New-York tribune., 1919-12-06
By Willis Fletcher johnson

j
THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL. BY
royai n,DeTt svo .. RevsrldEe In four volumes
so: vol " pp xviii. ess ' The ii pR Roash Ugh
ton Mifnin Company.
These concluding volumes of Mr..
beveridge's great work are peculiarly
timely. They would indeed have been
timely at any period in the nations
history, because they deal with funda-
mental principles of perennial impor-
tance with which we can never be too
intimately acquainted and concerning
which we can never be too amply and
authoritatively informed But their
present especial timeliness arises from
the fact that, now that the principles
which Marshall established are being
assailed, sometimes insidiously some
times openly, with a persistent animos-
ity never before displayed, at least since
his own time, and with plausible in
genuity which has seduced not a few,
when hostility to ordered govern
ment is chiefly directed against the
courts, and when all manner of extrav-
agant demands are being made for
their emasculation and degradation,
there can be no more profitable study
the judiciary as a coordinate branch of
the national government, and of his use
of that branch as q means of establish
ing the sovereignty Of the nation upon
an unimpregnable basis.
In the former volumes the historian
led US through the fascinating scenes
Of MarshaN's career as a soldier and
diplomat. In these he both visualizes
and vitalizes his supreme services as
a jurist, in a narrative which in almost
every element of human interest, as
we'll as of patriotic moment, must be
accounted a masterpiece which we
surpassed. The theme, indeed, might
we'll command the style. We know Of
no more dramatic episode than that
of the eleventh. hour appointment of
Marshall as Chief Justice The former
works Of John Adams had been very
great. Jefferson himself credited him
with being the COLOSSUS Of the debate"
which secured the adoption of the
Declaration of independence; he OBJ
tained the appointment of Washington
as general of the army. he was one
Of our greatest representatives abroad;
he seconded Jay in the triumph over
Vergennes in peace making; and at the
sacrifice of his own political career he
saved us from open war with France.
Yet we should hesitate to deny primacy
to that last act CT his office, when, be-
trayed and beaten, and confronted with
what colleagues of less indomitable
valor and vision regarded as the i'm
pending ruin of the national edfce
which he had aided to erect, he grimly
determined that
g. one last act of knighthood
shalt thou see
Yet. ere | pass. :"
For in the appointment of Marshall
he assured q far greater triumph of
Fcderalist principles than his own re-
election as President would have been,
and far more completely than he him
self probably imagined doomed to de-
feat the disintegrating influences which
had seemed to be victorious in Jeffer-
sons election.
When at substantially the same mo-
ment Jefferson became President and
Marshall Chief Justice, the curtain
i'ose upon the greatest governmental
drama in American history The argu-
ment was whether the written Consti-
'N.ion Of the nation was anything more
'han scrap of paper. The actors
Hore worthy of the themc-J cfferson,
Madison, Gouverneur Morris. Randolph
Of Roanoke, the "Chevalier" Bayard.
Fisher Ames. John Breckenridge. Stevens
Mason, William Giles-"there were
Giants in those days" But the supreme
protagonist was the quiet, smiling, i'm
perturbable Chief Justice himself, who
saw the end from the beginning. Prac-
tically overruling all his associates
upon the bench when confronted with
q dilemma either horn of which seemed
both and adopted a third course the
audacity of which left friends and foes
alike sneechless. but the Aawless logic
IF which no man could venture to chal-
lcngc. SO he made the little tupenny-
ha'pcnny Marbury VS.. Madison suit over
-he commission of justice of the
peace the epochai occasion of the most
important judicial decision ever rem
dered upon the American continent