of Connecticut, granting a new trial in a civil action, was not in contravention of any provision of the Constitution of the United States. Those were the only questions previously decided in respect to the American Constitution. Between that time and 1835, when Marshall died, fifty-one decisions will be found to have been made and reported by that Court on the subject of the law of the Federal Constitution. In thirty-four of those cases the opinion was delivered by the Chief Justice-being twice as many opinions as were delivered on that subject by all the other members of the Court together.

I have spoken of this great work as the work of the Chief Justice-not unmindful certainly of his eminent associates, and especially of Judge Story, who sat with him during a considerable portion of that time. And I take leave to refer to the testimony of Judge Story, lest some may think I have gone too far in attributing the merit of this system of law so largely to Chief Justice Marshall. Judge Story is perhaps the best witness who can testify on that point, because his means of knowledge were complete. He was not likely to undervalue or disparage the labors of his associates, nor entirely to overlook his own very valuable efforts in that branch of the law. He says, in an article contributed to the North American Review: "We resume the subject of the constitutional labors of Chief Justice Marshall. We emphatically say of Chief Justice Marshall. For though we would not be unjust to those learned gentlemen who have from time to time been his associates on the bench, we are quite sure they would be ready to admit, what the public universally believe, that his master mind has presided

in their deliberations, and given to the results a cogency of reasoning, a depth of remark, a persuasiveness of argument, a clearness and elaboration of illustration, an elevation and comprehensiveness of conclusion to which none others offer a parallel. Few decisions upon constitutional questions have been made in which he has not delivered the opinion of the Court; and in those few the duty devolved upon others to their own. regret, either because he did not sit in the case, or, from motives of delicacy, abstained from taking an active part."

It is to be remembered, further, that in only one of all those decisions did the majority of the Court fail to concur with Marshall. In the case of Ogden vs. Sanders-where the power of the States to pass bankrupt or insolvent laws was discussed, he was, for the first and last time, in the minority. Four of the judges against the opinion of Judges Marshall, Story, and Duvall-sustained the power of the States to pass such a law; but all concurred in the judgment in that case, which was that a discharge under such a law could not affect a creditor outside the jurisdiction, who had not thought proper to appear and become a party to the proceeding. I need hardly say to an assemblage of lawyers that, as the half-century that has passed away since most of those decisions were rendered has completely established and confirmed and rendered plainer and plainer the soundness and the wisdom of the law they involve, so experience has likewise shown that, in this solitary instance in which his opinion was rejected, the Chief Justice was right. He correctly anticipated, with a far-reaching sagacity, what would be the result of a system of insolvency

that discharges a debtor in one State and fails to discharge him in another; that pays one creditor who is within the State and fails to pay another who is without it. And he clearly perceived that, if that great power was to be reposed at all in the Federal government, as it is, and of necessity must be, it ought to be an exclusive power. There is the only and mistaken instance in which his judgment on a constitutional question did not become the law of the land.

And therefore it is to be said, without injustice to his associates, and without injustice to those great lawyers to whom I have alluded, and whose genius and labors were contributed to build up this system of law, that the value and the credit of it, the authorship and creation of it, are principally due to Marshall. And I believe it will be seen in future history, that as Washington brought this people through the Revolution to a period when they were able to have a Constitution of their own, so Marshall carried the Constitution through that experimental period which settled the question whether it should stand or fall. If this country has profited, and if through this country the world has profited, by the raising of an instrument, doubtless the most important since Magna Charta, couched necessarily and wisely to a large degree in generalities, into the beneficent government under which we live, it is more largely due to Chief Justice Marshall than to any other man, or perhaps to all other men, who ever had anything to do with it. That is my proposition. Of course, if the Revolution had failed, it is not probable we should always have continued to be colonies of Great Britain. Some other leader, in some other rebellion, might have carried

us through to a condition of independence. If this Constitution had perished, Republican government might not have perished. Some other tribunal, under some other constitution, might perhaps have reconstructed it. But taking history as it stands-dealing with the Constitution under which we live, and not entering upon the vain conjecture of what might have been the consequences if that Constitution had fallen -certainly the success of the experiment of Republican government may be said to be mainly due to Marshall.

When those celebrated judgments were rendered, the questions involved were set at rest. Even party and partisan spirit was hushed. They passed, by universal consent and without any further criticism, into the fundamental law of the land, axioms of the law, no more to be disputed. Time has demonstrated their wisdom. They have remained unchanged, unquestioned, unchallenged. All the subsequent labors of that high tribunal on the subject of constitutional law have been founded on and have at least professed and attempted to follow them. There they remain. They will always remain. as the Constitution stands. they would still remain, to principles upon which it rose, and by the disregard of which it fell.

They will stand as long And if that should perish, display to the world the

Let me say here in passing, that the service ought to be rendered to the history and literature, to say nothing of the constitutional law of the country, of bringing these opinions together in some compilation that should make them accessible to the general student as well as to the lawyer. They are scattered, as you know, through some twenty-five volumes of reports,

practically inaccessible to readers outside the profession. They are known only through a vague reputation, except to the profession, and not perhaps so completely understood by all the profession as could be desired, if we may judge from some of the recent discussions upon the subject. If they could be brought together, not merely as the repository of the foundation-stones of the fundamental law of the land, but likewise as among the highest models of logic and reason and the purest specimens of judicial style, it would be a contribution to American letters and history that would be valuable and permanent.

I do not propose, as you may well imagine, to enter into any discussion on questions of constitutional law. But a few words may be pardoned in respect to the means and the manner by which the result I have spoken of was achieved; and not only achieved, but rendered so perfectly satisfactory to the whole body of the American people. It seems to me that it all turned upon one cardinal point, and a point which I shall venture to suggest needs to be more frequently recurred to and more clearly understood. And that is, that the construction of the Constitution of the United States, for all purposes for which it requires construction, belongs everywhere and always to the jurisprudence of the country, and not to its politics, or even to its statesmanship. The lawyer or the stuIdent who shall set himself down to follow the labors of that great tribunal from beginning to end, to learn on what foundation they rested, and what was the guide through the maze that proved as unerring as the mariner's compass in the storm, will find it in that salutary principle, set forth with the utmost clearness