Marshall was already one of the eminent men of the country when Adams, without consulting him, nominated him for Chief Justice. He stood at the head of the Virginia bar; he was the most generally trusted leader of his party; he already had a national reputation as an interpreter of the Constitution. Yet his appointment as Chief Justice aroused criticism even among his party friends. Their doubt did not touch his intellectual attainments, but in their opinion his political moderation, his essential democracy, his personal amiability, all counted against him. “He is,” wrote Sedgwick, “a man of very affectionate disposition, of great simplicity of manners, and honest and honorable in all his conduct. He is attached to pleasures, with convivial habits strongly fixed. He is indolent therefore. He has a strong attachment to popularity but is indisposed to sacrifice to it his integrity; hence he is disposed on all popular subjects to feel the public pulse, and hence results indecision and an expression of doubt.” ¹
It was perhaps fortunate for the Federal Judiciary, of which he was now to take command, that John Marshall was on occasion “disposed … to feel the public pulse.” A headstrong pilot might speedily have dashed his craft on the rocks; a timid one would have abandoned his course; but Marshall did neither. The better answer to Sedgwick’s fears was given in 1805 when John Randolph declared that Marshall’s “real worth was never known until he was appointed Chief Justice.” And Sedgwick is further confuted by the portraits of the Chief Justice, which, with all their diversity, are in accord on that stubborn chin, that firm placid mouth, that steady, benignant gaze, so capable of putting attorneys out of countenance when they had to face it overlong. Here are the lineaments of self-confidence unmarred by vanity, of dignity without condescension, of tenacity untouched by fanaticism, and above all, of an easy conscience and unruffled serenity. It required the lodestone of a great and thoroughly congenial responsibility to bring to light Marshall’s real metal.
[CHAPTER III]
Jefferson’s War On The Judiciary
By a singular coincidence Marshall took his seat as Chief Justice at the opening of the first term of Court in Washington, the new capital, on Wednesday, February 4, 1801. The most beautiful of capital cities was then little more than a swamp, athwart which ran a streak of mire named by solemn congressional enactment “Pennsylvania Avenue.” At one end of this difficult thoroughfare stood the President’s mansion—still in the hands of the builders but already sagging and leaking through the shrinkage of the green timber they had used—two or three partially constructed office-buildings, and a few private edifices and boarding houses. Marshall never removed his residence to Washington but occupied chambers in one or other of these buildings, in company with some of the associate justices. This arrangement was practicable owing to the brevity of the judicial term, which usually lasted little more than six weeks, and was almost necessitated by the unhealthful climate of the place. It may be conjectured that the life of John Marshall was prolonged for some years by the Act of 1802, which abolished the August term of court, for in the late summer and early autumn the place swarmed with mosquitoes and reeked with malaria.
The Capitol, which stood at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, was in 1801 even less near completion than the President’s house; at this time the south wing rose scarcely twenty feet above its foundations. In the north wing, which was nearer completion, in a basement chamber, approached by a small hall opening on the eastern side of the Capitol and flanked by pillars carved to represent bundles of cornstalks with ears half opened at the top, Marshall held court for more than a third of a century and elaborated his great principles of constitutional law. This room, untouched by British vandalism in the invasion of 1814, was christened by the witty malignity of John Randolph, “the cave of Trophonius.” ¹
¹ It should, however, be noted in the interest of accuracy, that the Court does not seem to have occupied its basement chamber during the years 1814 to 1818, while the Capitol was under repair.