The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1884-07-26
CHEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.
So;ae Personal RecolIections-Trait
OF
TaGath'sn Letter

["Gath's" Letter.
The lass of Marshall ability at the
bar was his understanding. Not highly
read, he had one of those clear under
standings which was equal to mill
pond of book-learning. His first prac-
tiee was among his o.d companions in
arms, who felt that he was a soldier by
nature, and one OF those who loved the
fellowship OF the camp better than
mintary or political ambition. Tagged
and di sipated, they used to come to
him for protection, and at time when
imprisonment for debt and cruel exc
cutions were in vogue. He not only
defended them, but loaned them money.
He lost some good clients by not paying
more attention to his clothing, but these
outward circumstances could not long
keep back recognition of the fact that
he was the finest arguer of case at
the Richmond bar, which then con-
tanned such men as Edmund Randolph,
Patrick Henry and later William Writ.
He was not an orator, did not culti-
vate his voice, did not labor hard, but
he had the power to penetrate to the
very center of the subject, discover the
chief point. and rally all his forces
there. If he was defending case he
would turn his attention to some other
than the main point in order to let the
prosecution assemble its powers at the
wrong place. With military eye he
saw the strong and the weak positions,
and, like Rembrandt painting, he threw
all his light on the right spot. The
character of his argument was per-
spicuous, easy, onward, accumulative
reasoning statement. He had but one
gesture, to lift up his hanl and bring it
down on the place before him con-
stantly. He discarded fancy or poetry
in his arguments.
Among the cases he argued was the
British debt case, tried in 1893. The
United States now had it's circuit court,
and Chief Justice Jay presided at Rich
mond. The treaty of pea eof England
provided that the creditors on either
side should meet with no lawful impedi-
ment to the recovery of the full value
of all bona fide debts heretofore con-
tracted. The question was whether
debts seluestrated by the Virginia
legislature during the war came under
this treaty. It is said that the countess
of Huntington heard the speeches on
this case, and said that every one of the
lawyers, if in England, would have
been given peerage. Patrick Henry
broke his voice down in this case and
never again could speak with his old
force. Marshall surpassed them all in
the cogency of his reasoning. AT that
time he was thought to be rather lazy.
He went into the state legislature in
1882, just before he was married. His
personal influence was such in Rich
mond that, although he was constantly
in the minority, he was always elected.
His principal amusement was pitching
the quot, which he did to the end of his
days, and could ring the meg, it is said,
at distance of sixty feet frequently.
He arose early in the morning and went
to market, without a servant, and
brought back his chickens in one hand
and his market basket on the other
arm. He never took offense, and once
when dude stopped him on the street
and asked him where there was fell
low to take home his marketing, Mar
shall inquired where he lived, anu said
"I will take it for you" After he got
home with the other mans marketing,
the dude was much distressed to find
that Mr.. Marshall had been his sup
posed servant.