be compassed in one or at most two volumes has taken three; but we have the satisfaction of presenting a record of the great event, substantially complete and undismembered.

The principal official addresses have as a rule and wherever practicable been given in full, and nothing has been omitted from any except repetitions of biographical matter, of extracts from accessible volumes, and of details not connected with Marshall's judicial services, for it was Marshall's judicial services which chiefly gave to the day its inspiration and essential character. One other word in explanation, and, if need be, in vindication of the plan adopted: While the same great judgments of Marshall construing the Constitution, delimiting its boundaries and settling its most vital and fundamental principles, have necessarily passed under the review of the speakers, yet these decisions are discussed from such different points of view, or with such different objects, and in such different styles, that there is an unfailing variety which the interested reader will be sure to perceive and enjoy. This is so marked that it may with truth be said that the addresses, though running on the same general lines, could have been delivered to the same audience, and it would have found in each address something new in thought, expression, suggestion or purpose.

II.

The history of the movement leading to the institution and the first centennial commemoration of Marshall Day appears so fully in these volumes as to render extended reference to it unnecessary. The suggestion by Mr. Adolph Moses of the Chicago Bar of such a day struck a sympathetic chord which vibrated throughout the land. It was indorsed by the Bar Association of Illinois, and met with the hearty and weighty sanction of the American Bar Association. This body assumed the charge and direction of the celebration, and thus assured its success on a national scale. To this end it appointed a Committee composed of one member from each State and Territory and from the District of Columbia. In suitable and earnest words this Committee publicly addressed the Bench and Bar of the United States, setting forth the reasons why the whole country should commemorate the centennial of the installation of the Chief Justice, and urging upon the State and National Courts, the State, City and other Bar Associations, the Universities and institutions of learning and public bodies throughout the land the due observance of the day. At the Committee's instance President McKinley recommended to Congress the propriety of a fitting celebration of the occasion on the part of all the departments of the gov

1 The text of this excellent address and also the names of the members of the National Committee are given in the Appendix.

b

ernment. Congress approved; and in the hall of the House of Representatives impressive national ceremonies were held, the account of which is given the first place in these volumes. The next place is appropriately assigned to the proceedings in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Marshall's native State. The other observances are arranged in the order of the nine Federal Judicial Circuits, commencing with the State of Maine in the First Circuit.

In addition to the addresses on Marshall Day, the eulogies of Mr. Binney and Justice Story delivered in 1835 soon after the death of the Chief Justice; the address of Mr. Phelps before the American Bar Association at its annual meeting in 1879; of Chief Justice Waite and the oration of Mr. Rawle in 1884 at the unveiling of the statue of Marshall in the Capitol grounds in Washington, have been included. These productions are famous, have long been justly regarded as classic, and are somewhat rare or inaccessible. They round out and complete the plan and purpose, and give a distinctly added value to the present publication.

III.

The influence of the universal celebration of the day will not cease with the occasion, but will be wide and lasting. It has taught the people at large what before was chiefly known to lawyers and special students of our

history, and to these often imperfectly, that to Marshall more than to any other person is due the establishment of the principle of nationality in the Constitution of our country. This principle has profoundly affected our national life. It has determined our destiny. It has made us a Nation in fact as well as in name, a power and not a mere painted semblance. It held the Nation intact against the heresies of nullification and secession. It received its complete, final and now unquestioned triumph with the overthrow of the Confederacy, whose forces, as has been said, surrendered not more truly to Grant in the field than to Marshall's great judgments expounding the Constitution. Marshall's career has been revealed in a wider light to the whole country; and the value and influence of his work are felt more distinctly, more impressively than ever before.

Our reverence and gratitude are consciously enhanced when it is seen that his decisions as to the scope of the national authority were opposed by powerful parties and interests. Many lawyers and statesmen differed from Marshall at the time. Moreover, the questions were novel and so closely balanced that they not only might have been determined the other way, but it is certain that they would have been determined the other way if their decision had fallen to judges of the strict construction school. Next to Marshall's judicial genius the most conspicuous feature in his character is his placid and undaunted courage. No weak judge, no ordinary judge,

would have faced unmoved, as Marshall did, the active hostilities which he had to encounter. He knew no fear. He heeded no clamor. He kept on in the orbit of his duty, like the planets in their courses, silent and irresistible.

At the date of Marshall's appointment the Republic was "in the gristle" of its infancy and not yet hardened into bone of manhood; it was yet "mewing her mighty youth." He found the National Constitution weak, almost tottering; he supported it by his adamantine judgments, and he carried it with his strength and courage through the dangers that encompassed it.

The flexibility of the Constitution, arising out of the general language in which its powers and prohibitions are expressed, was the means of perfecting and probably of saving it. Marshall's long judicial reign, contemporary with the official terms of four Chief Justices of England, four Lord Chancellors, and the administration of six American Presidents, made possible the gradual development of the Constitution under his master mind by judicial decisions, point by point, bearing in this respect no slight analogy to the development of the common law, and giving as a result a system far wiser and better (because based upon experience and necessity) than any system which it would have been possible for the mind of man to have formulated in advance. And thus it has happened that Marshall's imprint is imperishably left. upon all of the great and essential features of the Constitution.