settled the principles that have since guided the government and the courts of the United States in extradition cases, and is still regarded as an authoritative exposition of international law on the subject of which it treats. The session lasted till 14 May, but on the 7th Marshall was nominated as secretary of war in place of James McHenry, who had resigned; and before confirmation, on the 12th, he was nominated and appointed secretary of state in place of Timothy Pickering, who had been removed. He filled this office with ability and credit during the remainder of Adams's administration. His state papers are luminous and unanswerable, especially his instructions to Rufus King, minister to Great Britain, in relation to the right of search, and other difficulties with that country.
Chief-Justice Ellsworth having resigned his seat on the bench in November, 1800, the president, after offering the place to John Jay, who declined it, conferred the appointment on Mr. Marshall. The tradition is, that after the president had had the matter under consideration for some time, Mr. Marshall (or Gen. Marshall, as he was then called) happened one day to suggest a new name for the place, when Mr. Adams promptly said: “General Marshall, you need not give yourself any further trouble about that matter. I have made up my mind about it.” “I am happy to hear that you are relieved on the subject,” said Marshall. “May I ask whom you have fixed upon?” “Certainly,” said the president; “I have concluded to nominate a person whom it may surprise you to hear mentioned. It is a Virginia lawyer, a plain man by the name of John Marshall.” He was nominated on 20 Jan., unanimously confirmed, and presided in the court at the February term, though he was still holding the office of secretary of state. He at once took, and always maintained, a commanding position in the court, not only as its nominal but as its real head. The most important opinions, especially those on constitutional law, were pronounced by him. The thirty volumes of reports, from 1st Cranch to 9th Peters, covering a period of thirty-five years, contain the monuments of his great judicial power and learning, which are referred to as the standard authority on constitutional questions. They have imparted life and vigor not only to the constitution, but to the national body politic. It is not too much to say that for this office no other man could have been selected who was equally fitted for the task he had before him. To specify and characterize the great opinions that he delivered would be to write a treatise on American constitutional law. They must themselves stand as the monuments and proper records of his judicial history. It is reported by one of his descendants that he often said that if he was worthy of remembrance his best biography would be found in his decisions in the supreme court. Their most striking characteristics are crystalline clearness of thought, irrefragable logic, and a wide and statesman-like view of all questions of public consequence. In these respects he has had no superior in this or any other country. Some men seem to be constituted by nature to be masters of judicial analysis and insight. Such were Papinian, Sir Matthew Hale, and Lord Mansfield, each in his particular province. Such was Marshall in his. They seemed to handle judicial questions as the great Euler did mathematical ones, with giant ease. As an instance of the simplicity with which he sometimes treated great questions may be cited his reasoning on the power of the court to decide upon the constitutionality of acts of congress. It had been claimed before; but it was Marshall's iron logic that settled it beyond controversy. “It is a proposition too plain to be contested,” said he, in Marbury vs. Madison, “that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act. Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law; if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.”
The incidents of Marshall's life, aside from his judicial work, after he went upon the bench, are few. In 1807 he presided, with Judge Cyrus Griffin, at the great state trial of Aaron Burr, who was charged with treason and misdemeanor. Few public trials have excited greater interest than this. President Jefferson and his adherents desired Burr's conviction, but Marshall preserved the most rigid impartiality and exact justice throughout the trial, acquitting himself, as always, to the public satisfaction. In 1829 he was elected a delegate to the convention for revising the state constitution of Virginia, where he again met Madison and Monroe, who were also members, but much enfeebled by age. The chief justice did not speak often, but when he did speak, though he was seventy-four years of age, his mind was as clear and his reasoning as solid as in younger days. His deepest interest was excited in reference to the independence of the judiciary. He remained six years after this on the bench of the supreme court. In the spring of 1835 he was advised to go to Philadelphia for medical advice, and did so, but without any beneficial result, and died in that city.
In private Chief-Justice Marshall was a man of unassuming piety and amiability of temper. He was tall, plain in dress, and somewhat awkward in appearance, but had a keen black eye, and overflowed with geniality and kind feeling. He was the object of the warmest love and veneration of all his children and grandchildren. Judge Marshall published, at the request of the first president's family, who placed their records and private papers at his disposal, a “Life of Washington” (5 vols., Philadelphia, 1804-'7), of which the first volume was afterward issued separately as “A History of the American Colonies” (1824). The whole was subsequently revised and condensed (2 vols., 1832). In this work he defended the policy of Washington's administration against the arguments and detractions of the Republicans. A selection from his decisions has been published, entitled “The Writings of John Marshall, late Chief Justice of the United States, upon the Federal Constitution” (Boston, 1839), under the supervision of Justice Joseph Story. His life has been written by George Van Santvoord, in his “Sketches of the Chief Justices” (New York, 1854); and by Henry Flanders, in his “Lives and Times of the Chief Justices” (2d series, Philadelphia, 1858). See also “Eulogy on the Life and Character of Marshall,” by Horace Binney (Philadelphia, 1835); “Discourse upon the Life, Character, and Services of John Marshall,” in Joseph Story's “Miscellaneous Writings” (Boston, 1852); “Chief-Justice Marshall and the Constitutional Law of his Time,” an address by Edward J. Phelps (1879); and “John Marshall,” by Allan B. Magruder (Boston, 1885). — Another son
