Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/52

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A Century of Federal Judicature. paramount necessity of the country, and that the great source of danger was in the jealousies and adverse interests of the States, —Marshall acted on his convictions. He determined to give full effect to all the affirm ative contributions of power that went to make up a great and efficient national gov ernment; and fully, also, to enforce the na tional restraints and prohibitions upon the

functions of the Nation and the States, so plainly, with such fullness, with such simplic ity and strength of argument, such a candid allowance for all that was to be said upon the other side, in a tone so removed from con troversial bitterness, so natural and fit for a great man addressing the 'serene reason' of mankind, as to commend these things to the minds of his countrymen, and firmly to fix

JAMES WILSON. States. In both cases he included not only the powers expressed in the Constitution, but those also which should be found, as time un folded, to be fairly and clearly implied in the objects for which the Federal government was established. In that long judicial life, with which Providence blessed him, and blessed his country, he was able to lay down, in a succession of cases, the fundamental con siderations which fix and govern the relative

them in the jurisprudence of the Nation; so that 'when the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, it fell not, because it was founded upon a rock.' It was Marshall's strong con stitutional doctrine, explained in detail, elaborated, powerfully argued, over and over again, with unsurpassable earnestness and force, placed permanently in our judicial rec ords, holding its own during the long emer