_Marshall_
When John Marshall became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme
Court only six decisions had been rendered on Constitutional questions
by that tribunal. Not only were the Federal Constitution and the laws
enacted under it in their infancy, but an absolutely new question in
political science was presented,—the question whether it was possible to
carry out successfully a scheme contemplating the contemporaneous
sovereignty of two governments, State and federal, distinct and separate
in their action, yet commanding with equal authority the obedience of
the same people. Viewed against this sombre background of an untried and
difficult experiment, Marshall’s services assume heroic proportions. On
account of the lack of precedent an opposite decision might in many
cases have been given, which, as a matter of pure law, could have been
well supported. Much depended, therefore, on the spirit in which the
work should be approached. Marshall brought to the task a mind which had
been trained in forensic strife with the ablest bar that Virginia has
ever known. In the Virginia Legislature, in Congress, and in the
Constitutional Convention of Virginia he had become familiar with the
fundamental principles of government. The temper in which Marshall
assumed the responsibilities of his judicial station was exemplified in
his remarks during the trial of Aaron Burr: “That this Court dares not
usurp power is most true. That this Court does not shrink from its duty
is no less true. No man is desirous of placing himself in a disagreeable
situation. No man is desirous of becoming the peculiar subject of
calumny. No man, might he let the bitter cup pass from him without
reproach, would drain it to the bottom. But if he has no choice in the
case—if there be no alternative presented to him but a dereliction of
duty or the opprobrium of those who are denominated the world—he merits
the contempt as well as the indignation of his country; who can hesitate
which to embrace?”
There is no doubt that under Marshall the United States Supreme Court
acquired the energy, weight, and dignity which Jay had considered
indispensable for the effectual exercise of its functions. During the
thirty-four years that he presided over the court, twelve hundred and
fifteen cases were decided, the reports of which will fill thirty
volumes. In something more than one hundred cases no opinion was given,
or, if given, was reported as “by the Court,” _per curiam_. Of the
remainder, Marshall delivered the opinion of the court in five hundred
and nineteen. Of the sixty-two decisions during his time, on questions
of constitutional law, he wrote the opinion in thirty-six; in
twenty-three of the latter, comprising most of his greatest efforts,
there was no dissent.
Contemporaries and later students concur in the opinion that the
original bias of Marshall’s mind was toward general principles and
comprehensive views rather than to technical and recondite learning. His
argumentation was, as Mr. Phelps has said, “that simple, direct,
straightforward, honest reasoning that silences as a demonstration in
Euclid silences, because it convinces.” His reasoning was, for the most
part, simple, logical deduction, unaided by analogies, and unsupported
by precedent or authority. Marshall’s type of mind presented a strong
contrast to that of Justice Story, whose concurring opinion in the
Dartmouth College case bristled with authorities: “When I examine a
question,” said Story, “I go from headland to headland; from case to
case. Marshall has a compass, puts out to sea, and goes directly to his
result.”
_Jackson_
After the sedate, passionless, orderly administrations of Monroe and
Adams, there was a popular demand for something piquant and amusing, and
this quality was always found in Old Hickory. Friends and foes alike
declare that Andrew Jackson was in many ways far above the imitators who
have posed in his image. True, he was narrow, ignorant, violent,
unreasonable; he punished his enemies and rewarded his friends. But he
was, on the other hand,—and his worst opponents did not deny it,—chaste,
honest, truthful, and sincere. For a time he was more bitterly hated
than any one who ever occupied his high office, and we may be sure that
these better qualities would have been discredited had it been possible.
It was constantly reiterated that his frequent and favorite oath was “By
the Eternal,” yet neither his nephew and secretary, Mr. Donelson, who
was associated with him for thirty years, nor Judge Brackenridge, of
Western Pennsylvania, who wrote most of his State papers, ever heard him
use such an expression. With long, narrow, firmly set features, and a
military stock encircling his neck, he had one advantage for the social
life of Washington which seemed difficult of explanation by anything in
his earlier career. He had at his command the most courteous and
agreeable manners. Even before the election of Adams, Daniel Webster had
written to his brother: “General Jackson’s manners are better than those
of any of the candidates. He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife is
for him decidedly.” But whatever his personal attractions, he sacrificed
his social leadership at Washington by his quixotic attempt to force the
Cabinet ladies to admit into their circle the wife of Secretary Eaton, a
woman whose antecedents as Peggy O’Neill, an innkeeper’s daughter, made
her a _persona non grata_. For once, Jackson overestimated his powers.
He had conquered Indian tribes, and checked the army of Great Britain,
but the ladies of Washington society were too much for him. At the
dinner-table, or in the ball-room, every lady ignored the presence of
“Bellona,” as the newspapers called her.
The two acts with which the administration of President Jackson will be
longest identified are his dealings with South Carolina in respect to
nullification, and his long warfare with the United States Bank. The
first brought the New England States back to him and the second took
them away again. He perhaps won rather more applause than he merited by
the one act, and more condemnation than was just for the other.
Among the amusing anecdotes of Jackson, it is related that when he was
military commander in Florida during the administration of President
Monroe, he tried at a drumhead court-martial and hanged two Englishmen
who had incited, it is said, an insurrection among the Indians.
President Monroe feared that Great Britain would make trouble about
this, and summoned the general to Washington before the Cabinet. John
Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, who had instructed Jackson to
govern with a firm hand in Florida, defended him, and read a long
argument in which he quoted international law as expounded by Grotius,
Vattel, and Puffendorff. Jackson listened in sullen silence, but in the
evening, when asked at a dinner party whether he was not comforted by
Mr. Adams’s citation of authorities, he exclaimed, “What do I care about
those old musty chaps? Blast Grotius, blast Vattel, and blast the
Puffenchap. This is a fight between Jim Monroe and me, and I propose to
fight it out.”
_Webster_
Senator George F. Hoar, in describing the personal appearance of Daniel
Webster in the prime of life, says, “He was physically the most splendid
specimen of noble manhood my eyes ever beheld. He was a trifle over five
feet nine inches high and weighed one hundred and fifty-four pounds. His
head was finely poised upon his shoulders. His beautiful black eyes
shone out through the caverns of his deep brows like lustrous jewels.
His teeth were white and regular, and his smile when he was in gracious
mood, especially when talking to women, had an irresistible charm.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson thus speaks of Mr. Webster’s appearance at the
dedication of the Bunker Hill monument, in 1843: “His countenance, his
figure, and his manners were all in so grand a style that he was,
without effort, as superior to his most eminent rivals as they were to
the humblest. He alone of all men did not disappoint the eye and the
ear, but was a fit figure in the landscape. There was the monument, and
there was Webster. He knew well that a little more or less of rhetoric
signified nothing; he was only to say plain and equal things—grand
things, if he had them; and if he had them not, only to abstain from
saying unfit things—and the whole occasion was answered by his
presence.”
The masterly address on that June anniversary closed with these
sentences:
“And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to the
house appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of country
glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall
have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean
against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall
be gathered around it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its
objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious
events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful
breast the ejaculation, ‘Thank God, I also am an American.’”
In reviewing Mr. Webster’s “Speeches and Forensic Arguments,” Edwin P.
Whipple says, “Believing that our national literature is to be found in
the records of our greatest minds, and is not confined to the poems,
novels, and essays which may be produced by Americans, we have been
surprised that the name of Daniel Webster is not placed high among
American authors. Men in every way inferior to him in mental power have
obtained a wide reputation for _writing_ works in every way inferior to
those _spoken_ by him. It cannot be that a generation like ours,
continually boasting that it is not misled by forms, should think that
thought changes its character when it is published from the mouth
instead of the press. Still, it is true that a man who has acquired fame
as an orator and statesman is rarely considered, even by his own
partisans, in the light of an author. He is responsible for no ‘book.’
The records of what he has said and done, though perhaps constantly
studied by contemporaries, are not generally regarded as part and parcel
of the national literature. The fame of the man of action overshadows
that of the author. We are so accustomed to consider him as a speaker,
that we are somewhat blind to the great literary merit of his speeches.
The celebrated argument in reply to Hayne, for instance, was intended by
the statesman as a defence of his political position, as an exposition
of constitutional law, and a vindication of what he deemed to be the
true policy of the country. The acquisition of merely literary
reputation had no part in the motives from which it sprung. Yet the
speech, even to those who take little interest in subjects like the
tariff, nullification, and the public lands, will ever be interesting
from its profound knowledge, its clear arrangement, the mastery it
exhibits of all the weapons of dialectics, the broad stamp of
nationality it bears, and the wit, sarcasm, and splendid and impassioned
eloquence which pervade and vivify, without interrupting, the close and
rapid march of the argument.”
Considered merely as literary productions, Webster’s speeches take the
highest rank among the best productions of the American intellect. They
are thoroughly national in their spirit and tone, and are full of
principles, arguments, and appeals, which come directly home to the
hearts and understandings of the great body of the people. They contain
the results of a long life of mental labor, employed in the service of
the country. They give evidence of a complete familiarity with the
spirit and workings of our institutions, and breathe the bracing air of
a healthy and invigorating patriotism. They are replete with that true
wisdom which is slowly gathered from the exercise of a strong and
comprehensive intellect on the complicated concerns of daily life and
duty. They display qualities of mind and style which would give them a
high place in any literature, even if the subjects discussed were less
interesting and important; and they show also a strength of personal
character, superior to irresolution and fear, capable of bearing up
against the most determined opposition, and uniting to boldness in
thought intrepidity in action. In all the characteristics of great
literary performances, they are fully equal to many works which have
stood the test of age, and baffled the skill of criticism.
_Lincoln at Gettysburg_
At the consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 9,
1863, Hon. Edward Everett was the orator of the day, and President
Lincoln made the dedicatory address. Concerning Mr. Lincoln’s appearance
on that memorable occasion, Mr. Edward McPherson, Clerk of the National
House of Representatives, in a newspaper report, said that Mr. Lincoln
never showed more ungainliness of figure, “slouchiness” of dress, and
angularity of gesture, all of which appeared in striking contrast with
the elegance and grace of person, speech, and manner that characterized
Mr. Everett. But although every one admired the rhetorical effects
produced by Everett during his oration of ninety minutes’ length, they
had not been “aroused to enthusiasm, nor melted to tenderness.” “But,”
says Mr. McPherson, “as Mr. Lincoln proceeded no face ever more
unmistakably mirrored a conviction than did Mr. Everett’s, that by these
few but weighty sentences, all memory of what he had said was erased. It
is part of the current mention of the times that Mr. Everett, in
congratulating Mr. Lincoln at the close of the exercises, laughingly,
but with a sense of its truth, remarked, ‘You have said all on this
occasion that will be remembered by posterity.’”
Hon. James Speed, formerly Attorney-General, under Lincoln, says that
Lincoln showed him a letter from Everett, eulogizing the Gettysburg
speech in the very highest terms, and that a year or two after the death
of Mr. Lincoln, there were present at his house in Washington, Senator
Sumner, Governor Clifford, of Massachusetts, and others, and Mr.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech became the subject of conversation. “Mr.
Sumner said, and others concurred in what he said, that it was the most
finished piece of oratory he had ever seen. Every word was
appropriate—none could be omitted and none added and none changed.”