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neous supremacy of two governments, state Supreme Court, Congress suspended the ses sions of the court for nearly fourteen months and federal, distinct and separate in their action, yet commanding with equal authority by abolishing the August term; and the mem the obedience of the same people, so that bership of the Supreme Court itself was re duced from six to five judges. No appoint each in its allotted sphere should perform ment could have been more offensive to the its functions without collision. "To hold new President, from both a personal and a the balance true between these jarring poles, political standpoint, than that of Marshall. In to tread the straight and narrow path after life Jefferson described the Federal marked out by law, regardless of political judiciary as a ''subtle corps of sappers and expediency and party politics, on the one miners constantly working underground to hand, and of jealousies of the reigning power undermine the foundations of our confeder on the other; to reason out the governing ated fabric"; Marshall was "a crafty judge principle in such manner as to leave the mind who sophistocates the law to his mind by the free to pursue its own course without per turn of his own reasoning." With a Con plexity and to commend the conclusions gress in full sympathy with a hostile execu reached to the sober second thought; these," tive, the position of the Supreme Court was as one of his successors has said, "demanded perilous in the extreme. Had the impeach that breadth of view, that power of general ment of Justice Chase been successful the ization, that clearness of expression, that un Supreme Court would, under such circum erring discretion, that simplicity and strength stances, have ibeen confined to the sphere of of character, that indomitable fortitude which, combined in Marshall, enabled him to a mere court of law. When that impeach ment failed, John Randolph had proposed disclose the working lines of that great reto amend the Constitution so as to make the I public whose foundations the men of the judges removable on the joint addresses of Revolution laid in the principles of liberty the Senate and the House of Representatives. and self-government." The failure of such hostile action now en The signal success with which he solved abled Marshall to fix a construction on the the great problem which confronted him, Constitution which forever established the and the invaluable service which he rendered independence and authority of this tribunal. to his country, have been abundantly recog By his indomitable determination, powerful nized by succeeding generations. One of our logic and practical statesmanship Marshall most learned and acute legal scholars, the not only established a great court of law, but late Professor Thayer, considered it hardly also vindicated its title as one of the coordi possible to over-estimate its value. "Sitting nate powers of the government. in the highest judicial place for more than a With Marshall, therefore, really began the generation; familiar from, the beginning, with the Federal Constitution, with the purposes process, peculiar to our system of govern ment, of the development of constitutional of its framers, and with all the objections of its critics; accustomed to meet these objec law by means of judicial decisions based up tions from the time he had served in the on the provisions of a fundamental written Virginia Convention of 1788; convinced of instrument. Not only were the nation, the the purpose and capacity of this instrument Constitution and the laws in their infancy; he was met by the problem, absolutely new to to create a strong nation, competent to make political science, whether it was possible to itself respected at home and abroad, and able carry into successful operation a plan of to speak with the voice and strike with the strength of all; assured that this was the government contemplating the contempora