John Marshall and the Constitution, a Chronicle of the Supreme Court
- Pages
- about 191
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3.5 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
The monarch of ancient times mingled the functions of priest and judge.
It is therefore not altogether surprising that even today a judicial
system should be stamped with a certain resemblance to an ecclesiastical
hierarchy. If the Church of the Middle Ages was "an army encamped on the
soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most
efficient discipline, animated with a common purpose, every soldier
panoplied with inviolability and armed with the tremendous weapons which
slew the soul," the same words, slightly varied, may be applied to the
Federal Judiciary created by the American Constitution. The Judiciary of
the United States, though numerically not a large body, reaches through
its process every part of the nation; its ascendancy is primarily a
moral one; it is kept in conformity with final authority by the
machinery of appeal; it is "animated with a common purpose"; its members
are "panoplied" with what is practically a life tenure of their posts;
and it is "armed with the tremendous weapons" which slay legislation.
And if the voice of the Church was the voice of God, so the voice of the
Court is the voice of the American people as this is recorded in the
Constitution.
The Hildebrand of American constitutionalism is John Marshall. The
contest carried on by the greatest of the Chief Justices for the
principles today associated with his name is very like that waged by the
greatest of the Popes for the supremacy of the Papacy. Both fought with
intellectual weapons. Both addressed their appeal to the minds and
hearts of men. Both died before the triumph of their respective causes
and amid circumstances of great discouragement. Both worked through and
for great institutions which preceded them and which have survived them.
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