After his recovery, in 1831, Marshall seems to have been in good health down to the early part of 1835. Then, we are told, he suffered “severe contusions” in the stage-coach in returning from Washington.[57] His health now rapidly declined. He went again for relief to Philadelphia, and died there on July 6, 1835, of a serious disorder of the liver. He had missed from his bedside his oldest son, Thomas, for whom he had been asking. Upon the gravestone of that son, behind the old house at Oakhill, you may read the pathetic tragedy, withheld from his father, that accounts for this absence. While hastening to Philadelphia, at the end of June, he was passing through the streets of Baltimore, in the midst of a tempest, and was killed by the falling of a chimney in the storm.
The great Chief Justice was carried home with every demonstration of respect and reverence. He was buried by the side of his wife, in the Shockoe Hill Cemetery in Richmond. There, upon horizontal tablets, are two inscriptions of affecting simplicity, both written by himself. The first runs thus: “John Marshall, Son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was born the 24th of September, 1755. Intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler, the 3d of January, 1783. Departed this life the [6th] day of July, 1835.” The second, thus: “Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Mary Willis Marshall, Consort of John Marshall, Born the 13th of March, 1766. Departed this life the 25th of December, 1831. This stone is devoted to her memory by him who best knew her worth, And most deplores her loss.”
Among the tributes to Chief Justice Marshall which were made in the months that followed his death, and in later times, nothing finer has been said than the heartfelt expression of the bar of his own circuit, at Richmond, in November, 1835. The resolutions of Mr. B. Watkins Leigh, unanimously adopted, recalled “the memory of the venerable judge” who had presided there for more than thirty-four years “with such remarkable diligence in office, that until he was disabled by the disease which removed him from life, he was never known to be absent from the bench, during term time, even for a day,—with such indulgence to counsel and suitors that everybody’s convenience was consulted but his own,—with a dignity, sustained without effort, and apparently without care to sustain it, to which all men were solicitous to pay due respect,—with such profound sagacity, such quick penetration, such acuteness, clearness, strength, and comprehension of mind, that in his hands the most complicated causes were plain, the weightiest and most difficult, easy and light,—with such striking impartiality and justice, and a judgment so sure, as to inspire universal confidence, so that few appeals were ever taken from his decisions, during his long administration of justice in this court, and those only in cases where he himself expressed doubt,—with such modesty that he seemed wholly unconscious of his own gigantic powers,—with such equanimity, such benignity of temper, such amenity of manners, that not only none of the judges who sat with him on the bench, but no member of the bar, no officer of the court, no juror, no witness, no suitor, in a single instance, ever found or imagined, in anything said or done, or omitted by him, the slightest cause of offense.
“His private life was worthy of the exalted character he sustained in public station. The unaffected simplicity of his manners; the spotless purity of his morals; his social, gentle, cheerful disposition; his habitual self-denial, and boundless generosity towards others; the strength and constancy of his attachments, his kindness to his friends and neighbors; his exemplary conduct in the relations of son, brother, husband, father; his numerous charities; his benevolence toward all men, and his ever active beneficence; these amiable qualities shone so conspicuously in him, throughout his life, that highly as he was respected, he had the rare happiness to be yet more beloved. He was, indeed, a bright example of the true wisdom which consists in the union of the greatest ability and the greatest virtue.”
On the west side of the Capitol at Washington, midway between the staircases that ascend from the garden to the great building, and a little in advance, there is a colossal bronze figure of Marshall by the sculptor Story, the son of the great man’s colleague and friend,—placed there in 1884. It is a very noble work of art, worthy of the subject and the place. The Chief Justice is sitting, clothed in his judicial robe, in the easy attitude of one engaged in expounding a subject of which he is master. The figure is leaning back in the chair with the head slightly inclining forward; the right arm rests on the arm of the chair, with the hand open and extended; the left hand, holding a scroll, lies easily on the other arm of the chair. The crossed legs are covered by the gown, while low shoes and buckles, and hair gathered in a queue, speak of lifelong habits. The solid and beautiful head, and the grave and collected dignity of the features and the whole composition are very noble, satisfactory, and ideally true.
The figure, standing, would be ten feet high. It sits seven feet high, and is raised upon a suitable pedestal, decorated with marble bas-reliefs of classical designs. These, if the truth were told, might well be spared, but the statue itself will fitly commemorate for many ages one of the greatest, noblest and most engaging characters in American history.
The Riverside Press
Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
[1] The Chief Justice seems to have inherited and accumulated a considerable estate. By his will he gave to each of his grandsons named John a thousand acres of land. The Green Bag, viii. 4. He also had been a surveyor. Ib. 480.
[2] Hammond’s Blackstone, vol. i., pp. viii. xxv.