Marshall erected his Richmond home, called “Shockoe Hill,” in 1793 on a plot of ground which he had purchased four years earlier. Here, as his eulogist has said, was “the scene of his real triumphs.” At an early date his wife became a nervous invalid, and his devotion to her brought out all the finest qualities of his sound and tender nature. “It is,” says Mr. Beveridge, “the most marked characteristic of his entire private life and is the one thing which differentiates him sharply from the most eminent men of that heroic but socially free-and-easy period.” From his association with his wife Marshall derived, moreover, an opinion of the sex “as the friends, the companions, and the equals of man” which may be said to have furnished one of his few points of sympathetic contact with American political radicalism in his later years. The satirist of woman, says Story, “found no sympathy in his bosom,” and “he was still farther above the commonplace flatteries by which frivolity seeks to administer aliment to personal vanity, or vice to make its approaches for baser purposes. He spoke to the sex when present, as he spoke of them when absent, in language of just appeal to their understandings, their tastes, and their duties.”
Marshall’s relations with his neighbors were the happiest possible. Every week, when his judicial duties permitted or the more “laborious relaxation” of directing his farm did not call him away, he attended the meetings of the Barbecue Club in a fine grove just outside the city, to indulge in his favorite diversion of quoits. The Club consisted of thirty of the most prominent men of Richmond, judges, lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and merchants. To quoits was added the inducement of an excellent repast of which roast pig was the pièce de résistance. Then followed a dessert of fruit and melons, while throughout a generous stock of porter, toddy, and of punch “from which water was carefully excluded,” was always available to relieve thirst. An entertaining account of a meeting of the Club at which Marshall and his friend Wickham were the caterers has been thus preserved for us:
At the table Marshall announced that at the last meeting two members had introduced politics, a forbidden subject, and had been fined a basket of champagne, and that this was now produced, as a warning to evil-doers; as the club seldom drank this article, they had no champagne glasses, and must drink it in tumblers. Those who played quoits retired after a while for a game. Most of the members had smooth, highly polished brass quoits. But Marshall’s were large, rough, heavy, and of iron, such as few of the members could throw well from hub to hub. Marshall himself threw them with great success and accuracy, and often “rang the meg.” On this occasion Marshall and the Rev. Mr. Blair led the two parties of players. Marshall played first, and rang the meg. Parson Blair did the same, and his quoit came down plumply on top of Marshall’s. There was uproarious applause, which drew out all the others from the dinner; and then came an animated controversy as to what should be the effect of this exploit. They all returned to the table, had another bottle of champagne, and listened to arguments, one from Marshall, pro se, and one from Wickham for Parson Blair. [Marshall’s] argument is a humorous companion piece to any one of his elaborate judicial opinions. He began by formulating the question, “Who is winner when the adversary quoits are on the meg at the same time?” He then stated the facts, and remarked that the question was one of the true construction and applications of the rules of the game. The first one ringing the meg has the advantage. No other can succeed who does not begin by displacing this first one. The parson, he willingly allowed, deserves to rise higher and higher in everybody’s esteem; but then he mustn’t do it by getting on another’s back in this fashion. That is more like leapfrog than quoits. Then, again, the legal maxim, Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cœlum—his own right as first occupant extends to the vault of heaven; no opponent can gain any advantage by squatting on his back. He must either bring a writ of ejectment, or drive him out vi et armis. And then, after further argument of the same sort, he asked judgment, and sat down amidst great applause.
Mr. Wickham then rose, and made an argument of a similar pattern. No rule, he said, requires an impossibility. Mr. Marshall’s quoit is twice as large as any other; and yet it flies from his arm like the iron ball at the Grecian games from the arm of Ajax. It is impossible for an ordinary quoit to move it. With much more of the same sort, he contended that it was a drawn game. After very animated voting, designed to keep up the uncertainty as long as possible, it was so decided. Another trial was had, and Marshall clearly won. ¹
¹ J. B. Thayer, John Marshall (Riverside Biographical Series, 1904), pp. 134-36, paraphrasing G. W. Munford, The Two Parsons (Richmond, 1884), pp. 326-38.
Years later Chester Harding, who once painted Marshall, visited the Club. “I watched,” says he, “for the coming of the old chief. He soon approached, with his coat on his arm and his hat in his hand, which he was using as a fan. He walked directly up to a large bowl of mint julep which had been prepared, and drank off a tumblerful, smacking his lips, and then turned to the company with a cheerful ‘How are you, gentlemen?’ He was looked upon as the best pitcher of the party and could throw heavier quoits than any other member of the club. The game began with great animation. There were several ties; and before long I saw the great Chief Justice of the United States down on his knees measuring the contested distance with a straw, with as much earnestness as if it had been a point of law; and if he proved to be in the right, the woods would ring with his triumphant shout.” ¹ What Wellesley remarked of the younger Pitt may be repeated of Marshall, that “unconscious of his superiority,” he “plunged heedlessly into the mirth of the hour” and was endowed with “a gay heart and social spirit beyond any man of his time.”
¹ Thayer, op. cit., pp. 132-33.
As a hero of anecdotes Marshall almost rivals Lincoln. Many of the tales preserved are doubtless apocryphal, but this qualification hardly lessens their value as contemporary impressions of his character and habits. They show for what sort of anecdotes his familiarly known personality had an affinity.
The Chief Justice’s entire freedom from ostentation and the gentleness with which he could rebuke it in others is illustrated in a story often told. Going early to the market one morning he came upon a youth who was fuming and swearing because he could get no one to carry his turkey home for him. Marshall proffered his services. Arriving at the house the young man asked, “What shall I pay you?” “Oh, nothing,” was the reply; “it was on my way, and no trouble.” As Marshall walked away, the young man inquired of a bystander, “Who is that polite old man that brought home my turkey for me?” “That,” was the answer, “is Judge Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States.”
Of the same general character is an anecdote which has to do with a much earlier period when Marshall was still a practicing attorney. An old farmer who was involved in a lawsuit came to Richmond to attend its trial. “Who is the best lawyer in Richmond?” he asked of his host, the innkeeper of the Eagle tavern. The latter pointed to a tall, ungainly, bareheaded man who had just passed, eating cherries from his hat and exchanging jests with other loiterers like himself. “That is he,” said the innkeeper; “John Marshall is his name.” But the old countryman, who had a hundred dollars in his pocket, proposed to spend it on something more showy and employed a solemn, black-coated, and much powdered bigwig. The latter turned out in due course to be a splendid illustration of the proverb that “fine feathers do not make fine birds.” This the crestfallen rustic soon discovered. Meantime he had listened with amazement and growing admiration to an argument by Marshall in a cause which came on before his own. He now went up to Marshall and, explaining his difficulty, offered him the five dollars which the exactions of the first attorney still left him, and besought his aid. With a humorous remark about the power of a black coat and powdered wig Marshall good-naturedly accepted the retainer.
The religious bent of the Chief Justice’s mind is illustrated in another story, which tells of his arriving toward the close of day at an inn in one of the counties of Virginia, and falling in with some young men who presently began ardently to debate the question of the truth or falsity of the Christian religion. From six until eleven o’clock the young theologians argued keenly and ably on both sides of the question. Finally one of the bolder spirits exclaimed that it was impossible to overcome prejudices of long standing and, turning to the silent visitor, asked: “Well, my old gentleman, what do you think of these things?” To their amazement the “old gentleman” replied for an hour in an eloquent and convincing defense of the Christian religion, in which he answered in order every objection the young men had uttered. So impressive was the simplicity and loftiness of his discourse that the erstwhile critics were completely silenced.