John Marshall. ployed all the adjectives indicative of strength or lucidity. A great lawyer who often appeared before him characterized his power of reasoning as "almost superhuman." Some of his associates excelled him in knowl edge of the precedents, but that was of small moment in the department of international law which was so rapidly outgrowing its precedents, and of no moment at all in the department of constitutional law where there was no precedent. His illustrious achieve ments in the field of highest intellectual endeavor resulted from a concurrence of favoring conditions which was unusual if not unprecedented. He was strong in body, mind and purpose. He had the intellectual integ rity to apply knowledge to every purpose for which it might be useful, and to accept with out abatement the conclusions indicated by reason. He may have been aided by safe in stincts, but he did not find the truth by chance. He knew the ways which lead to it. Extraordinary native endowments were strengthened by the study and reflection to which patriotism inclined him. More com pletely than any of his contemporaries he had assimilated the history of the colonies and the confederation. Hence the irresisti ble passages in his opinions in which he ap plies those trusted tests of interpretation — the evils which were to be cast out, the ob jects which were to be attained. His mind was stored with lessons drawn from the ex perience of every nation which had ever as pired to be free, and he comprehended their demonstration that most of the crimes against liberty are committed in the name of liberty.1
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illustration were faultless. He never sacri ficed conclusiveness to brevity, nor sense to ornament; and yet, though he never strove for mere effects, his opinions, in their com pleteness, in their masterly anticipation of all cavils and objections, and in their over whelming conclusiveness of argument, will appear to any one reading them with a due sense of the issues involved, as truly eloquent and as moving as the great speeches of Web ster and Clay.1 His opinions are not characterized by a display of great technical learning or legal scholarship, but rather by the higher quali ties of an unrivalled grasp of general princi ples and the ability to apply them with un failing wisdom and common sense to the question before him, and to reach the con clusion by reasoning so clearly expressed and so logical that the result always seems to be inevitable and unquestionably correct. He rarely cited authorities and never massed them. In this respect only his influence upon his successors does not seem to have been of enduring character. His de cisions thus contrast strikingly with those of more recent date where the scales of jus tice are employed in weighing authorities en masse, and the reasoning of the Court is with difficulty traced through a bewildering maze of* precedents.2
Any staunch Federalist who was a good lawyer might perhaps have entered the same court orders upon the docket that were put there by Marshall, but who could have de fended the conclusions of the Court as Mar shall did? His literary style was simple, compact and clear. His taste and aptness in
The distinguishing features of Marshall's power, as a Judge are seen in clear light when he is compared with Judge Story, who sat with him on the Bench from 1811 till Marshall's death. Story was a lawyer of re markable ability and profound learning. As we all know, he attained great distinction, not only as a Judge, but as a lecturer on law, and as an author. Tn the Dartmouth College case both these Judges furnish opinions, and the methods of argument and effectiveness of each are perhaps as well seen in that case as in any of the cases in which both took
1 Honorable John A. Shauck, Chief Justice of the Su preme Court of Ohio.
1 Honorable Isaac N. Phillips, Reporter of the Supreme Court of Illinois. 2 Honorable Joseph P. Klair, of New Orleans.
