Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/102

 A Century of Federal Judicature. A CENTURY OF FEDERAL JUDICATURE. II. BY VAN VECHTEN VEEDER. NO consideration of Marshall's genius would be complete without reference to the merits of his style and his methods of ex position. He possessed to a most remarkable degree the power of clear statement and pure reasoning. His conscious apprehension of every step in the process of reasoning by which he reached a conclusion was combined with the ability to express the whole process in clear and convincing terms to others. Sparing in the extreme of ornament and ex ternal illustration, his reasoning is, for the most part, simple logical deduction, unaided by analogies and unsupported by precedent or authority. Indeed, in his chosen sphere there were no precedents. In his opinions in Cohens v. State of Virginia, Sturges v. Crowninshield, McCulloch v. State of Mary land and Dartmouth College v. Woodward, not a single case is cited. His mental char acteristics have been well described by a great judge whose association with him for nearly a quarter of a century gave abundant opportunity to study the temper of his mind. "It was a matter of surprise," says Judge Story, "to see how easily he grasped the lead ing principles of a case, and cleared it of all its accidental encumbrances; how readily he evolved the true point of the controversy even when it was manifest that he had never before caught even a glimpse of the learning on which it depended. He seized, as it were by intuition, the very spirit of judicial doc trines, though cased up in the armor of cen turies; and he discussed authorities as if the very minds of the judges themselves stood disembodied before him. Perhaps no judge ever excelled him in the capacity to hold a legal proposition before the eyes of others in such various forms and colors. It seemed a

pleasure to him to cast the darkest shade of objection over it that he might show how it could be dissipated by a single glance of light. He would by the most subtle analysis resolve every argument into its ultimate prin ciples, and then with a marvellous facility apply them to the decision of the cause. His powers of analysis were indeed marvellous. He separated the accidental from the essen tial circumstances with a subtlety and exact ness which surprised those most who were accustomed to its exercise. No error in rea soning escaped his detection. He followed it through all its doublings until it became pal pable and stripped of all its disguises. But what seemed peculiarly his own was the power with which he seized upon a principle or argument apparently presented in the most elementary form, and showed it to be a mere corollary from some more general truth which lay at immeasurable distances beyond it. If his mind had been less practical he would have been the most consummate of metaphysicians and the most skilful of sophists. But his love of dialectics was con stantly controlled by his superior love of truth." After this statement of Marshall's tran scendent abilities it will conduce to an accu rate perspective to consider his limitations. It is to be observed, in the. first place, that his preeminence is confined .within the scope of constitutional lav. Possibly this statement should be qualified by one reservation; some of his opinions on questions of international law are at least equal to the masterpieces of Stowell and Lushington. This subject was, indeed, peculiarly suited to his mind. Of the one hundred and ninety-five cases on inter national law or international relations decid