Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/199

 170

roads and across broad streams after many days of wearisome journey to take part in the deliberations of this great body. In their elevated character and the lofti ness of their patriotism, it is no disparage ment to claim that the convention about to assemble was not inferior to that which adopted the instrument now presented for their consideration Marshall, the future expounder of the Constitution, was not a member of the con vention which framed it, and was thirty-three years of age when he took his seat as a mem ber of the Virginia Convention called to ratify it. The impassioned eloquence of Pat rick Henry, and the keen and incisive logic of Mason, day by day hurled with what seemed to be irresistible effect against the instrument, bore heavily upon its friends and caused them to feel the keenest doubt of the ultimate result. Madison and Wythe had met with signal ability the shafts of opposi tion. The public press, the great command ing influence of Washington and the solid phalanx of the soldiery were brought to bear by every ingenuity which skill and tact could devise in favor of its adoption. Monroe, a young man of thirty, had just addressed the convention in opposition to the Constitution, which in subsequent years he was called upon to defend and execute. "He was succeeded on the floor by a tall young man, slovenly dressed, with piercing black eyes that would leave the observer to believe that their possessor was more des tined to toy with the Muses than to worship at the sterner shrine of Themis. He was destined, like Monroe, to fill the mission of France, and to preside in the Department of War, and in the Department of State under the Federal Constitution. Marshall was in his 'thirty-third year, and from the close of the war to the meeting of the convention, with the exception of an occasional session of the House of Delegates, was engaged in the practice of law. His manners, like those of Monroe, were in strong contrast with those of Madison and Gravson. His habits

were convivial almost to excess; and he re garded as matters beneath his notice those appliances of dress and demeanor which are commonly considered important to advance ment in a public profession. Nor should those personal qualities which cement friend ship and gain the affections of men and which he possessed in an eminent degree, be passed over in a likeness of this young man—qualities as prominently marked in the decline of his honored life when his robe had for a third of a century been fringed with ermine, as when in the heyday of his youth, dressed in the light runabout, he won his way to every heart." .... By far the most interesting speech made by Judge Marshall in the convention was one in which lie elaborated his views on the judicial system provided for in the Consti tution. As we read this speech, made thir teen years before he assumed the position of Chief Justice, we see many traces of views which became his judicial judgments. I can not stop to quote largely from it, but it is an able defence of the rights of the Federal Government to establish and maintain its own judicial system. Mason had made the objection that the Federal Courts would be used to oppress the people; that their judg ments would not be impartial, and that Fed eral offenders would escape the penalties of the law because of the partialities of the courts for them. "Let us examine each of them (Grants of Federal Jurisdiction) with a supposition that the same impartiality will be observed there, as in other courts, and then see if any mischief will result from them. With respect to its cognizance in all cases arising under the Constitution and the laws of the United States, he (Mason) says, that the laws of the United States being para mount to the laws of the particular States, there is no case but what this will extend to. Has the government of the United States power to make laws on all subjects? Does he understand it so? Can they make laws affecting the modes of transferring property. ! or contracts, or claims between citizens of