During the thirty-five years that he filled the position of Chief Justice almost every im portant question which could arise upon the construction of the Constitution was not only decided, but the decisions were based upon such sound reasoning that they have never been attacked. Some of the most im portant of these questions may be referred to. Among them were the power to regulate commerce between the States, and the power of the States over foreign commerce; how far the prohibition to the States of emitting bills of credit extended : the nature and obli gation of contracts, and how far the States might affect them; the power in the States to tax creations of the Federal government; the power of the States over Federal officers; the power of the Supreme Court to revise the lavs of the States, or the judgments of the State Courts; and very many others. In all of these it must be remembered that then there were no precedents, no rules of de cision to follow. They must all be reasoned out by the powers of the mind alone, and in the ability to do this Marshall was pre-emi nent: in my opinion, above any other Judge who ever lived. He has sometimes been called the Mansfield of America, but I be lieve that even Lord Mansfield, the most dis tinguished of English Judges, if placed in Marshall's position, could not have filled it so well. There may have been other men who could have done what Marshall did; it is enough for us to say that no one else ever did. He fully and thoroughly believed that the whole people of the country, in tended by the Constitution to form a gov ernment of the whole country which would be supreme in the powers given to it, and in the authority to enforce them; which would represent the people of a nation, be account able to them alone, and represent their sov ereignty; and it was no more to be unduly limited in the exercise of its proper powers than to be unduly extended beyond them. With this foundation principle in his mind he studied the instrument as a whole, not in isolated parts, interpreting each provision
by others so as to make a perfect and uni form system. His principles of construction are admirably and concisely stated by himself in a leading case' "To say that the intention of the instrument must prevail; that this in tention must be collected from its words; that its words are to be understood in the sense in which they are generally used by those for whom the instrument was intended : that its provisions are neither to be restricted into insignificance, nor extended to objects not comprehended in them nor contemplated by its framers, is to repeat what has been already said more at large, and is all that can be necessary." 1 • In fixing the credit due to Marshall's judi cial career it is not necessary to belittle the wisdom and foresight of the men who wrote the Constitution. No structure can be stronger than its foundation. John Marshall could never have raised the Supreme Court from the weakness in which he found it to the power and majesty in which he left it if the Constitution had not afforded him an adequate field for the fullest exercise of his constructive genius. It would be superflu ous, in this presence to discuss or even to mention the long series of decisions through which he labored with signal success to make the promises of freedom embraced in the Constitution actual possessions of the Amer ican people. It is enough to say that during his judicial service of thirty-four years in deciding many controversies arising in every part of the Union he succeeded in establish ing four great principles which underlie our whole constitutional system and which con stitute its main support: First.—The supremacy of the national government over the States and all their in habitants. Second.—The supremacy of the Constitu tion over every department of government. Third.—The absolute freedom of trade and intercourse between all the States. Fourth.—The inviolability of private con tracts. 1 Honorable Charles E. Perkins.
