank's charter was to expire in 1836. In his first annual Message to Congress the President briefly called attention to the question of rechartering the institution. The constitutionality of the Bank Act was doubtful at best, he intimated, and the Bank certainly had not established a sound and uniform currency.[1413] In his next Message, a year later, Jackson repeated more strongly his attack upon the Bank.[1414]
Two years afterwards, on the eve of the Presidential campaign of 1832, the friends of the Bank in Congress passed, by heavy majorities, a bill extending the charter for fifteen years after March 3, 1836, the date of its expiration.[1415] The principal supporters of this measure were Clay and Webster and, indeed, most of the weighty men in the National Legislature. But they were enemies of Jackson, and he looked upon the rechartering of the Bank as a personal affront.
On July 4, 1832, the bill was sent to the President. Six days later he returned it with his veto. Jackson's veto message was as able as it was cunning. Parts of it were demagogic appeals to popular passion; but the heart of it was an attack upon Marshall's opinions in M'Culloch vs. Maryland and Osborn vs. The Bank.
The Bank is a monopoly, its stockholders and directors a "privileged order"; worse still, the institution is rapidly passing into the hands of aliens—"already is almost a third of the stock in foreign hands." If we must have a bank, let it be "purely American." This aristocratic, monopolistic, un-American concern exists by the authority of an unconstitutional act of Congress. Even worse is the rechartering act which he now vetoed.
The decision of the Supreme Court in the Bank cases, settled nothing, said Jackson. Marshall's opinions were, for the most part, erroneous and "ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution.... It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision.
"The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve."[1416]
But, says Jackson, the court did not decide that "all features of this corporation are compatible with the Constitution." He quotes—and puts in italics—Marshall's statement that "where the law is not prohibited and is really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted to the Government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department and to tread on legislative ground." This language, insists Jackson, means that "it is the exclusive province of Congress and the President to decide whether the particular features of this act are necessary and proper ... and therefore constitutional, or unnecessary and improper, and therefore unconstitutional."[1417] Thereupon Jackson points out what he considers to be the defects of the bill.
Congress has no power to "grant exclusive privileges or monopolies," except in the District of Columbia and in the matter of patents and copyrights. "Every act of Congress, therefore, which attempts, by grants of monopolies or sale of exclusive privileges for a limited time, or a time without limit, to restrict or extinguish its own discretion in the choice of means to execute its delegated powers, is equivalent to a legislative amendment of the Constitution, and palpably unconstitutional."[1418] Jackson fiercely attacks Marshall's opinion that the States cannot tax the National Bank and its branches.
The whole message is able, adroit, and, on its face, plainly intended as a campaign document.[1419] A shrewd appeal is made to the State banks. Popular jealousy and suspicion of wealth and power are skillfully played upon: "The rich and powerful" always use governments for "their selfish purposes." When laws are passed "to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.
"There are no necessary evils in government," says Jackson. "Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing"—thus he runs on to his conclusion.[1420]
The masses of the people, particularly those of the South, responded with wild fervor to the President's assault upon the citadel of the "money power." John Marshall, the defender of special privilege, had said that the Bank law was protected by the Constitution; but Andrew Jackson, the champion of the common people, declared that it was prohibited by the Constitution. Hats in the air, then, and loud cheers for the hero who had dared to attack and to overcome this financial monster as he had fought and beaten the invading British!
Marshall was infinitely disgusted. He informs Story of Virginia's applause of Jackson's veto: "We are up to the chin in politics. Virginia was always insane enough to be opposed to the Bank of The United States, and therefore hurras for the veto. But we are a little doubtful how it may work in Pennsylvania. It is not difficult to account for the part New York may take. She has sagacity enough to see her interest in putting down the present bank. Her mercantile position gives her a controul, a commanding controul, over the currency and the exchanges of the country, if there be no Bank of The United States. Going for herself she may approve this policy; but Virginia ought not to drudge for her benefit."[1421]
Jackson did not sign the bill for the improvement of rivers and harbors, passed at the previous session of Congress, because, as he said, he had not "sufficient time ... to examine it before the adjournment."[1422] Everybody took the withholding of his signature as a veto.[1423] This bill included a feasible project for making the Virginia Capital accessible to seagoing vessels. Even this action of the President was applauded by Virginians:
"We show our wisdom most strikingly in approving the veto on the harbor bill also," Marshall writes Story. "That bill contained an appropriation intended to make Richmond a seaport, which she is not at present, for large vessels fit to cross the Atlantic. The appropriation was whittled down in the House of Representatives to almost nothing.... Yet we wished the appropriation because we were confident that Congress when correctly informed, would add the necessary sum. This too is vetoed; and for this too our sagacious politicians are thankful. We seem to think it the summit of human wisdom, or rather of American patriotism, to preserve our poverty."[1424]
During the Presidential campaign of 1832, Marshall all but despaired of the future of the Republic. The autocracy of Jackson's reign; the popular enthusiasm which greeted his wildest departures from established usage and orderly government; the state of the public mind, indicated everywhere by the encouragement of those whom Marshall believed to be theatrical and adventurous demagogues—all these circumstances perturbed and saddened him.
And for the time being, his fears were wholly justified. Triumphantly reëlected, Jackson pursued the Bank relentlessly. Finally he ordered that the Government funds should no longer be deposited in that hated institution. Although that desperate act brought disaster on business throughout the land, it was acclaimed by the multitude. In alarm and despair, Marshall writes Story: "We [Virginians] are insane on the subject of the Bank. Its friends, who are not numerous, dare not, a few excepted, to avow themselves."[1425]
But the sudden increase and aggressiveness of disunion sentiment oppressed Marshall more heavily than any other public circumstance of his last years. The immediate occasion for the recrudescence of Localism was the Tariff. Since the Tariff of 1816 the South had been discontented with the protection afforded the manufacturers of the North and East; and had made loud outcry against the protective Tariff of 1824. The Southern people felt that their interests were sacrificed for the benefit of the manufacturing sections; they believed that all that they produced had to be sold in a cheap, unprotected market, and all that they purchased had to be bought in a dear, protected market; they were convinced that the protective tariff system, and, indeed, the whole Nationalist policy, meant the ruin of the South.
Moreover, they began to see that the power that could enact a protective tariff, control commerce, make internal improvements, could also control slavery—perhaps abolish it.[1426] Certainly that was "the spirit" of Marshall's construction of the Constitution, they said. "Sir," exclaimed Robert S. Garnett of Virginia during the debate in the House on the Tariff of 1824, "we must look very little to consequences if we do not perceive in the spirit of this construction, combined with the political fanaticism of the period, reason to anticipate, at no distant day, the usurpation, on the part of Congress, of the right to legislate upon a subject which, if you once touch, will inevitably throw this country into revolution—I mean that of slavery.... Can whole nations be mistaken? When I speak of nations, I mean Virginia, the Carolinas, and other great Southern commonwealths."[1427]
John Carter of South Carolina warned the House not to pass a law "which would, as to this portion of the Union, be registered on our statute books as a dead letter."[1428] James Hamilton, Jr., of the same State, afterwards a Nullification Governor, asked: "Is it nothing to weaken the attachment of one section of this confederacy to the bond of Union?... Is it nothing to sow the seeds of incurable alienation?"[1429]
The Tariff of 1828 alarmed and angered the Southern people to the point of frenzy. "The interests of the South have been ... shamefully sacrificed!" cried Hayne in the Senate. "Her feelings have been disregarded; her wishes slighted; her honest pride insulted!"[1430] So enraged were Southern Representatives that, for the most part, they declined to speak. Hamilton expressed their sentiments. He disdained to enter into the "chaffering" about the details of the bill.[1431] "You are coercing us to inquire, whether we can afford to belong to a confederacy in which severe restrictions, tending to an ultimate prohibition of foreign commerce, is its established policy.[1432]... Is it ... treason, sir, to tell you that there is a condition of public feeling throughout the southern part of this confederacy, which no prudent man will treat with contempt, and no man who loves his country will not desire to see allayed?[1433]... I trust, sir, that this cup may pass from us.... But, if an adverse destiny should be ours—if we are doomed to drink 'the waters of bitterness,' in their utmost woe, ... South Carolina will be found on the side of those principles, standing firmly, on the very ground which is canonized by that revolution which has made us what we are, and imbued us with the spirit of a free and sovereign people."[1434]
Retaliation, even forcible resistance, was talked throughout the South when this "Tariff of Abominations," as the Act of 1828 was called, became a law. The feeling in South Carolina especially ran high. Some of her ablest men proposed that the State should tax all articles[1435] protected by the tariff. Pledges were made at public meetings not to buy protected goods manufactured in the North. At the largest gathering in the history of the State, resolutions were passed demanding that all trade with tariff States be stopped.[1436] Nullification was proposed.[1437] The people wildly acclaimed such a method of righting their wrongs, and Calhoun gave to the world his famous "Exposition," a treatise based on the Jeffersonian doctrine of thirty years previous.[1438]
A little more than a year after the passage of the Tariff of 1824, and the publication of Marshall's opinions in Osborn vs. The Bank and Gibbons vs. Ogden, Jefferson had written Giles of the "encroachments" by the National Government, particularly by the Supreme Court and by Congress. How should these invasions of the rights of the States be checked? "Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them [Congress and the Supreme Court].... Are we then to stand to our arms?... No. That must be the last resource." But the States should denounce the acts of usurpation "until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation."[1439] Jefferson's letter, written only six months before his death, was made public just as the tide of belligerent Nullification was beginning to rise throughout the South.[1440]
At the same time defiance of National authority came also from Georgia, the cause being as distinct from the tariff as the principle of resistance was identical. This cause was the forcible seizure, by Georgia, of the lands of the Cherokee Indians and the action of the Supreme Court in cases growing out of Georgia's policy and the execution of it.
By numerous treaties between the National Government and the Cherokee Nation, the Indians were guaranteed protection in the enjoyment of their lands. When Georgia, in 1802, ceded her claim to that vast territory stretching westward to the Mississippi, it had been carefully provided that the lands of the Indians should be preserved from seizure or entry without their consent, and that their rights should be defended from invasion or disturbance. The Indian titles were to be extinguished, however, as soon as this could be done peaceably, and without inordinate expense.
In 1827, these Georgia Cherokees, who were highly civilized, adopted a constitution, set up a government of their own modeled upon that of the United States, and declared themselves a sovereign independent nation.[1441] Immediately thereafter the Legislature of Georgia passed resolutions declaring that the Cherokee lands belonged to the State "absolutely"—that the Indians were only "tenants at her will"; that Georgia had the right to, and would, extend her laws throughout her "conventional limits," and "coerce obedience to them from all descriptions of people, be they white, red, or black."[1442]
Deliberately, but without delay, the State enacted laws taking over the Cherokee lands, dividing them into counties, and annulling "all laws, usages and customs" of the Indians.[1443] The Cherokees appealed to President Jackson, who rebuffed them and upheld Georgia.[1444] Gold was discovered in the Indian country, and white adventurers swarmed to the mines.[1445] Georgia passed acts forbidding the Indians to hold courts, or to make laws or regulations for the tribe. White persons found in the Cherokee country without a license from the Governor were, upon conviction, to be imprisoned at hard labor for four years. A State guard was established to "protect" the mines and arrest any one "detected in a violation of the laws of this State."[1446] Still other acts equally oppressive were passed.[1447]
On the advice of William Wirt, then Attorney-General of the United States, and of John Sergeant of Philadelphia, the Indians applied to the Supreme Court for an injunction to stop Georgia from executing these tyrannical statutes. The whole country was swept by a tempest of popular excitement. South and North took opposite sides. The doctrine of State Rights, in whose name internal improvements, the Tariff, the Bank, and other Nationalist measures had been opposed, was invoked in behalf of Georgia.
The Administration tried to induce the Cherokees to exchange their farms, mills, and stores in Georgia for untamed lands in the Indian Territory. The Indians sent a commission to investigate that far-off region, which reported that it was unfit for agriculture and that, once there, the Cherokees would have to fight savage tribes.[1448] Again they appealed to the President; again Jackson told them that Georgia had absolute authority over them. Angry debates arose in Congress over a bill to send the reluctant natives to the wilds of the then remote West.[1449]
Such was the origin of the case of The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.[1450] At Wirt's request, Judge Dabney Carr laid the whole matter before Marshall, Wirt having determined to proceed with it or to drop it as the Chief Justice should advise. Marshall, of course, declined to express any opinion on the legal questions involved: "I have followed the debate in both houses of Congress, with profound attention and with deep interest, and have wished, most sincerely, that both the executive and legislative departments had thought differently on the subject. Humanity must bewail the course which is pursued, whatever may be the decision of policy."[1451]
Before the case could be heard by the Supreme Court, Georgia availed herself of an opportunity to show her contempt for the National Judiciary and to assert her "sovereign rights." A Cherokee named George Tassels was convicted of murder in the Superior Court of Hall County, Georgia, and lay in jail until the sentence of death should be executed. A writ of error from the Supreme Court was obtained, and Georgia was ordered to appear before that tribunal and defend the judgment of the State Court.
The order was signed by Marshall. Georgia's reply was as insulting and belligerent as it was prompt and spirited. The Legislature resolved that "the interference by the chief justice of the supreme court of the U. States, in the administration of the criminal laws of this state, ... is a flagrant violation of her rights"; that the Governor "and every other officer of this state" be directed to "disregard any and every mandate and process ... purporting to proceed from the chief justice or any associate justice of the supreme court of the United States"; that the Governor be "authorised and required, with all the force and means ... at his command ... to resist and repel any and every invasion from whatever quarter, upon the administration of the criminal laws of this state"; that Georgia refuses to become a party to "the case sought to be made before the supreme court"; and that the Governor, "by express," direct the sheriff of Hall County to execute the law in the case of George Tassels.[1452]
Five days later, Tassels was hanged,[1453] and the Supreme Court of the United States, powerless to vindicate its authority, defied and insulted by a "sovereign" State, abandoned by the Administration, was humiliated and helpless.
When he went home on the evening of January 4, 1831, John Quincy Adams, now a member of Congress, wrote in his diary that "the resolutions of the legislature of Georgia setting at defiance the Supreme Court of the United States are published and approved in the Telegraph, the Administration newspaper at this place.... The Constitution, the laws and treaties of the United States are prostrate in the State of Georgia. Is there any remedy for this state of things? None. Because the Executive of the United States is in League with the State of Georgia.... This example ... will be imitated by other States, and with regard to other national interests—perhaps the tariff.... The Union is in the most imminent danger of dissolution.... The ship is about to founder."[1454]
Meanwhile the Cherokee Nation brought its suit in the Supreme Court to enjoin the State from executing its laws, and at the February term of 1831 it was argued for the Indians by Wirt and Sergeant. Georgia disdained to appear—not for a moment would that proud State admit that the Supreme Court of the Nation could exercise any authority whatever over her.[1455]
On March 18, 1831, Marshall delivered the opinion of the majority of the court, and in it he laid down the broad policy which the Government has unwaveringly pursued ever since. At the outset the Chief Justice plainly stated that his sympathies were with the Indians,[1456] but that the court could not examine the merits or go into the moralities of the controversy, because it had no jurisdiction. The Cherokees sued as a foreign nation, but, while they did indeed constitute a separate state, they were not a foreign nation. The relation of the Indians to the United States is "unlike that of any other two people in existence." The territory comprises a "part of the United States."[1457]
In our foreign affairs and commercial regulations, the Indians are subject to the control of the National Government. "They acknowledge themselves in their treaties to be under the protection of the United States." They are not, then, foreign nations, but rather "domestic dependent nations.... They are in a state of pupilage." Foreign governments consider them so completely under our "sovereignty and dominion" that it is universally conceded that the acquisition of their lands or the making of treaties with them would be "an invasion of our territory, and an act of hostility." By the Constitution power is given Congress to regulate commerce among the States, with foreign nations, and with Indian tribes, these terms being "entirely distinct."[1458]
The Cherokees not being a foreign nation, the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in a suit brought by them in that capacity, said Marshall. Furthermore, the court was asked "to control the Legislature of Georgia, and to restrain the exertion of its physical force"—a very questionable "interposition," which "savors too much of the exercise of political power to be within the proper province of the judicial department." In "a proper case with proper parties," the court might, perhaps, decide "the mere question of right" to the Indian lands. But the suit of the Cherokee Nation against Georgia is not such a case.
Marshall closes with a reflection upon Jackson in terms much like those with which, many years earlier, he had so often rebuked Jefferson: "If it be true that the Cherokee Nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted. If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future."[1459]
In this opinion the moral force of Marshall was displayed almost as much as in the case of the Schooner Exchange.[1460] He was friendly to the whole Indian race; he particularly detested Georgia's treatment of the Cherokees; he utterly rejected the State Rights theory on which the State had acted; and he could easily have decided in favor of the wronged and harried Indians, as the dissent of Thompson and Story proves. But the statesman and jurist again rose above the man of sentiment, law above emotion, the enduring above the transient.
As a "foreign state" the Indians had lost, but the constitutionality of Georgia's Cherokee statutes had not been affirmed. Wirt and Sergeant had erred as to the method of attacking that legislation. Another proceeding by Georgia, however, soon brought the validity of her expansion laws before the Supreme Court. Among the missionaries who for years had labored in the Cherokee Nation was one Samuel A. Worcester, a citizen of Vermont. This brave minister, licensed by the National Government, employed by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, appointed by President John Quincy Adams to be postmaster at New Echota, a Cherokee town, refused, in company with several other missionaries, to leave the Indian country.
Worcester and a Reverend Mr. Thompson were arrested by the Georgia guard. The Superior Court of Gwinnett County released them, however, on a writ of habeas corpus, because, both being licensed missionaries expending National funds appropriated for civilizing Indians, they must be considered as agents of the National Government. Moreover, Worcester was postmaster at New Echota. Georgia demanded his removal and inquired of Jackson whether the missionaries were Government agents. The President assured the State that they were not, and removed Worcester from office.[1461]
Thereupon both Worcester and Thompson were promptly ordered to leave the State. But they and some other missionaries remained, and were arrested; dragged to prison—some of them with chains around their necks;[1462] tried and convicted. Nine were pardoned upon their promise to depart forthwith from Georgia. But Worcester and one Elizur Butler sternly rejected the offer of clemency on such a condition and were put to hard labor in the penitentiary.
From the judgment of the Georgia court, Worcester and Butler appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. Once more Marshall and Georgia confronted each other; again the Chief Justice faced a hostile President far more direct and forcible than Jefferson, but totally lacking in the subtlety and skill of that incomparable politician. Thrilling and highly colored accounts of the treatment of the missionaries had been published in every Northern newspaper; religious journals made conspicuous display of soul-stirring narratives of the whole subject; feeling in the North ran high; resentment in the South rose to an equal degree.
This time Georgia did more than ignore the Supreme Court as in the case of George Tassels and in the suit of the Cherokee Nation; she formally refused to appear; formally denied the right of that tribunal to pass upon the decisions of her courts.[1463] Never would Georgia so "compromit her dignity as a sovereign State," never so "yield her rights as a member of the Confederacy." The new Governor, Wilson Lumpkin, avowed that he would defend those rights by every means in his power.[1464] When the case of Worcester vs. Georgia came on for hearing before the Supreme Court, no one answered for the State. Wirt, Sergeant, and Elisha W. Chester appeared for the missionaries as they had for the Indians.[1465] Wirt and Sergeant made extended and powerful arguments.[1466]
Marshall's opinion, delivered March 3, 1832, is one of the noblest he ever wrote. "The legislative power of a State, the controlling power of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the rights, if they have any, the political existence of a once numerous and powerful people, the personal liberty of a citizen, are all involved," begins the aged Chief Justice.[1467] Does the act of the Legislature of Georgia, under which Worcester was convicted, violate the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States?[1468] That act is "an assertion of jurisdiction over the Cherokee Nation."[1469]
He then goes into a long historical review of the relative titles of the natives and of the white discoverers of America; of the effect upon these titles of the numerous treaties with the Indians; of the acts of Congress relating to the red men and their lands; and of previous laws of Georgia on these subjects.[1470] This part of his opinion is the most extended and exhaustive historical analysis Marshall ever made in any judicial utterance, except that on the law of treason during the trial of Aaron Burr.[1471]
Then comes his condensed, unanswerable, brilliant conclusion: "A weaker power does not surrender its independence, its rights to self-government, by associating with a stronger, and taking its protection. A weak state, in order to provide for its safety, may place itself under the protection of one more powerful, without stripping itself of the right of self-government, and ceasing to be a state.... The Cherokee Nation ... is a distinct community, occupying its own territory ... in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and with the acts of Congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation is by our Constitution and laws vested in the government of the United States."
The Cherokee Acts of the Georgia Legislature "are repugnant to the constitution, laws and treaties of the United States. They interfere forcibly with the relations established between the United States and the Cherokee Nation." This controlling fact the laws of Georgia ignore. They violently disrupt the relations between the Indians and the United States; they are equally antagonistic to acts of Congress based upon these treaties. Moreover, "the forcible seizure and abduction" of Worcester, "who was residing in the nation with its permission and by authority of the President of the United States, is also a violation of the acts which authorize the chief magistrate to exercise this authority."
Marshall closes with a passage of eloquence almost equal to, and of higher moral grandeur than, the finest passages in M'Culloch vs. Maryland and in Cohens vs. Virginia. So the decision of the court was that the judgment of the Georgia court be "reversed and annulled."[1472]
Congress was intensely excited by Marshall's opinion; Georgia was enraged; the President agitated and belligerent. In a letter to Ticknor, written five days after the judgment of the court was announced, Story accurately portrays the situation: "The decision produced a very strong sensation in both houses; Georgia is full of anger and violence.... Probably she will resist the execution of our judgement, & if she does I do not believe the President will interfere.... The Court has done its duty. Let the nation do theirs. If we have a government let its commands be obeyed; if we have not it is as well to know it at once, & to look to consequences."[1473]
Story's forecast was justified. Georgia scoffed at Marshall's opinion, flouted the mandate of the Supreme Court. "Usurpation!" cried Governor Lumpkin. He would meet it "with the spirit of determined resistance."[1474] Jackson defied the Chief Justice. "John Marshall has made his decision:—now let him enforce it!" the President is reported to have said.[1475] Again the Supreme Court found itself powerless; the judgment in Worcester vs. Georgia came to nothing; the mandate was never obeyed, never heeded.[1476]
For the time being, Marshall was defeated; Nationalism was prostrate; Localism erect, strong, aggressive. Soon, however, Marshall and Nationalism were to be sustained, for the moment, by the man most dreaded by the Chief Justice, most trusted by Marshall's foes. Andrew Jackson was to astound the country by the greatest and most illogical act of his strange career—the issuance of his immortal Proclamation against Nullification.
Georgia's very first assertion of her "sovereignty" in the Indian controversy had strengthened South Carolina's fast growing determination to resist the execution of the Tariff Law. On January 25, 1830, Senator Robert Young Hayne of South Carolina, in his brilliant challenge to Webster, set forth the philosophy of Nullification: "Sir, if, the measures of the Federal Government were less oppressive, we should still strive against this usurpation. The South is acting on a principle she has always held sacred—resistance to unauthorized taxation."[1477]
Webster's immortal reply, so far as his Constitutional argument is concerned, is little more than a condensation of the Nationalist opinions of John Marshall stated in popular and dramatic language. Indeed, some of Webster's sentences are practically mere repetitions of Marshall's, and his reasoning is wholly that of the Chief Justice.
"We look upon the States, not as separated, but as united under the same General Government, having interests, common, associated, intermingled. In war and peace, we are one; in commerce, one; because the authority of the General Government reaches to war and peace, and to the regulation of commerce."[1478]
What is the capital question in dispute? It is this: "Whose prerogative is it to decide on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws?"[1479] Can States decide? Can States "annul the law of Congress"? Hayne, expressing the view of South Carolina, had declared that they could. He had based his argument upon the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions—upon the theory that the States, and not the people, had created the Constitution; that the States, and not the people, had established the General Government.
But is this true? asked Webster. He answered by paraphrasing Marshall's words in M'Culloch vs. Maryland: "It is, sir, the people's constitution, the people's Government; made for the people; made by the people; and answerable to the people.[1480] The people ... have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law....[1481] Who is to judge between the people and the Government?"[1482]
The Constitution settles that question by declaring that "the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the Constitution and laws."[1483] Because of this the Union is secure and strong. "Instead of one tribunal, established by all, responsible to all, with power to decide for all, shall constitutional questions be left to four and twenty popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for itself, and none bound to respect the decisions of others?"[1484]
Then Webster swept grandly forward to that famous peroration ending with the words which in time became the inspiring motto of the whole American people: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"[1485]
Immediately after the debate between Hayne and Webster, Nullification gathered force in South Carolina. Early in the autumn of 1830, Governor Stephen Decatur Miller spoke at a meeting of the Sumter district of that State. He urged that a State convention be called for the purpose of declaring null and void the Tariff of 1828. Probably the National courts would try to enforce that law, he said, but South Carolina would "refuse to sustain" it. Nullification involved no danger, and if it did, what matter!—"those who fear to defend their rights, have none. Their property belongs to the banditti: they are only tenants at will of their own firesides."[1486]
Public excitement steadily increased; at largely attended meetings ominous resolutions were adopted. "The attitude which the federal government continues to assume towards the southern states, calls for decisive and unequivocal resistance." So ran a typical declaration of a gathering of citizens of Georgetown, South Carolina, in December, 1830.[1487]
In the Senate, Josiah Stoddard Johnston of Louisiana, but Connecticut-born, made a speech denouncing the doctrine of Nullification, asserting the supremacy of the National Government, and declaring that the Supreme Court was the final judge of the constitutionality of legislation. "It has fulfilled the design of its institution; ... it has given form and consistency to the constitution, and uniformity to the laws."[1488] Nullification, said Johnston, means "either disunion, or civil war; or, in the language of the times, disunion and blood."[1489]
The Louisiana Senator sent his speech to Marshall, who answered that "it certainly is not among the least extraordinary of the doctrines of the present day that such a question [Nullification] should be seriously debated."[1490]
All Nullification arguments were based on the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Madison was still living, and Edward Everett asked him for his views. In a letter almost as Nationalist as Marshall's opinions, the venerable statesman replied at great length and with all the ability and clearness of his best years.
The decision by States of the constitutionality of acts of Congress would destroy the Nation, he wrote. Such decision was the province of the National Judiciary. While the Supreme Court had been criticized, perhaps justly in some cases, "still it would seem that, with but few exceptions, the course of the judiciary has been hitherto sustained by the predominant sense of the nation." It was absurd to deny the "supremacy of the judicial power of the U. S. & denounce at the same time nullifying power in a State.... A law of the land" cannot be supreme "without a supremacy in the exposition & execution of the law." Nullification was utterly destructive of the Constitution and the Union.[1491]
This letter, printed in the North American Review,[1492] made a strong impression on the North, but it only irritated the South. Marshall read it "with peculiar pleasure," he wrote Story: "Mr Madison ... is himself again. He avows the opinions of his best days, and must be pardoned for his oblique insinuations that some of the opinions of our Court are not approved. Contrast this delicate hint with the language Mr Jefferson has applied to us. He [Madison] is attacked ... by our Enquirer, who has arrayed his report of 1799 against his letter. I never thought that report could be completely defended; but Mr Madison has placed it upon its best ground, that the language is incautious, but is intended to be confined to a mere declaration of opinion, or is intended to refer to that ultimate right which all admit, to resist despotism, a right not exercised under a constitution, but in opposition to it."[1493]
At a banquet on April 15, 1830, in celebration of Jefferson's birthday, Jackson had given a warning not to be misunderstood except by Nullifiers who had been blinded and deafened by their new political religion. "The Federal Union;—it must be preserved," was the solemn and inspiring toast proposed by the President. Southern leaders gave no heed. They apparently thought that Jackson meant to endorse Nullification, which, most illogically, they always declared to be the only method of preserving the Union peaceably.
Their denunciation of the Tariff grew ever louder; their insistence on Nullification ever fiercer, ever more determined. To a committee of South Carolina Union men who invited him to their Fourth of July celebration at Charleston in 1831, Jackson sent a letter which plainly informed the Nullifiers that if they attempted to carry out their threats, the National Government would forcibly suppress them.[1494]
At last the eyes of the South were opened. At last the South understood the immediate purpose of that enigmatic and self-contradictory man who ruled America, at times, in the spirit of the Czars of Russia; at times, in the spirit of the most compromising of opportunists.
Jackson's outgiving served only to enrage the South and especially South Carolina. The Legislature of that State replied to the President's letter thus: "Is this Legislature to be schooled and rated by the President of the United States? Is it to legislate under the sword of the Commander-in-Chief?... This is a confederacy of sovereign States, and each may withdraw from the confederacy when it chooses."[1495]
Marshall saw clearly what the outcome was likely to be, but yielded slowly to the despair so soon to master him. "Things to the South wear a very serious aspect," he tells Story. "If we can trust appearances the leaders are determined to risk all the consequences of dismemberment. I cannot entirely dismiss the hope that they may be deserted by their followers—at least to such an extent as to produce a pause at the Rubicon. They undoubtedly believe that Virginia will support them. I think they are mistaken both with respect to Virginia and North Carolina. I do not think either State will embrace this mad and wicked measure. New Hampshire and Maine seem to belong to the tropics. It is time for New Hampshire to part with Webster and Mason. She has no longer any use for such men."[1496]
As the troubled weeks passed, Marshall's apprehension increased. Story, profoundly concerned, wrote the Chief Justice that he could see no light in the increasing darkness. "If the prospects of our country inspire you with gloom," answered Marshall, "how do you think a man must be affected who partakes of all your opinions and whose geographical position enables him to see a great deal that is concealed from you? I yield slowly and reluctantly to the conviction that our constitution cannot last. I had supposed that north of the Potowmack a firm and solid government competent to the security of rational liberty might be preserved. Even that now seems doubtful. The case of the south seems to me to be desperate. Our opinions are incompatible with a united government even among ourselves. The union has been prolonged thus far by miracles. I fear they cannot continue."[1497]
Congress heeded the violent protest of South Carolina—perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Congress obeyed Andrew Jackson. In 1832 it reduced tariff duties; but the protective policy was retained. The South was infuriated—if the principle were recognized, said Southern men, what could they expect at a later day when this capitalistic, manufacturing North would be still stronger and the unmoneyed and agricultural South still weaker?
South Carolina especially was frantic. The spirit of the State was accurately expressed by R. Barnwell Smith at a Fourth of July celebration: "If the fire and the sword of war are to be brought to our dwellings, ... let them come! Whilst a bush grows which may be dabbled with blood, or a pine tree stands to support a rifle, let them come!"[1498] At meetings all over the State treasonable words were spoken. Governor James Hamilton, Jr., convened the Legislature in special session and the election of a State convention was ordered.
"Let us act, next October, at the ballot box—next November, in the state house—and afterwards, should any further action be necessary, let it be where our ancestors acted, in the field of battle";[1499] such were the toasts proposed at banquets, such the sentiments adopted at meetings.
On November 24, 1832, the State Convention, elected[1500] to consider the new Tariff Law, adopted the famous Nullification Ordinance which declared that the Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 were "null, void, and no law"; directed the Legislature to take measures to prevent the enforcement of those acts within South Carolina; forbade appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States from South Carolina courts in any case where the Tariff Law was involved; and required all State officers, civil and military, to take oath to "obey, execute and enforce this Ordinance, and such act or acts of the Legislature as may be passed in pursuance thereof."
The Ordinance set forth that "we, the People of South Carolina, ... Do further Declare, that we will not submit to the application of force, on the part of the Federal Government, to reduce this State to obedience; but that we will consider" any act of the National Government to enforce the Tariff Laws "as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union: and that the People of this State ... will forthwith proceed to organize a separate Government, and to do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do."[1501]
Thereupon the Convention issued an address to the people.[1502] It was long and, from the Nullification point of view, very able; it ended in an exalted, passionate appeal: "Fellow citizens, the die is now cast. No more taxes shall be paid here.... Prepare for the crisis, and ... meet it as becomes men and freemen.... Fellow citizens, Do your duty to your country, and leave the consequences to God."[1503]
Excepting only at the outbreak of war could a people be more deeply stirred than were all Americans by the desperate action of South Carolina. In the North great Union meetings were held, fervid speeches made, warlike resolutions adopted. The South, at first, seemed dazed. Was war at hand? This was the question every man asked of his neighbor. A pamphlet on the situation, written by some one in a state of great emotion, had been sent to Marshall, and Judge Peters had inquired about it, giving at the same time the name of the author.
"I am not surprised," answered Marshall, "that he [the author] is excited by the doctrine of nullification. It is well calculated to produce excitement in all.... Leaving it to the courts and the custom house will be leaving it to triumphant victory, and to victory which must be attended with more pernicious consequences to our country and with more fatal consequences to its reputation than victory achieved in any other mode which rational men can devise."[1504] If Nullification must prevail, John Marshall preferred that it should win by the sword rather than through the intimidation of courts.
Jackson rightly felt that his reëlection meant that the country in general approved of his attitude toward Nullification as well as that toward the Bank. He promptly answered the defiance of South Carolina. On December 10, 1832, he issued his historic Proclamation. Written by Edward Livingston,[1505] Secretary of State, it is one of the ablest of American state papers. Moderate in expression, simple in style, solid in logic, it might have been composed by Marshall himself. It is, indeed, a restatement of Marshall's Nationalist reasoning and conclusions. Like the argument in Webster's Reply to Hayne, Jackson's Nullification Proclamation was a repetition of those views of the Constitution and of the nature of the American Government for which Marshall had been fighting since Washington was made President.
As in Webster's great speech, sentences and paragraphs are in almost the very words used by Marshall in his Constitutional opinions, so in Jackson's Proclamation the same parallelism exists. Gently, but firmly, and with tremendous force, in the style and spirit of Abraham Lincoln rather than of Andrew Jackson, the Proclamation makes clear that the National laws will be executed and resistance to them will be put down by force of arms.[1506]
The Proclamation was a triumph for Marshall. That the man whom he distrusted and of whom he so disapproved, whose election he had thought to be equivalent to a dissolution of the Union, should turn out to be the stern defender of National solidarity, was, to Marshall, another of those miracles which so often had saved the Republic. His disapproval of Jackson's rampant democracy, and whimsical yet arbitrary executive conduct, turned at once to hearty commendation.
"Since his last proclamation and message," testifies Story, "the Chief Justice and myself have become his warmest supporters, and shall continue so just as long as he maintains the principles contained in them. Who would have dreamed of such an occurrence?"[1507] Marshall realized, nevertheless, that even the bold course pursued by the President could not permanently overcome the secession convictions of the Southern people.
The Union men of South Carolina who, from the beginning of the Nullification movement, had striven earnestly to stay its progress, rallied manfully.[1508] Their efforts were futile—disunion sentiment swept the State. "With ... indignation and contempt," with "defiance and scorn," most South Carolinians greeted the Proclamation[1509] of the man who, only three years before, had been their idol. To South Carolinians Jackson was now "a tyrant," a would-be "Cæsar," a "Cromwell," a "Bonaparte."[1510]
The Legislature formally requested Hayne, now Governor, to issue a counter-proclamation,[1511] and adopted spirited resolutions declaring the right of any State "to secede peaceably from the Union." One count in South Carolina's indictment of the President was thoroughly justified—his approval of Georgia's defiance of Marshall and the Supreme Court. Jackson's action, declared the resolutions, was the more "extraordinary, that he has silently, and ... with entire approbation, witnessed our sister state of Georgia avow, act upon, and carry into effect, even to the taking of life, principles identical with those now denounced by him in South Carolina." The Legislature finally resolved that the State would "repel force by force, and, relying upon the blessing of God, will maintain its liberty at all hazards."[1512]
Swiftly Hayne published his reply to the President's Proclamation. It summed up all the arguments for the right of a State to decide the constitutionality of acts of Congress, that had been made since the Kentucky Resolutions were written by Jefferson—that "great Apostle of American liberty ... who has consecrated these principles, and left them as a legacy to the American people, recorded by his own hand." It was Jefferson, said Hayne, who had first penned the immortal truth that "Nullification" of unconstitutional acts of Congress was the "rightful remedy" of the States.[1513]
In his Proclamation Jackson had referred to the National Judiciary as the ultimate arbiter of the constitutionality of National laws. How absurd such a claim by such a man, since that doctrine "has been denied by none more strongly than the President himself" in the Bank controversy and in the case of the Cherokees! "And yet when it serves the purpose of bringing odium on South Carolina, 'his native State,' the President has no hesitation in regarding the attempt of a State to release herself from the control of the Federal Judiciary, in a matter affecting her sovereign rights, as a violation of the Constitution."[1514]
In closing, Governor Hayne declares that "the time has come when it must be seen, whether the people of the several States have indeed lost the spirit of the revolution, and whether they are to become the willing instruments of an unhallowed despotism. In such a sacred cause, South Carolina will feel that she is not striking for her own, but the liberties of the Union and the rights of man."[1515]
Instantly[1516] the Legislature enacted one law to prevent the collection of tariff duties in South Carolina;[1517] another authorizing the Governor to "order into service the whole military force of this State" to resist any attempt of the National Government to enforce the Tariff Acts.[1518] Even before Hayne's Proclamation was published, extensive laws had been passed for the reorganization of the militia, and the Legislature now continued to enact similar legislation. In four days fourteen such acts were passed.[1519]
The spirit and consistency of South Carolina were as admirable as her theory was erroneous and narrow. If she meant what she had said, the State could have taken no other course. If, moreover, she really intended to resist the National Government, Jackson had given cause for South Carolina's militant action. As soon as the Legislature ordered the calling of the State Convention to consider the tariff, the President directed the Collector at Charleston to use every resource at the command of the Government to collect tariff duties. The commanders of the forts at Charleston were ordered to be in readiness to repel any attack. General Scott was sent to the scene of the disturbance. Military and naval dispositions were made so as to enable the National Government to strike quickly and effectively.[1520]
Throughout South Carolina the rolling of drums and blare of bugles were heard. Everywhere was seen the blue cockade with palmetto button.[1521] Volunteers were called for,[1522] and offered themselves by thousands; in certain districts "almost the entire population" enlisted.[1523] Some regiments adopted a new flag, a banner of red with a single black star in the center.[1524]
Jackson attempted to placate the enraged and determined State. In his fourth annual Message to Congress he barely mentioned South Carolina's defiance, but, for the second time, urgently recommended a reduction of tariff duties. Protection, he said, "must be ultimately limited to those articles of domestic manufacture which are indispensable to our safety in time of war.... Beyond this object we have already seen the operation of the system productive of discontent."[1525]
Other Southern States, although firmly believing in South Carolina's principles and sympathetic with her cause, were alarmed by her bold course. Virginia essayed the rôle of mediator between her warlike sister and the "usurping" National Government. In his Message to the Legislature, Governor John Floyd stoutly defended South Carolina—"the land of Sumpter [sic] and of Marion." "Should force be resorted to by the federal government, the horror of the scenes hereafter to be witnessed cannot now be pictured.... What surety has any state for her existence as a sovereign, if a difference of opinion should be punished by the sword as treason?" The situation calls for a reference of the whole question to "the People of the states. On you depends in a high degree the future destiny of this republic. It is for you now to say whether the brand of civil war shall be thrown into the midst of these states."[1526]
Mediative resolutions were instantly offered for the appointment of a committee "to take into consideration the relations existing between the state of South Carolina and the government of the United States," and the results to each and to Virginia flowing from the Ordinance of Nullification and Jackson's Proclamation. The committee was to report "such measures as ... it may be expedient for Virginia to adopt—the propriety of recommending a general convention to the states—and such a declaration of our views and opinions as it may be proper for her to express in the present fearful impending crisis, for the protection of the right of the states, the restoration of harmony, and the preservation of the union."[1527]
Only five members voted against the resolution.[1528]
The committee was appointed and, on December 20, 1832, reported a set of resolutions—"worlds of words," as Niles aptly called them—disapproving Jackson's Proclamation; applauding his recommendation to Congress that the tariff be reduced; regretting South Carolina's hasty action; deprecating "the intervention of arms on either side"; entreating "our brethren in S. Carolina to pause in their career"; appealing to Jackson "to withstay the arm of force"; instructing Virginia Senators and requesting Virginia Representatives in Congress to do their best to "procure an immediate reduction of the tariff"; and appointing two commissioners to visit South Carolina with a view to securing an adjustment of the dispute.[1529]
With painful anxiety and grave alarm, Marshall, then in Richmond, watched the tragic yet absurd procession of events. Much as the doings and sayings of the mediators and sympathizers with Nullification irritated him, serious as were his forebodings, the situation appealed to his sense of humor. He wrote Story an account of what was going on in Virginia. No abler or more accurate statement of the conditions and tendencies of the period exists. Marshall's letter is a document of historical importance. It reveals, too, the character of the man.
It was written in acknowledgment of the receipt of "a proof sheet" of a page of Story's "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States," dedicating that work to Marshall. "I am ... deeply penetrated," says Marshall, "by the evidence it affords of the continuance of that partial esteem and friendship which I have cherished for so many years, and still cherish as one of the choicest treasures of my life. The only return I can make is locked up in my own bosom, or communicated in occasional conversation with my friends." He congratulates Story on having finished his "Herculean task." He is sure that Story has accomplished it with ability and "correctness," and is "certain in advance" that he will read "every sentence with entire approbation. It is a subject on which we concur exactly. Our opinions on it are, I believe, identical. Not so with Virginia or the South generally."
Marshall then relates what has happened in Richmond: "Our legislature is now in session, and the dominant party receives the message of the President to Congress with enthusiastic applause. Quite different was the effect of his proclamation. That paper astonished, confounded, and for a moment silenced them. In a short time, however, the power of speech was recovered, and was employed in bestowing on its author the only epithet which could possibly weigh in the scales against the name of 'Andrew Jackson,' and countervail its popularity.
"Imitating the Quaker who said the dog he wished to destroy was mad, they said Andrew Jackson had become a Federalist, even an ultra Federalist. To have said he was ready to break down and trample on every other department of the government would not have injured him, but to say that he was a Federalist—a convert to the opinions of Washington, was a mortal blow under which he is yet staggering.
"The party seems to be divided. Those who are still true to their President pass by his denunciation of all their former theories; and though they will not approve the sound opinions avowed in his proclamation are ready to denounce nullification and to support him in maintaining the union. This is going a great way for them—much farther than their former declarations would justify the expectation of, and much farther than mere love of union would carry them.
"You have undoubtedly seen the message of our Governor and the resolutions reported by the committee to whom it was referred—a message and resolutions which you will think skillfully framed had the object been a civil war. They undoubtedly hold out to South Carolina the expectation of support from Virginia; and that hope must be the foundation on which they have constructed their plan for a southern confederacy or league.
"A want of confidence in the present support of the people will prevent any direct avowal in favor of this scheme by those whose theories and whose secret wishes may lead to it; but the people may be so entangled by the insane dogmas which have become axioms in the political creed of Virginia, and involved so inextricably in the labyrinth into which those dogmas conduct them, as to do what their sober judgement disapproves.
"On Thursday these resolutions are to be taken up, and the debate will, I doubt not, be ardent and tempestuous enough. I pretend not to anticipate the result. Should it countenance the obvious design of South Carolina to form a southern confederacy, it may conduce to a southern league—never to a southern government. Our theories are incompatible with a government for more than a single State. We can form no union which shall be closer than an alliance between sovereigns.
"In this event there is some reason to apprehend internal convulsion. The northern and western section of our State, should a union be maintained north of the Potowmack, will not readily connect itself with the South. At least such is the present belief of their most intelligent men. Any effort on their part to separate from Southern Virginia and unite with a northern confederacy may probably be punished as treason. 'We have fallen on evil times.'"
Story had sent Marshall, Webster's speech at Faneuil Hall, December 17, 1832, in which he declared that he approved the "general principles" of Jackson's Proclamation, and that "nullification ... is but another name for civil war." "I am," said Webster, "for the Union as it is; ... for the Constitution as it is." He pledged his support to the President in "maintaining this Union."[1530]
Marshall was delighted: "I thank you for Mr Webster's speech. Entertaining the opinion he has expressed respecting the general course of the administration, his patriotism is entitled to the more credit for the determination he expressed at Faneuil Hall to support it in the great effort it promises to make for the preservation of the union. No member of the then opposition avowed a similar determination during the Western Insurrection, which would have been equally fatal had it not been quelled by the well timed vigor of General Washington.
"We are now gathering the bitter fruits of the tree even before that time planted by Mr Jefferson, and so industriously and perseveringly cultivated by Virginia."[1531]
Marshall's predictions of a tempestuous debate over the Virginia resolutions were fulfilled. They were, in fact, "debated to death," records Niles. "It would seem that the genuine spirit of 'ancient dominionism' would lead to a making of speeches, even in 'the cave of the Cyclops when forging thunderbolts,' instead of striking the hammers from the hands of the workers of iniquity. Well—the matter was debated, and debated and debated.... The proceedings ... were measured by the square yard." At last, however, resolutions were adopted.
These resolutions "respectfully requested and entreated" South Carolina to rescind her Ordinance of Nullification; "respectfully requested and entreated" Congress to "modify" the tariff; reaffirmed Virginia's faith in the principles of 1798-99, but held that these principles did not justify South Carolina's Ordinance or Jackson's Proclamation; and finally, authorized the appointment of one commissioner to South Carolina to communicate Virginia's resolutions, expressing at the same time, however, "our sincere good will to our sister state, and our anxious solicitude that the kind and respectful recommendations we have addressed to her, may lead to an accommodation of all the difficulties between that state and the general government."[1532] Benjamin Watkins Leigh was unanimously elected to be the ambassador of accommodation.[1533]
So it came about that South Carolina, anxious to extricate herself from a perilous situation, yet ready to fight if she could not disentangle herself with honor, took informal steps toward a peaceful adjustment of the dispute; and that Jackson and Congress, equally wishing to avoid armed conflict, were eager to have a tariff enacted that would work a "reconciliation." On January 26, 1833, at a meeting in Charleston, attended by the first men of the State of all parties, resolutions, offered by Hamilton himself, were adopted which, as a practical matter, suspended the Ordinance of Nullification that was to have gone into effect on February 1. Vehement, spirited, defiant speeches were made, all ending, however, in expressions of hope that war might be avoided. The resolutions were as ferocious as the most bloodthirsty Secessionist could desire; but they accepted the proposed "beneficial modification of the tariff," and declared that, "pending the process" of reducing the tariff, "all ... collision between the federal and state authorities should be sedulously avoided on both sides."[1534]
The Tariff Bill of 1833—Clay's compromise—resulted. Jackson signed it; South Carolina was mollified. For the time the storm subsided; but the net result was that Nullification triumphed[1535]—a National law had been modified at the threat of a State which was preparing to back up that threat by force.
Marshall was not deceived. "Have you ever seen anything to equal the exhibition in Charleston and in the far South generally?" he writes Story. "Those people pursue a southern league steadily or they are insane. They have caught at Clay's bill, if their conduct is at all intelligible, not as a real accommodation, a real adjustment, a real relief from actual or supposed oppression, but as an apology for avoiding the crisis and deferring the decisive moment till the other States of the South will unite with them."[1536] Marshall himself was for the compromise Tariff of 1833, but not because it afforded a means of preventing armed collision: "Since I have breathed the air of James River I think favorably of Clay's bill. I hope, if it can be maintained, that our manufactures will still be protected by it."[1537]
The "settlement" of the controversy, of course, satisfied nobody, changed no conviction, allayed no hostility, stabilized no condition. The South, though victorious, was nevertheless morose, indignant—after all, the principle of protection had been retained. "The political world, at least our part of it, is surely moved topsy turvy," Marshall writes Story in the autumn of 1833. "What is to become of us and of our constitution? Can the wise men of the East answer that question? Those of the South perceive no difficulty. Allow a full range to state rights and state sovereignty, and, in their opinion, all will go well."[1538]
Placid as was his nature, perfect as was the co-ordination of his powers, truly balanced as were his intellect and emotions, Marshall could not free his mind of the despondency that had now settled upon him. Whatever the subject upon which he wrote to friends, he was sure to refer to the woeful state of the country, and the black future it portended.
Story informed him that an abridged edition of his own two volumes on the Constitution would soon be published. "I rejoice to hear that the abridgement of your Commentaries is coming before the public," wrote Marshall in reply, "and should be still more rejoiced to learn that it was used in all our colleges and universities. The first impressions made on the youthful mind are of vast importance; and, most unfortunately, they are in the South all erroneous. Our young men, generally speaking, grow up in the firm belief that liberty depends on construing our Constitution into a league instead of a government; that it has nothing to fear from breaking these United States into numerous petty republics. Nothing in their view is to be feared but that bugbear, consolidation; and every exercise of legitimate power is construed into a breach of the Constitution. Your book, if read, will tend to remove these prejudices."[1539]
A month later he again writes Story: "I have finished reading your great work, and wish it could be read by every statesman, and every would-be statesman in the United States. It is a comprehensive and an accurate commentary on our Constitution, formed in the spirit of the original text. In the South, we are so far gone in political metaphysics, that I fear no demonstration can restore us to common sense. The word 'State Rights,' as expounded by the resolutions of '98 and the report of '99, construed by our legislature, has a charm against which all reasoning is vain.
"Those resolutions and that report constitute the creed of every politician, who hopes to rise in Virginia; and to question them, or even to adopt the construction given by their author [Jefferson] is deemed political sacrilege. The solemn ... admonitions of your concluding remarks[1540] will not, I fear, avail as they ought to avail against this popular frenzy."[1541]
He once more confides to his beloved Story his innermost thoughts and feelings. Story had sent the Chief Justice a copy of the New England Magazine containing an article by Story entitled "Statesmen: their Rareness and Importance," in which Marshall was held up as the true statesman and the poor quality of the generality of American public men was set forth in scathing terms.
Marshall briefly thanks Story for the compliment paid him, and continues: "It is in vain to lament, that the portrait which the author has drawn of our political and party men, is, in general, true. Lament it as we may, much as it may wound our vanity or our pride, it is still, in the main, true; and will, I fear, so remain.... In the South, political prejudice is too strong to yield to any degree of merit; and the great body of the nation contains, at least appears to me to contain, too much of the same ingredient.
"To men who think as you and I do, the present is gloomy enough; and the future presents no cheering prospect. The struggle now maintained in every State in the Union seems to me to be of doubtful issue; but should it terminate contrary to the wishes of those who support the enormous pretensions of the Executive, should victory crown the exertions of the champions of constitutional law, what serious and lasting advantage is to be expected from this result?
"In the South (things may be less gloomy with you) those who support the Executive do not support the Government. They sustain the personal power of the President, but labor incessantly to impair the legitimate powers of the Government. Those who oppose the violent and rash measures of the Executive (many of them nullifiers, many of them seceders) are generally the bitter enemies of a constitutional government. Many of them are the avowed advocates of a league; and those who do not go the whole length, go great part of the way. What can we hope for in such circumstances? As far as I can judge, the Government is weakened, whatever party may prevail. Such is the impression I receive from the language of those around me."[1542]
During the last years of Marshall's life, the country's esteem for him, slowly forming through more than a generation, manifested itself by expressions of reverence and affection. When he and Story attended the theater, the audience cheered him.[1543] His sentiment still youthful and tender, he wept over Fanny Kemble's affecting portrayal of Mrs. Haller in "The Stranger."[1544] To the very last Marshall performed his judicial duties thoroughly, albeit with a heavy heart. He "looked more vigorous than usual," and "seemed to revive and enjoy anew his green old age," testifies Story.[1545]
It is at this period of his career that we get Marshall's account of the course he pursued toward his malignant personal and political enemy, Thomas Jefferson. Six years after Jefferson's death,[1546] Major Henry Lee, who hated that great reformer even more than Jefferson hated Marshall, wrote the Chief Justice for certain facts, and also for his opinion of the former President. In his reply Marshall said:
"I have never allowed myself to be irritated by Mr Jeffersons unprovoked and unjustifiable aspersions on my conduct and principles, nor have I ever noticed them except on one occasion[1547] when I thought myself called on to do so, and when I thought that declining to enter upon my justification might have the appearance of crouching under the lash, and admitting the justice of its infliction."[1548]
Intensely as he hated Jefferson, attributing to him, as Marshall did, most of the country's woes, the Chief Justice never spoke a personally offensive word concerning his radical cousin.[1549] On the other hand, he never uttered a syllable of praise or appreciation of Jefferson. Even when his great antagonist died, no expression of sorrow or esteem or regret or admiration came from the Chief Justice. Marshall could not be either hypocritical or vindictive; but he could be silent.
Holding to the old-time Federalist opinion that Jefferson's principles were antagonistic to orderly government; convinced that, if they prevailed, they would be destructive of the Nation; believing the man himself to be a demagogue and an unscrupulous if astute and able politician—Marshall, nevertheless, said nothing about Jefferson to anybody except to Story, Lee, and Pickering; and, even to these close friends, he gave only an occasional condemnation of Jefferson's policies.
The general feeling toward Marshall, especially that of the bench and bar, during his last two years is not too strongly expressed in Story's dedication to the Chief Justice of his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States." Marshall had taken keen interest in the preparation of Story's masterpiece and warned him against haste. "Precipitation ought carefully to be avoided. This is a subject on which I am not without experience."[1550]
Story begins by a tribute "to one whose youth was engaged in the arduous enterprises of the Revolution; whose manhood assisted in framing and supporting the national Constitution; and whose maturer years have been devoted to the task of unfolding its powers, and illustrating its principles." As the expounder of the Constitution, "the common consent of your countrymen has admitted you to stand without a rival. Posterity will assuredly confirm, by its deliberate award, what the present age has approved, as an act of undisputed justice.
"But," continues Story, "I confess that I dwell with even more pleasure upon the entirety of a life adorned by consistent principles, and filled up in the discharge of virtuous duty; where there is nothing to regret, and nothing to conceal; no friendships broken; no confidence betrayed; no timid surrenders to popular clamor; no eager reaches for popular favor. Who does not listen with conscious pride to the truth, that the disciple, the friend, the biographer of Washington, still lives, the uncompromising advocate of his principles?"[1551]
Excepting only the time of his wife's death, the saddest hours of his life were, perhaps, those when he opened the last two sessions of the Supreme Court over which he presided. When, on January 13, 1834, the venerable Chief Justice, leading his associate justices to their places, gravely returned the accustomed bow of the bar and spectators, he also, perforce, bowed to temporary events and to the iron, if erratic, rule of Andrew Jackson. He bowed, too, to time and death. Justice Washington was dead, Johnson was fatally ill, and Duval, sinking under age and infirmity, was about to resign.
Republicans as Johnson and Duval were, they had, generally, upheld Marshall's Nationalism. Their places must soon be filled, he knew, by men of Jackson's choosing—men who would yield to the transient public pressure then so fiercely brought to bear on the Supreme Court. Only Joseph Story could be relied upon to maintain Marshall's principles. The increasing tendency of Justices Thompson, McLean, and Baldwin was known to be against his unyielding Constitutional philosophy. It was more than probable that, before another year, Jackson would have the opportunity to appoint two new Justices—and two cases were pending that involved some of Marshall's dearest Constitutional principles.
The first of these was a Kentucky case[1552] in which almost precisely the same question, in principle, arose that Marshall had decided in Craig vs. Missouri.[1553] The Kentucky Bank, owned by the State, was authorized to issue, and did issue, bills which were made receivable for taxes and other public dues. The Kentucky law furthermore directed that an endorsement and tender of these State bank notes should, with certain immaterial modifications, satisfy any judgment against a debtor.[1554] In short, the Legislature had authorized a State currency—had emitted those bills of credit, expressly forbidden by the National Constitution.
Another case, almost equally important, came from New York.[1555] To prevent the influx of impoverished foreigners, who would be a charge upon the City of New York, the Legislature had enacted that the masters of ships arriving at that port should report to the Mayor all facts concerning passengers. The ship captain must remove those whom the Mayor decided to be undesirable.[1556] It was earnestly contended that this statute violated the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Both cases were elaborately argued; both, it was said, had been settled by former decisions—the Kentucky case by Craig vs. Missouri, the New York case by Gibbons vs. Ogden and Brown vs. Maryland. The court was almost equally divided. Thompson, McLean, and Baldwin thought the Kentucky and New York laws Constitutional; Marshall, Story, Duval, and Johnson believed them invalid. But Johnson was absent because of his serious illness. No decision, therefore, was possible.
Marshall then announced a rule of the court, hitherto unknown by the public: "The practice of this court is not (except in cases of absolute necessity) to deliver any judgment in cases where constitutional questions are involved, unless four judges concur in opinion, thus making the decision that of a majority of the whole court. In the present cases four judges do not concur in opinion as to the constitutional questions which have been argued. The court therefore direct these cases to be re-argued at the next term, under the expectation that a larger number of the judges may then be present."[1557]
The next term! When, on January 12, 1835, John Marshall for the last time presided over the Supreme Court of the United States, the situation, from his point of view, was still worse. Johnson had died and Jackson had appointed James M. Wayne of Georgia in his place. Duval had resigned not long before the court convened, and his successor had not been named. Again the New York and Kentucky cases were continued, but Marshall fully realized that the decision of them must be in opposition to his firm and pronounced views.[1558]
Associate Justices at the last session of the Supreme Court over which John Marshall presided:
McLEAN, THOMPSON, STORY, WAYNE, BALDWIN
It is doubtful whether history shows more than a few examples of an aged man, ill, disheartened, and knowing that he soon must die, who nevertheless continued his work to the very last with such scrupulous care as did Marshall. He took active part in all cases argued and decided and actually delivered the opinion of the court in eleven of the most important.[1559] None of these are of any historical interest; but in all of them Marshall was as clear and vigorous in reasoning and style as he had been in the immortal Constitutional opinions delivered at the height of his power. The last words Marshall ever uttered as Chief Justice sparkle with vitality and high ideals. In Mitchel et al. vs. The United States,[1560] a case involving land titles in Florida, he said, in ruling on a motion to continue the case: "Though the hope of deciding causes to the mutual satisfaction of parties would be chimerical, that of convincing them that the case has been fully and fairly considered ... may be sometimes indulged. Even this is not always attainable. In the excitement produced by ardent controversy, gentlemen view the same object through such different media that minds, not infrequently receive therefrom precisely opposite impressions. The Court, however, must see with its own eyes, and exercise its own judgment, guided by its own reason."[1561]
At last Marshall had grave intimations that his life could not be prolonged. Quite suddenly his health declined, although his mind was as strong and clear as ever. "Chief Justice Marshall still possesses his intellectual powers in very high vigor," writes Story during the last session of the Supreme Court over which his friend and leader presided. "But his physical strength is manifestly on the decline; and it is now obvious, that after a year or two, he will resign, from the pressing infirmities of age.... What a gloom will spread over the nation when he is gone! His place will not, nay, it cannot be supplied."[1562]
As the spring of 1835 ripened into summer, Marshall grew weaker. "I pray God," wrote Story in agonies of apprehension, "that he may long live to bless his country; but I confess that I have many fears whether he can be long with us. His complaints are, I am sure, incurable, but I suppose that they may be alleviated, unless he should meet with some accidental cold or injury to aggravate them. Of these, he is in perpetual danger, from his imprudence as well as from the natural effects of age."[1563]
In May, 1835, Kent went to Richmond in order to see Marshall, whom "he found very emaciated, feeble & dangerously low. He injured his Spine by a Post Coach fall & oversetting.... He ... made me Promise to see him at Washington next Winter."[1564]
Kent wrote Jeremiah Smith of New Hampshire that Marshall must soon die. Smith was overwhelmed with grief "because his life, at this time especially, is of incalculable value." Marshall's "views ... of our national affairs" were those of Smith also. "Perfectly just in themselves they now come to us confirmed by the dying attestation of one of the greatest and best of men."[1565]
Marshall's "incurable complaint," which so distressed Story, was a disease of the liver.[1566] Finding his health failing, he again repaired to Philadelphia for treatment by Dr. Physick. When informed that the prospects for his friend's recovery were desperate, Story was inconsolable. "Great, good and excellent man!" he wrote. "I shall never see his like again! His gentleness, his affectionateness, his glorious virtues, his unblemished life, his exalted talents, leave him without a rival or a peer."[1567]
At six o'clock in the evening of Monday, July 6, 1835, John Marshall died, in his eightieth year, in the city where American Independence was proclaimed and the American Constitution was born—the city which, a patriotic soldier, he had striven to protect and where he had received his earliest national recognition. Without pain, his mind as clear and strong as ever, he "met his fate with the fortitude of a Philosopher, and the resignation of a Christian," testifies Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, who was present.[1568] By Marshall's direction, the last thing taken from his body after he expired was the locket which his wife had hung about his neck just before she died.[1569] The morning after his death, the bar of Philadelphia met to pay tribute to Marshall, and at half-past five of the same day a town meeting was held for the same purpose.[1570]
Immediately afterward, his body was sent by boat to Richmond. The bench, bar, and hundreds of citizens of Philadelphia accompanied the funeral party to the vessel. During the voyage a transfer was made to another craft.[1571] A committee, consisting of Major-General Winfield Scott, of the United States Army, Henry Baldwin, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Richard Peters, formerly Judge for the District of Pennsylvania, John Sergeant, Edward D. Ingraham, and William Rawle, of the Philadelphia bar, went to Richmond.
In the late afternoon of July 9, 1835, the steamboat Kentucky, bearing Marshall's body, drew up at the Richmond wharf. Throughout the day the bells had been tolling, the stores were closed, and, as the vessel came within sight, a salute of three guns was fired. All Richmond assembled at the landing. An immense procession marched to Marshall's house,[1572] where he had requested that his body be first taken, and then to the "New Burying Ground," on Shockoe Hill. There Bishop Richard Channing Moore of the Episcopal Church read the funeral service, and John Marshall was buried by the side of his wife.
When his ancient enemy and antagonist, the Richmond Enquirer, published the news of Marshall's death, it expressed briefly its true estimate of the man. It would be impossible, said the Enquirer, to over-praise Marshall's "brilliant talents." It would be "a more grateful incense" to his memory to say "that he was as much beloved as he was respected.... There was about him so little of 'the insolence of office,' and so much of the benignity of the man, that his presence always produced ... the most delightful impressions. There was something irresistibly winning about him." Strangers could hardly be persuaded that "in the plain, unpretending
... man who told his anecdote and enjoyed
the jest—they had been introduced to the Chief Justice of the United States, whose splendid powers had filled such a large space in the eye of mankind."[1573]
The Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser said that "no man has lived or died in this country, save its father George Washington alone, who united such a warmth of affection for his person, with so deep and unaffected a respect for his character, and admiration for his great abilities. No man ever bore public honors with so meek a dignity ... It is hard
... to conceive of a more perfect character than his,
for who can point to a vice, scarcely to a defect—or who can name a virtue that did not shine conspicuously in his life and conduct?"[1574]
The day after the funeral the citizens of Richmond gathered at and about the Capitol, again to honor the memory of their beloved neighbor and friend. The resolutions, offered by Benjamin Watkins Leigh, declared that the people of Richmond knew "better than any other community can know" Marshall's private and public "virtues," his "wisdom," "simplicity," "self-denial," "unbounded charity," and "warm benevolence towards all men." Since nothing they can say can do justice to "such a man," the people of Richmond "most confidently trust, to History alone, to render due honors to his memory, by a faithful and immortal record of his wisdom, his virtues and his services."[1575]
All over the country similar meetings were held, similar resolutions adopted. Since the death of Washington no such universal public expressions of appreciation and sorrow had been witnessed.[1576] The press of the country bore laudatory editorials and articles. Even Hezekiah Niles, than whom no man had attacked Marshall's Nationalist opinions more savagely, lamented his death, and avowed himself unequal to the task of writing a tribute to Marshall that would be worthy of the subject. "'A great man has fallen in Israel,'" said Niles's Register. "Next to Washington, only, did he possess the reverence and homage of the heart of the American people."[1577]
One of the few hostile criticisms of Marshall's services appeared in the New York Evening Post over the name of "Atlantic."[1578] This paper had, by now, departed from the policy of its Hamiltonian founder. "Atlantic" said that Marshall's "political doctrines ... were of the ultra federal or aristocratic kind.... With Hamilton" he "distrusted the virtue and intelligence of the people, and was in favor of a strong and vigorous General Government, at the expense of the rights of the States and of the people." While he was "sincere" in his beliefs and "a good and exemplary man" who "truly loved his country ... he has been, all his life long, a stumbling block ... in the way of democratic principles.... His situation ... at the head of an important tribunal, constituted in utter defiance of the very first principles of democracy, has always been ... an occasion of lively regret. That he is at length removed from that station is a source of satisfaction."[1579]
The most intimate and impressive tributes came, of course, from Virginia. Scarcely a town in the State that did not hold meetings, hear orations, adopt resolutions. For thirty days the people of Lynchburg wore crape on the arm.[1580] Petersburg honored "the Soldier, the Orator, the Patriot, the Statesman, the Jurist, and above all, the good and virtuous man."[1581] Norfolk testified to his "transcendent ability, perfect integrity and pure patriotism."[1582] For weeks the Virginia demonstrations continued. That at Alexandria was held five weeks after his death. "The flags at the public square and on the shipping were displayed at half mast; the bells were tolled ... during the day, and minute guns fired by the Artillery"; there was a parade of military companies, societies and citizens, and an oration by Edgar Snowden.[1583]
The keenest grief of all, however, was felt by Marshall's intimates of the Quoit Club of Richmond. Benjamin Watkins Leigh proposed, and the club resolved, that, as to the vacancy caused by Marshall's death, "there should be no attempt to fill it ever; but that the number of the club should remain one less than it was before his death."[1584]
The Grave of John Marshall
Story composed this "inscription for a cenotaph":
"To Marshall reared—the great, the good, the wise;
Born for all ages, honored in all skies;
His was the fame to mortals rarely given,
Begun on earth, but fixed in aim on heaven.
Genius, and learning, and consummate skill,
Moulding each thought, obedient to the will;
Affections pure, as e'er warmed human breast,
And love, in blessing others, doubly blest;
Virtue unspotted, uncorrupted truth,
Gentle in age, and beautiful in youth;—
These were his bright possessions. These had power
To charm through life and cheer his dying hour.
Are these all perished? No! but snatched from time,
To bloom afresh in yonder sphere sublime.
Kind was the doom (the fruit was ripe) to die,
Mortal is clothed with immortality."[1585]
Upon his tomb, however, were carved only the words he himself wrote for that purpose two days before he died, leaving nothing but the final date to be supplied:
JOHN MARSHALL
The son of Thomas and Mary Marshall
Was born on the 24th of
September, 1755; intermarried
with Mary Willis Ambler
the 3d of January, 1783;
departed this life the 6th day
of July, 1835.