Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/582

 The

Vol. III.

No. 12.

Green

BOSTON.

Bag.

December, 1891.

CHIEF-JUSTICE MARSHALL. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS once said of his father that if he had done nothing else to deserve the approbation of his country and posterity, he might proudly claim it for the single act of making John Marshall ChiefJustice; and surely, among the many noble legal minds which have graced the Supreme Court of the United States, Marshall stands out pre-eminently the greatest of them all. "He was born," said William Pinkney, " to be the Chief-Justice of any country into which Providence should have cast him." John Marshall was born on the 24th day of September, 1755, in the little village of Germantown, in Fauquier County, Virginia. His father was Thomas Marshall, a native of the same State He was a man of uncom mon capacity and vigor of mind, and from him young Marshall received the greater portion of his education. John was the eldest son in a family of fifteen children, and of course was the earliest to engage the soli citude of his father. The means of obtain ing any suitable education in the little vil lage wereatthat period scanty and inadequate, and Thomas Marshall was thus compelled exclusively to superintend the education of all his children. How well he acquitted him self of this duty may be inferred from the expressions which in after years frequently dropped from the lips of the Chief-Justice. "My father," he would say, with kindred feeling and emphasis, " was a far abler man than any of his sons. To him I owe the solid foundation of all my own success in life." At an early age Marshall commenced the study of the law; but before he had obtained | 70

a license to practise, the controversy between Great Britain and her American colonies began to assume a portentous aspect; and throwing aside his Blackstone, the youth entered into the contest with all the zeal and enthusiasm of one full of the love of his country and deeply sensible of its rights and its wrongs. In 1775 he was made a lieutenant of a company of minute men, and from this period he remained constantly in service un til the close of the year 1779. Retiring temporarily from active service, Marshall attended the course of law lectures of Mr. Wythe at William and Mary's College, and in the summer of 1780 he was admitted to the bar. In October of the same year he re turned to the army, and continued in the service until after the termination of Arnold's invasion of Virginia. He then resigned his commission, and settled down to the practice of his profession. His wonderful intellectual powers and his profound legal knowledge soon gained for him a wide reputation, and he speedily rose to high distinction at the bar. In the spring of 1782 he was elected a member of the State Legislature, and in the autumn of the same year a member of the State Executive Council. He continued in political life, holding various offices in his native State, until 1796. In 1796 he visited Philadelphia to argue before the Supreme Court the great case of Ware vs. Hytton, which involved the ques tion of the right of recovery of British debts which had been confiscated during the Rev olutionary War; and about the same time he defended the policy of the Mission to England and the treaty of peace negotiated