[1004] Enquirer, June 5, 1821, as quoted in Branch Hist. Papers, June, 1906, 146-47.
[1005] Ib. 182-83.
[1006] Marshall to Story, June 15, 1821, Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc. 2d Series, xiv, 327-28.
[1007] Marshall refers to three papers published in the Enquirer of May 15 and 22, and June 22, the first two signed "Somers" and the third signed "Fletcher of Saltoun." It is impossible to discover who these writers were. Their essays, although vicious, are so dull as not to be worth the reading, though Jefferson thought them "luminous and striking." (Jefferson to Johnson, June 12, 1823, Works: Ford, xii, 252, footnote.)
"Somers," however, is compelled to admit the irresistible appeal of Marshall's personality. "Superior talents and address will forever attract the homage of inferior minds." (Enquirer, May 15, 1821.)
"The Supreme court ... have rendered the constitution the sport of legal ingenuity.... Its meaning is locked up from the profane vulgar, and distributed only by the high priests of the temple." (Ib. May 22, 1821.)
"Fletcher of Saltoun" is intolerably verbose: "The victories ... of courts ... though bloodless, are generally decisive.... The progress of the judiciary, though slow, is steady and untiring as the foot of time."
The people act as though hypnotized, he laments—"the powerful mind of the chief justice has put forth its strength, and we are quiet as if touched by the wand of enchantment;—we fall prostrate before his genius as though we had looked upon the dazzling brightness of the shield of Astolfo.—Triumphant indeed has been this most powerful effort of his extraordinary mind. His followers exult—those who doubted, have yielded; even the faithful are found wavering, and the unconvinced can find no opening in his armor of defense."
This writer points out Marshall's "abominable inconsistencies," but seems to be himself under the spell of the Chief Justice: "I mention not this to the disadvantage of the distinguished individual who has pronounced these conflicting opinions. No man can have a higher respect for the virtues of his character, or greater admiration of the powers of his mind."
Alas for the change that time works upon the human intellect! Consider Marshall, the young man, and Marshall, the Chief Justice! "How little did he, at that early day, contemplate the possibility of his carrying the construction of the constitution to an extent so far beyond even what he then renounced!" [sic.]