Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/78

 Rh

VOL. XIII.

No. 2.

BOSTON.

FEBRUARY, 1901.

JOHN MARSHALL. BY FRANCIS R. JONES. HE who reads the history of the founda tion- and early years of the government of the United States, and who studies the lives of the men prominent in public affairs at that time, is impressed more and more forcibly by their extraordinary talents, disin terested, unselfish and lofty patriotism. In deed so little of frail human nature is attrib uted to them that we should hesitate to believe in their public histories, unless incontrovertibly attested. They seem far above common mortals, having no infirmities of private character. Lordly Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, and the much enduring Ulysses are more human and more real to us than Washington, Madison, Jay or Marshall. Hamilton is redeemed from being a lay figure by his passionate impetuosity, Jeffer son by his cunning self-seeking, Adams by his infirmities of temper. But the others for the most part are mere names for great achievements and have no individuality for us. If there is material extant from which to reconstruct the real men with flesh and blood and human failings like mortals of today, the historians and biographers have carefully avoided its use. Yet to have wrought the work they did, to have inspired the love, the respect and admiration of their cotemporaries, as they did, they must have been singularly human, however exalted their ideals, and however paramount the in fluence of the stirring times in which they lived. Surely "the muse of history hath encumbered herself with ceremony, as well as her sister of the theatre. She, too, wears the mask and the cothurnus, and speaks to

measure." "I would have history -familiar rather than heroic." I would rather have been in the hunting field with George Wash ington, than at Valley Forge; or pitching quoits with John Marshall at the Barbecue Club, than seen him presiding at the trial of Aaron Burr. It is more agreeable to pass in silence over the weaknesses in the private character of a great public man than to state the truth. It is easier to bow in admiration before his genius and his talents and achievements, than to weigh the great with the little, the strong with the weak, the good with the bad, and strike a just equipoise. There is, too, a sense of gratitude added to that of admira tion, which may well lull the most conscien tious biographer into silence as to faults. Yet it is due to history, it is due to his cotemporaries and posterity; nay, more, it is due to the man himself, that the whole truth of his life and character should be known. The truth of history requires that the private characters of all men with whom it deals should be set forth, in order that their public acts may be intelligently estimated and inter preted. For no man has two separate exist ences or characters. His public career is part and parcel of his personality, as is also his private life. Yet in regard to the private lives of many of our most illustrious men history has recorded nothing but lavish and indiscriminate praise. It is both pleasant and possible to believe that some of the fathers of the Republic were paragons of domestic and social virtues and accom plishments, agreeable companions, stalwart