When, to all these engaging traits of character, we add that his charitable benefactions were as large as his mind, and as unostentatious as his life; and that in his dealings he was so scrupulously just, as always to prefer his own loss to the possibility of his wronging another; it can be no wonder, that despite the unpopularity of his federo-political opinions, he was the most beloved and esteemed of all men in Virginia.
The influence of Judge Marshall upon the decisions of the Supreme Court, in cases requiring a determination of the limits set by the Constitution to federal power, will be deemed salutary or pernicious, according as the mind which contemplates it is biassed towards the one or the other school of opinions on that subject—towards the strict, or towards the liberal (what its opponents term the licentious) construction. Having been profoundly—perhaps exaggeratedly—impressed with a dread of the evils attending a feeble government for the Union, he had advocated the new Constitution originally, and maintained the liberal interpretation of it afterwards, as indispensable to the integrity and wholesome action of our system. Opinions which he had thus held for thirteen years, and which had become fixed more and more deeply in his mind by his numberless able vindications of them, he could not be expected to throw aside when he ascended the Bench. They pervaded his decisions there; and such was the influence of his gigantic intellect, that, although, as Chief Justice, his vote had no more legal authority than that of any other Judge, and although most of his associates were deemed, at their appointments, maintainers of the strict construction,—the Supreme Court took its tone from him; and in almost every instance where the controversy turned upon the boundaries between federal and state authority, as fixed by the Constitution, its determination tended to enlarge the former, and to circumscribe the latter. Never, probably, did any judge, who had six associates equal to himself in judicial authority, so effectually stamp their adjudications with the impress of his own mind. This may be read, in the generous pleasure with which the best and ablest22 of those associates dwells upon the inestimable service done to the country, in establishing a code of Constitutional Law so perfect, that "His proudest epitaph may be written in a single line—Here lies the Expounder of the Constitution of the United States." It may be read in the glowing page, where Mr. Binney, resolving the glory of the Court in having "explained, defended and enforced the Constitution," into the merits of its presiding judge, declares himself "lost in admiration of the man, and in gratitude to Heaven for his beneficent life." It may be read in the many volumes of Reports, where, whensoever a question of constitutional law was to be determined, the opinion of Judge Marshall is found, almost without exception, to be the opinion of the Supreme Court.
22 Judge Story.
We shall make but one more extract from Mr. Binney's admirable Eulogy.
He was endued by nature with a patience that was never surpassed;—patience to hear that which he knew already, that which he disapproved, that which questioned himself. When he ceased to hear, it was not because his patience was exhausted, but because it ceased to be a virtue.
His carriage in the discharge of his judicial business, was faultless. Whether the argument was animated or dull, instructive or superficial, the regard of his expressive eye was an assurance that nothing that ought to affect the cause, was lost by inattention or indifference; and the courtesy of his general manner was only so far restrained on the Bench, as was necessary for the dignity of office, and for the suppression of familiarity.
His industry and powers of labor, when contemplated in connection with his social temper, show a facility that does not generally belong to parts of such strength. There remain behind him nearly thirty volumes of copiously reasoned decisions, greater in difficulty and labor, than probably have been made in any other court during the life of a single judge! yet he participated in them all; and in those of greatest difficulty, his pen has most frequently drawn up the judgment; and in the midst of his judicial duties, he composed and published in the year 1804, a copious biography of Washington, surpassing in authenticity and minute accuracy, any public history with which we are acquainted. He found time also to revise it, and to publish a second edition, separating the History of the American Colonies from the Biography, and to prepare with his own pen an edition of the latter for the use of schools. Every part of it is marked with the scrupulous veracity of a judicial exposition; and it shows moreover, how deeply the writer was imbued with that spirit which will live after all the compositions of men shall be forgotten,—the spirit of charity, which could indite a history of the Revolution and of parties, in which he was a conspicuous actor, without discoloring his pages with the slightest infusion of gall. It could not be written with more candor an hundred years hence. It has not been challenged for the want of it, but in a single instance, and that has been refuted by himself with irresistible force of argument, as well as with unexhausted benignity of temper.
To qualities such as these, he joined an immoveable firmness befitting the office of presiding judge, in the highest tribunal of the country. It was not the result of excited feeling, and consequently never rose or fell with the emotions of the day. It was the constitution of his nature, and sprung from the composure of a mind undisturbed by doubt, and of a heart unsusceptible of fear. He thought not of the fleeting judgments and commentaries of men; and although he was not indifferent to their approbation, it was not the compass by which he was directed, nor the haven in which he looked for safety.
His learning was great, and his faculty of applying it of the very first order.
But it is not by these qualities that he is so much distinguished from the judges of his time. In learning and industry, in patience, firmness, and fidelity, he has had his equals. But there is no judge, living or dead, whose claims are disparaged by assigning the first place in the department of constitutional law to Chief Justice Marshall.