Both Marshall and Lincoln loved companionship with the same heartiness, and both had the same social qualities. They enjoyed fun, jokes, laughter, in equal measure, and had the same keen appreciation of wit and humor. Their mental qualities were the same. Each man had the gift of going directly to the heart of any subject; while the same lucidity of statement marked each of them. Their style, the simplicity of their language, the peculiar clearness of their logic, were almost identical. Notwithstanding their straightforwardness and amplitude of mind, both had a curious subtlety. Some of Marshall's opinions and Lincoln's state papers might have been written by the same man. The "Freeholder" questions and answers in Marshall's congressional campaign, and those of Lincoln's debate with Douglas, are strikingly similar in method and expression.
Each had a genius for managing men; and Marshall showed the precise traits in dealing with the members of the Supreme Court that Lincoln displayed in the Cabinet.
Both were born in the South, each on the eve of a great epoch in American history when a new spirit was awakening in the hearts of the people. Although Southern-born, both Marshall and Lincoln sympathized with and believed in the North; and yet their manners and instinct were always those of the South. Marshall was given advantages that Lincoln never had; but both were men of the people, were brought up among them, and knew them thoroughly. Lincoln's outlook upon life, however, was that of the humblest citizen; Marshall's that of the well-placed and prosperous. Neither was well educated, but each acquired, in different ways, a command of excellent English and broad, plain conceptions of government and of life. Neither was a learned man, but both created the materials for learning.
Marshall and Lincoln were equally good politicians; but, although both were conservative in their mental processes, Marshall lost faith in the people's steadiness, moderation, and self-restraint; and came to think that impulse rather than wisdom was too often the temporary moving power in the popular mind, while the confidence of Lincoln in the good sense, righteousness, and self-control of the people became greater as his life advanced. If, with these distinctions, Abraham Lincoln were, in imagination, placed upon the Supreme Bench during the period we are now considering, we should have a good idea of John Marshall, the Chief Justice of the United States.
It is, then, largely the personality of John Marshall that explains the hold, as firm and persistent as it was gentle and soothing, maintained by him upon the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court; and it is this, too, that enables us to understand his immense popularity with the bar—a fact only second in importance to the work he had to do, and to his influence upon the men who sat with him on the bench.
For the lawyers who practiced before the Supreme Court at this period were most helpful to Marshall.[255] Many of them were men of wide and accurate learning, and nearly all of them were of the first order of ability. No stronger or more brilliant bar ever was arrayed before any bench than that which displayed its wealth of intellect and resources to Marshall and his associates.[256] This assertion is strong, but wholly justified. Oratory of the finest quality, though of the old rhetorical kind, filled the court-room with admiring spectators, and entertained Marshall and the other Justices, as much as the solid reasoning illuminated their minds, and the exhaustive learning informed them.
Marshall encouraged extended arguments; often demanded them. Frequently a single lawyer would speak for two or three days. No limit of time was put upon counsel.[257] Their reputation as speakers as well as their fame as lawyers, together with the throngs of auditors always present, put them on their mettle. Rhetoric adorned logic; often encumbered it. A conflict between such men as William Pinkney, Luther Martin of Maryland, Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts, Thomas Addis Emmet of New York, William Wirt of Virginia, Joseph Hopkinson of Pennsylvania, Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and others of scarcely less distinction, was, in itself, an event. These men, and indeed all the members of the bar, were Marshall's friends as well as admirers.
The appointment of Story to the Supreme Bench was, like the other determining circumstances in Marshall's career, providential.
Few characters in American history are more attractive than the New England lawyer and publicist who, at the age of thirty-two, took his place at Marshall's side on the Supreme Bench. Handsome, vivacious, impressionable, his mind was a storehouse of knowledge, accurately measured and systematically arranged. He read everything, forgot nothing. His mental appetite was voracious, and he had a very passion for research. His industry was untiring, his memory unfailing. He supplied exactly the accomplishment and toilsomeness that Marshall lacked. So perfectly did the qualities and attainments of these two men supplement one another that, in the work of building the American Nation, Marshall and Story may be considered one and the same person.
Where Marshall was leisurely, Story was eager. If the attainments of the Chief Justice were not profuse, those of his young associate were opulent. Marshall detested the labor of investigating legal authorities; Story delighted in it. The intellect of the older man was more massive and sure; but that of the youthful Justice was not far inferior in strength, or much less clear and direct in its operation. Marshall steadied Story while Story enriched Marshall. Each admired the other, and between them grew an affection like that of father and son.