John Marshall.
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invincible. But the solemn convictions of my judgment, sustained by some pride of character, admonish me not to hazard the disgrace of continuing in office a mere ineffi cient pageant." He concluded by saying that he had determined to postpone until the next term the question whether he should resign his office. After the operation he wrote: "Thank Heaven, I have reason to hope that I am LAST YEARS AND relieved. I am, DEATH. In the summer however, under and autumn of the very d i s1831 the Chief agreeable neces Justice had a sity of taking severe attack of medicine с о nstone, which was tinually to pre cured by litho vent new forma tomy, performed tions. I must by the eminent submit, too, to surgeon, Dr. a severe and Physick, of Philmost unsociable adel p h i a, in regimen. Such are the privations October, 1831. Another surgeon, of age." He con tinued to per who assisted at form the duties the operation, of his о ffi с e, tells us that with undiminishhis recovery was ed powers of in a great de mind, for nearly gree owing to four years more, his extraordin and ultimately ary self-posses GRAVE OF CHIEF-JUSTICE MARSHALL. died, in his eight sion, and to the ieth year, of a dis calm and philo ease of a wholly sophical views which he took of his case, and of the various different character, an enlarged condition of circumstances attending it. Just before the the liver.1 operation, he wrote to Mr. Justice Story: Mr. Justice Caldwell quotes the following "I am most earnestly attached to the char acter of the department, and to the wishes paragraph from a letter written by the and convenience of those with whom it has youngest son of the Chief Justice: "It was an interesting exhibition of fath been my pride and my happiness to be asso ciated for so many years. I cannot be in er's devotion to the memory of my mother, sensible to the gloom which lowers over us. who was buried near Richmond, Va., that I have a repugnance to abandoning you un he habitually walked to her grave every der such circumstances, which is almost in- Sunday afternoon, a distance of one and 1 Mr. Justice Gray. 1 Mr. Justice Gray. ernment, and especially of that department more especially entrusted with the construc tion of the Constitution in a great degree, when there was no union of departments, but the legislative department alone had acted, and acted but once, even admitting that act not to have passed in times of high political and party excitement, could never be admitted as final and conclusive." 1
