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.