Chapter VIII: Part 8

The spot which Hamilton selected for his "Home," and to which he gave the name of "Grange," from that of the residence of his grandfather in Ayrshire, Scotland, was chosen with taste and judgment, both on account of its natural beauty, and the interesting and inspiring recollections which its vicinity suggested. It was, at that time, completely in the country, without an object to remind one of the neighborhood of the town; and even now the population of the city, so prodigiously expanded, has not much encroached upon its original limits. It is situated upon the old King's Bridge road, about eight miles from the heart of the city, and something less than a mile above the ancient village of Manhattan, and is about midway between the Hudson River on the one side and the Harlem on the other. The west side, which lies on the King's Bridge road, is adorned by a fine growth of large shade trees. From these it extends with gentle undulations to a declivity, at the base of which lie the Harlem commons. The grounds are simply but tastefully laid out, chiefly with a view to take advantage of and display the natural features of the place. The house is situated nearly in the centre of the grounds, and is reached by a gently-winding carriage-way. The stable is placed in the rear of the house and at a distance from it, and is concealed by a thick growth of trees. A gravelled walk winds among the shade trees along the road, and thence across the grounds and along the other side. The space in front and on the left of the house is laid out in a fine lawn, in which the uneven surface of the ground is preserved, dotted here and there with fine trees, the natural growth of the spot. Near the house and on the left are thirteen flourishing gum trees, said to have been left by Hamilton himself when clearing the spot, as an emblem of the thirteen original States.

The house itself is in form nearly square, of moderate size and well proportioned. The front is on the southern side; it is two stories in height, exclusive of the basement, and would have been at the time it was built a handsome and expensive one. The basement is used for culinary purposes, and the first story, which contains the parlors, is reached by a short flight of steps. You enter a commodious hall of a pentagonal form. On either side is a small apartment, of which the one on the right was the study, and contained the library of Hamilton. At the end of the hall are the doors, one on the right and the other on the left, which open into the parlors. These are of moderate size and connected by doors, by opening which they are thrown into one large room. The one on the right as you enter the house, is now, and probably was when Hamilton occupied it, used as a dining-room. The other parlor is furnished for the drawing-room. It is an octagon in form, of which three sides are occupied by doors, leading to the hall in front, the dining-room, and to a hall in the rear. In two of the opposite sides are windows reaching to the floor, and opening upon the lawn on the easterly side of the house. The three doors before mentioned are faced with mirrors, and being directly opposite the windows, they throw back the delightful landscape which appears through the latter with a pleasing effect. The story above is commodious, and divided into the usual apartments. On the north the prospect is interrupted by higher ground, and on the south by trees. On the west a view is caught of the beautiful shore of New Jersey, on the opposite side of the Hudson. From the eastern side, and especially from the balcony which extends in front of the windows of the drawing-room, a magnificent prospect is presented. The elevation being some two hundred feet above the surrounding waters, a complete view of the lower lands and of the country in the distance is commanded. Harlem with its river, the East River and Long Island Sound now dotted with a thousand sails, the fertile county of Westchester, and Long Island stretching away to the horizon, with its lovely and diversified scenery, are all in full view.

This spot has, and probably had for Hamilton, its attractions in another respect. In its immediate neighbourhood were the scenes of some of the memorable and interesting events of the Revolution. He had passed directly over it with the American army in its retreat from New-York, after the disastrous battle of Long Island. Within a short distance from it are the Harlem Heights, where by his bravery and address, while yet but a boy, he had attracted the eye of Washington, and enjoyed his first interview with him. A little further towards the north is Fort Washington, in which the continental army made its last stand upon the island, and the loss of which sealed the fate of New-York for the war. It was this fort which, in the ardor of his youthful enthusiasm and burning with chagrin at its capture, he promised Washington he would retake, if he would place a small and select detachment under his command--an enterprise which the Commander-in-Chief thought too hazardous. Just across the river on the Jersey side is Fort Lee, which fell into the hands of the enemy soon after the capture of Fort Washington; and a short distance above, in the King's Bridge road, is the house which after the death of Hamilton became the residence of his bitter and fatal antagonist, Aaron Burr.

When he had fixed his residence in this beautiful and attractive spot he was in the prime of life, in excellent health, and in prosperous circumstances. He had been most fortunate in his domestic relations, and had around him a happy family to which he was fondly devoted. His unrivalled natural powers had been exercised and improved by a training of thirty years in the camp, the forum, the senate and the cabinet. He was almost worshipped by his friends and his party, and regarded by all as one of the very pillars of the State. Every thing in his situation and circumstances seemed auspicious of a still long career of happiness and honor to himself, of usefulness and honor to his country. But in the midst of all this, he was suddenly cut off by the melancholy and fatal duel with Col. Burr.

The public and private character of Burr, Hamilton had long known and despised. He regarded him as a dangerous man, and one wholly unfit to fill any office of trust or emolument. And this opinion, although avoiding open controversy with Burr himself, he had not scrupled to express privately to his own political friends, for the purpose of dissuading them from giving any support to one so little to be depended on. He recognized himself no other claim to political distinction than honesty of purpose, the ability and the will to serve the country, united with what he deemed to be sound political principles, neither of which recommendations could he discover in Aaron Burr.

Burr had, on the other hand, few ends in life save his own advancement, and he scrupled at no means by which this object might be compassed; but in his most deeply laid schemes, he saw that the vigilant eye of Hamilton was upon him, and after his defeat in 1804 as a candidate for governor of the State of New-York, stung with mortification at his overthrow, and justly deeming the influence of Hamilton as one of the most potent causes of it, he resolved to fix a quarrel upon him. Seizing upon an expression which was contained in a letter, published during the recent political contest, but which had been forgotten by every one save himself, he dragged it before Hamilton's attention, tortured it into an imputation upon his personal honor, demanded of Hamilton an explanation which it was impossible for him to give, and made his refusal the pretext for a peremptory challenge.

In accepting the challenge of Burr, Hamilton was but little under the influence of those motives which are commonly uppermost in such contests. To the practice of duelling he was sincerely and upon principle opposed, and had frequently borne his testimony against it. His reputation for personal courage had been too often tried, and too signally proved to be again put at risk. His passions, though strong, were under his control, and that sensitiveness on the score of personal honor, which a man of spirit naturally cherishes, and which the habits of a military life rendered prompt and delicate, was in him satisfied by a conscious integrity of purpose. His disposition was forgiving and gentle to a fault, and made it impossible for him to feel any personal ill will even towards such a man as Burr. The manifold obligations which as an honest and conscientious man he was bound to regard--his duties to a loved and dependent family, and his country, which held almost an equal place in his affections, united to dissuade him from meeting his adversary. And yet these latter, viewed in connection with his peculiar position, with popular prejudices, and the circumstances of the times, were what impelled him to his fatal resolution. His theoretic doubts respecting a republican form of government, while they did not in the least diminish his preference for our political system, yet made him painfully anxious in regard to its success. He thought that every thing depended upon keeping the popular mind free from the corruption of false principles, and the offices of trust and honor out of the hands of bad men. To these ends he had been, and still was, employing all his energy and influence. He could not bear the thought of losing or weakening by any step, however justifiable in itself, that influence which he had reason to think was not exerted in vain. These were the large and unselfish considerations which governed him; and though a cool observer removed from the excitement and perplexities of the time may pronounce them mistaken, still if impartial he must regard them as sincere. They were what Hamilton himself, in full view of the solemnity of the step he was about to take, and of the possible event of it, declared to be his motive. "The ability," said he in the last paper he ever wrote, "to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with prejudice in this particular."

After some fruitless endeavors on the part of Hamilton to convince Burr of the unreasonableness of the request which the latter had made, all explanations were closed, and the preliminaries for the meeting were arranged. Hamilton having no wish to take the life of Burr, had come to the determination to throw away his first shot,--a course too which approved itself to his feelings for other reasons.

The grounds of Weehawk, on the Jersey shore opposite New-York, were at that time the usual field of these single combats, then chiefly by the inflamed state of political feeling of frequent occurrence, and very seldom ending without bloodshed. The day having been fixed, and the hour appointed at seven o'clock in the morning, the parties met, accompanied only by their servants. The bargemen, as well as Dr. Hosack, the surgeon mutually agreed upon, remained as usual at a distance, in order, if any fatal result should occur, not to be witnesses. The parties having exchanged salutations, the seconds measured the distance of ten paces, loaded the pistols, made the other preliminary arrangements, and placed the combatants. At the appointed signal, Burr took deliberate aim and fired. The ball entered Hamilton's side, and as he fell, his pistol too was unconsciously discharged. Burr approached him, apparently somewhat moved, but on the suggestion of his second, the surgeon and bargemen already approaching, he turned and hastened away, Van Ness coolly covering him from their sight by opening an umbrella. The surgeon found Hamilton half lying, half sitting on the ground, supported in the arms of his second. The pallor of death was on his face. "Doctor," he said, "this is a mortal wound;" and, as if overcome by the effort of speaking, he swooned quite away. As he was carried across the river the fresh breeze revived him. His own house being in the country, he was conveyed at once to the house of a friend, where he lingered for twenty-four hours in great agony, but preserving his composure and self-command to the last.[16]

The melancholy event of the duel affected the whole country, and New-York in particular, with the deepest indignation and grief. The avenues to the house where Hamilton was carried before he expired, were thronged with anxious citizens. His funeral was celebrated by a mournful pageant, and an oration in Trinity Church by Governeur Morris, which stirred up the people like the speech of Antony over the corpse of Caesar, to a "sudden flood of mutiny." Burr, with an indictment for murder hanging over him, fled secretly from the city to the South, where he remained until the excitement had in a measure subsided. His wretched end, and the place which history has assigned to him, leave room at present for no other emotions save those of regret and pity. In the deep gloom which the death of Hamilton occasioned, his political opponents almost equally shared. In contemplating his character they seemed to catch some portion of his own magnanimity, and the animosities of which he had been so conspicuous an object, were swallowed up in the conviction that a great and irreparable loss had fallen equally upon all.

There was not, we think, at that time, a life which might not have been better spared than that of Hamilton. Certainly no man represented so well as he, the character and the principles of Washington; and no man was gifted with an array of qualities which better fitted him either as a magistrate or a man to control aright the opinions and the actions of a people like that of the United States. He was a man "built up on every side." He had received from nature a most capacious and admirable intellect, which had been exercised and developed by deep study and large experience in the practical conduct of affairs. His education was like that which Milton describes as "fitting to a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war." His opinions were definite and fixed; were held with the confidence which is the result of complete conviction; and came from him recommended by a powerful eloquence, and a persuasive fairness and magnanimity. The strength of his passions gave him an almost unbounded influence over the minds of others, which he never perverted to selfish purposes or unworthy ends.

A lofty integrity was one of the most prominent traits of his character. It was not, as in his great contemporary Jay, clothed with the appearance of austerity, nor did it, perhaps, so much as in the latter spring from a constant and habitual sense of responsibility to a Supreme Being; but it was rather a rare and noble elevation of soul, the spontaneous development of a nature which could not harbor a base or unworthy motive, cherished indeed and fortified by a firm faith and a strong religious temperament. It was this which enabled him to spend so long a period of his life in the public service in the exercise of the most important public trusts--among them that of the Treasury department, with the whole financial arrangements of the country under his control, and come from it all without a stain or a suspicion. His character for uprightness might be presented as an example in illustration of the fine precept of Horace:

---- Hic murus aheneus esto
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.

Political hostility and private malice explored every corner of his life with the hope of fixing a stain upon his official integrity; but these miserable attempts had no other effect than to bring defeat and disgrace on the authors of them. His honesty was as conspicuous in his private as in his public career, and was indeed sometimes carried to an extent which we fear might seem in our times like an absurd refinement. When about to enter upon his duties as Secretary of the Treasury, he was applied to by some friends engaged in monetary transactions for information with respect to the policy which he proposed to pursue, the disclosure of which would perhaps promote their interests, and not injure those of the public. But this he utterly refused to give, holding it as inconsistent with his duty as a public servant, to make his office even the indirect means of contributing to the emolument of friends by imparting to them information which was not open to all alike. While at the bar, and practising only as counsellor, he was associated with the Messrs. Ogden, who were then leading members of the profession in New-York city, and he received only the retaining and trial fees, though his reputation brought to the office a large proportion of all the important suits which arose. It was proposed to him to form a connection with other attorneys, by which engagement he might receive a portion of the attorney's fees in addition; but this offer he at once rejected, saying that he could not consent to receive any compensation for services not his own, or for the character of which he was not responsible.

In his disposition he was one of the most amiable and attractive of men; and though capable of strong indignation, which made him always respected and sometimes feared by his adversaries, he was yet of such a mild and placable temper that no man could be long and sincerely his enemy. In person he was rather below the average height, his form was well proportioned, and his manner dignified and conciliating. The lower features of his countenance were regular and handsome, and beaming with the warm affections and generous sentiments of his heart. His brow and forehead were of a massive cast, expressive of the commanding intellect which lay behind. He was fond of society, full of the most lively and various conversation, which made him the delight and ornament of every circle he entered. During his time the Supreme Court used to hold its terms at New-York and Albany alternately, and the bar was then obliged to follow it back and forth between those cities, the journey occupying at that time three or four days. Of course this was a season of hilarity, and upon such occasions Hamilton was the life of the party, sometimes charming the whole company by his ingenious and eloquent discussions of the various subjects of conversation, and at others calling forth shouts of laughter by his pointed and genial wit. An anecdote has been related to us by one who was present on the occasion, which well illustrates the power which lay in his fascinating manner and conversation. During the hostilities between France and England, which succeeded the revolution in the former country, a French man of war having on board Jerome Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, and afterwards king of Westphalia, was chased into the harbor of New-York by two English frigates. It was during the visit which Jerome was thus compelled to make to this country, that he became acquainted with and married the beautiful Miss Patterson, of Baltimore. The genius and the fortunes of Napoleon were then for the first time astonishing the world, and caused Jerome to be received with the most extraordinary marks of attention in the different cities of the United States. While he was in New-York Hamilton made a dinner party for him, to which a number of the chief personages of the time were invited. He was then living at "Grange," and, as it happened, upon the very day of the party was engaged in the argument of an important cause in the city, which detained him there until after the hour for which his guests were invited. A long delay ensued after the company had assembled, and the embarrassment of Mrs. Hamilton may be imagined. There was evidently a feeling of uneasiness and discontent springing up in the minds of the guests, and especially was this the case with the distinguished brother of the First Consul. He was affected with the usual sensitiveness of a _novus homo_ upon the point of etiquette, and it seemed to pass his comprehension how a man of Hamilton's private and official eminence should be engaged in any of the ordinary pursuits of life, and especially that such concerns, or any concerns whatever, should be allowed to detain him a single moment from the society of his guests, one of whom had the honor to be no less a person than Jerome Bonaparte. At a late hour, after the quality of the dinner and the temper of the guests had become about equally impaired, Hamilton arrived. He was met by his desponding wife, and informed of the distressing predicament which his delay had occasioned. After making a hasty toilet, he entered the drawing-room, and found that the affair indeed wore a most perilous aspect. The appearance of the distinguished Frenchman was especially unpromising. But Hamilton was quite equal to the emergency. Gracefully apologizing for his tardiness, he at once entered into a most animated and eloquent conversation, drew out his different guests with admirable dexterity, and enlisted them with one another, and especially recommended himself to the late Miss Patterson by a lively chat in French, of which language he was a master. The discontented features of the Bonaparte began to relax, and it soon became evident that he was in the most amiable mood, and one of the most gratified of the party. The dinner passed off admirably, and it seemed to be generally conceded that the delay in the beginning was amply atoned for by the delightful entertainment which followed.

We should do injustice to one of the most amiable traits of Hamilton's character if we omitted particularly to notice the strength and tenderness of his friendships. Incapable of treachery, free from all disguise, and imbued with the largest sympathies, he drew to himself the esteem and affection of all who knew him; and such was his admiration for noble and generous qualities, that he could not see them displayed without clasping their possessors to his heart. He was a general favorite in the army, and between some of the choicest spirits in it and himself, there was an almost romantic affection. Those that knew him best loved him most. The family of Washington were as dear to him as if they were kindred by blood. Meade, McHenry, Tilghman, the "Old Secretary," Harrison, and the generous and high-souled Laurens, were in every change of fortune his cherished and bosom friends. The following extract from a letter to Laurens, shows the nature of Hamilton's attachment. "Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish my dear Laurens it were in my power, by actions rather than by words, to convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that till you bid us adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it were not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind; and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness free from the caprices of others. You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections, without my consent." The openness of his heart and the flexibility of his manners made him a great favorite with the French officers. Lafayette loved him as a brother, and in one of his letters to him thus writes: "I know the General's (Washington's) friendship and gratitude for you, my dear Hamilton; both are greater than you perhaps imagine. I am sure he needs only to be told that something will suit you, and when he thinks he can do it, he certainly will. Before this campaign I was your friend, and very intimate friend, agreeably to the ideas of the world; since my second voyage, my sentiment has increased to such a point the world knows nothing about. To show _both_, from want and from scorn of expression, I shall only tell you, adieu." Talleyrand, the celebrated minister of Napoleon, whatever may be said of the character of his diplomacy, had a heart that was capable of friendship, and while in this country conceived a particular fondness for Hamilton, and on his departure for France he took from the house of the latter, without permission, a miniature belonging to Mrs. Hamilton of her husband. When fairly out of reach he addressed a note to Mrs. Hamilton confessing the larceny, and excusing it on the ground that he wanted a copy of it, but knew that she would not let him take the original away to be copied if he had made the request. He had an excellent copy of the miniature taken upon Sevres china, which he always kept in a conspicuous place in his apartment until late in life, when he presented it with a lock of his hair to a son of Hamilton, James A. Hamilton Esq., of Dobb's Ferry, N. Y., who still retains it. The indignation of Talleyrand at the conduct of Burr in bringing about the melancholy duel was unbounded; and when Burr, subsequently to that event, was on a visit to France, he wrote a note to Talleyrand, requesting the privilege of paying him a visit. Of course the French minister could not refuse this favor to a man who had been Vice-President of the United States, and in other respects so eminent a person; but his answer was something like this: "The Minister of Foreign Affairs would be happy to see Col. Burr at--(naming the hour); but M. Talleyrand thinks it due to Col. Burr to state, that he always has the miniature of General Hamilton hanging over his mantel-piece."

In contemplating the life of Hamilton, it is of course impossible not to feel the deepest regret that so much genius, so much usefulness, and so much promise, should have been so prematurely cut off. Great as was his actual performance, it is natural and reasonable to suppose that the results of his youth and early manhood would have been far eclipsed by those of his splendid maturity. But as it is, "he lived long enough for glory." The influence of his presence and manners, the excitements in which he mingled when alive--every thing which tends to give a fictitious importance to present greatness, have passed away. But his reputation, which some have thought to rest upon these very circumstances, stands unaffected by their decay,--a fact which sufficiently attests the enduring nature of his fame.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Life of Hamilton, by his son, John C. Hamilton, Vol. I. p. 22.

[14] Life of Hamilton, Vol. I. p. 382.

[15] Works of Daniel Webster, Vol. I, p. 200.

[16] Hildreth's History of the United States. New Series, vol. ii. p. 524.

=Marshall.=

MARSHALL.

John Marshall, son of Colonel Thomas Marshall, a planter of moderate fortune, was born in Germantown, Fauquier County, Virginia, on the twenty-fourth of September, 1755. When twenty-one years of age, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the continental service, and marching with his regiment to the north, was appointed captain in the spring of 1777, and in that capacity served in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth; was at Valley Forge during the winter of 1778, and was one of the covering party at the assault of Stoney Point, in June, 1779. Having returned to his native State at the expiration of the enlistment of the Virginia troops, in 1780 he received a license for the practice of the law, and rapidly rose to distinction in that profession. In 1782 he was chosen a representative to the legislature, and afterward a member of the executive council In January, 1783, he married Mary Willis Ambler, of York, in Virginia, with whom he lived for fifty years in the tenderest affection. He was a delegate to the convention of Virginia which met on the second of June, 1788, to take into consideration the new constitution, and in conjunction with his friend, Mr. Madison, mainly contributed to its adoption, in opposition to the ardent efforts of Henry, Grayson, and Mason. His name first became generally known throughout the nation by his vindication, in the legislature of the State, of the ratification of Jay's treaty by President Washington. No report of that speech remains, but the evidence of its ability survives in the effects which it produced on the legislature and the country. He continued in the practice of the law, having declined successively the offices of Attorney General of the United States and Minister to France, until 1797, when with General Pinkney and Mr. Gerry, he was sent on a special mission to the French republic. The manner in which the dignity of the American character was maintained against the corruption of the Directory and its ministers is well known. The letters of the seventeenth of January and third of April, 1798, to Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Relations, have always been attributed to Marshall, and they rank among the ablest and most effective of diplomatic communications. Mr. Marshall arrived in New-York on the seventeenth of June, 1798, and on the nineteenth entered Philadelphia. At the intelligence of his approach the whole city poured out toward Frankford to receive him, and escorted him to his lodgings with all the honors of a triumph. In after years, when he visited Philadelphia, he often spoke of the feelings with which, as he came near the city on that occasion, with some doubts as to the reception which he might meet with in the existing state of parties, he beheld the multitude rushing forth to crowd about him with every demonstration of respect and approbation, as having been the most interesting and gratifying of his life.

On his return to Virginia, at the special request of General Washington, he became a candidate for the House of Representatives, and was elected in the spring of 1799. His greatest effort in Congress was his speech in opposition to the resolutions of Edward Livingston relative to Thomas Nash, alias Jonathan Robbins. Fortunately we possess an accurate report of it, revised by himself. The case was, that Thomas Nash, having committed a murder on board the British frigate Hermione, navigating the high seas under a commission from the British king, had sought an asylum within the United States, and his delivery had been demanded by the British minister under the twenty-seventh article of the treaty of amity between the two nations. Mr. Marshall's argument first established that the crime was within the jurisdiction of Great Britain, on the general principles of public law, and then demonstrated, that under the constitution the case was subject to the disposal of the executive, and not the judiciary. He distinguished these departments from one another with an acuteness of discrimination and a force of logic which frustrated the attempt to carry the judiciary out of its orbit, and settled the political question, then and for ever. It is said that Mr. Gallatin, whose part it was to reply to Mr. Marshall, at the close of the speech turned to some of his friends and said, "_You_ may answer that if you choose; _I_ cannot." The argument deserves to rank among the most dignified displays of human intellect. At the close of the session, Mr. Marshall was appointed Secretary of War, and soon after Secretary of State. During his continuance in that department our relations with England were in a very interesting condition, and his correspondence with Mr. King exhibits his abilities and spirit in the most dignified point of view. "His despatch of the twentieth of September, 1800," says Mr. Binney, "is a noble specimen of the first order of state papers, and shows the most finished adaptation of parts for the station of an American Secretary of State." On the thirty-first of January, 1801, he was appointed Chief Justice of the United States, in which office he continued until his death. In 1804 he published the Biography of Washington, which for candor, accuracy, and comprehension, will for ever be the most authentic history of the Revolution. He died in Philadelphia on the sixth of July, 1835.

Mr. Marshall's career as Chief Justice extended through a period of more than thirty-four years, which is the longest judicial tenure recorded in history. To one who cannot follow his great judgments, in which, at the same time, the depths of legal wisdom are disclosed and the limits of human reason measured, the language of just eulogy must wear an appearance of extravagance. In his own profession he stands for the reverence of the wise rather than for the enthusiasm of the many. The proportion of the figure was so perfect, that the sense of its vastness was lost. Above the difficulties of common minds, he was in some degree above their sympathy. Saved from popularity by the very rarity of his qualities, he astonished the most where he was best understood. The questions upon which his judgment was detained, and the considerations by which his decision was at last determined, were such as ordinary understandings, not merely could not resolve, but were often inadequate even to appreciate or apprehend. It was his manner to deal directly with the results of thought and learning, and the length and labor of the processes by which these results were suggested and verified might elude the consciousness of those who had not themselves attempted to perform them. From the position in which he stood of evident superiority to his subject, it was obviously so easy for him to describe its character and define its relations, that we sometimes forgot to wonder by what faculties or what efforts he had attained to that eminence. We were so much accustomed to see his mind move only in the light, that there was a danger of our not observing that the illumination by which it was surrounded was the beam of its own presence, and not the natural atmosphere of the scene.

The true character and measure of Marshall's greatness are missed by those who conceive of him as limited within the sphere of the justices of England, and who describe him merely as the first of lawyers. To have been "the most consummate judge that ever sat in judgment," was the highest possibility of Eldon's merit, but was only a segment of Marshall's fame. It was in a distinct department, of more dignified functions, almost of an opposite kind, that he displayed those abilities that advance his name to the highest renown, and shed around it the glories of a statesman and legislator. The powers of the Supreme Court of the United States are such as were never before confided to a judicial tribunal by any people. As determining, without appeal, its own jurisdiction, and that of the legislature and executive, that court is not merely the highest estate in the country, but it settles and continually moulds the constitution of the government. Of the great work of constructing a nation, but a small part, practically, had been performed when the written document had been signed by the convention: a vicious theory of interpretation might defeat the grandeur and unity of the organization, and a want of comprehension and foresight might fatally perplex the harmony of the combination. The administration of a system of polity is the larger part of its establishment. What the constitution was to be, depended on the principles on which the federal instrument was to be construed, and they were not to be found in the maxims and modes of reasoning by which the law determines upon social contracts between man and man, but were to be sought anew in the elements of political philosophy and the general suggestions of legislative wisdom. To these august duties Judge Marshall brought a greatness of conception that was commensurate with their difficulty; he came to them in the spirit and with the strength of one who would minister to the development of a nation; and it was the essential sagacity of his guiding mind that saved us from illustrating the sarcasms of Mr. Burke about paper constitutions. He saw the futility of attempting to control society by a metaphysical theory; he apprehended the just relation between opinion and life, between the forms of speculation and the force of things. Knowing that we are wise in respect to nature, only as we give back to it faithfully what we have learned from it obediently, he sought to fix the wisdom of the real and to resolve it into principles. He made the nation explain its constitution, and compelled the actual to define the possible. Experience was the dialectic by which he deduced from substantial premises a practical conclusion. The might of reason by which convenience and right were thus moulded into union, was amazing. But while he knew the folly of endeavoring to be wiser than time, his matchless resources of good sense contributed to the orderly development of the inherent elements of the constitution, by a vigor and dexterity as eminent in their kind as they were rare in their combination. The vessel of state was launched by the patriotism of many: the chart of her course was designed chiefly by Hamilton: but when the voyage was begun, the eye that observed, and the head that reckoned, and the hand that compelled the ship to keep her course amid tempests without, and threats of mutiny within, were those of the great Chief Justice. Posterity will give him reverence as one of the founders of the nation; and of that group of statesmen who may one day perhaps be regarded as above the nature, as they certainly were beyond the dimensions of men, no figure, save ONE alone, will rise upon the eye in grandeur more towering than that of John Marshall.

The authority of the Supreme Court, however, is not confined to cases of constitutional law; it embraces the whole range of judicial action, as it is distributed in England, into legal, equitable, and maritime jurisdictions. The equity system of this court was too little developed to enable us to say what Marshall would have been as a chancellor. It is difficult to admit that he would have been inferior to Lord Eldon: it is impossible to conceive that he could at all have resembled Lord Eldon. But undoubtedly the native region and proper interest of a mind so analytical and so sound, so piercing and so practical, was the common law; that vigorous system of manly reason and essential right, that splendid scheme of morality expanded by logic and informed by prudence. Perhaps the highest range of English intelligence is illustrated in the law; yet where, in the whole line of that august succession, will be found a character which fills the measure of judicial greatness so completely as Chief Justice Marshall? Where, in English history, is the judge, whose mind was at once so enlarged and so systematic, who so thoroughly had reduced professional science to general reason, in whose disciplined intellect technical learning had so completely passed into native sense? Vast as the reach of the law is, it is not an exaggeration to say that Marshall's understanding was greater, and embraced the forms of legal sagacity within it, as a part of its own spontaneous wisdom. He discriminated with instinctive accuracy between those technicalities which have sprung from the narrowness of inferior minds, and those which are set by the law for the defence of some vital element of justice or reason. The former he brushed away like cobwebs, while he yielded to the latter with a respect which sometimes seemed to those "whose eyes were" not "opened," a species of superstition. In his judicial office the method of Marshall appeared to be, first to bow his understanding reverently to the law, and calmly and patiently to receive its instructions as those of an oracle of which he was the minister; then to prove these dictates by the most searching processes of reason, and to deliver them to others, not as decrees to be obeyed, but as logical manifestations of moral truth. Undoubtedly he made much use of adjudged cases; but he used them to give light and certainty to his own judgment, and not for the vindication or support of the law. He would have deemed it a reproach alike to his abilities and his station, if he should have determined upon precedent what could have been demonstrated by reason, or had referred to authority what belonged to principle. With singular capacity, he united systematic reason with a perception of particular equity: too scrupulous a regard for the latter led Lord Eldon, in most instances, to adjudicate nothing but the case before him; but Marshall remembered that while he owed to the suitors the decision of the case, he owed to society the establishment of the principle. His mind naturally tended, not to suggestion and speculation, but to the determination of opinion and the closing of doubts. On the bench, he always recollected that he was not merely a lawyer, and much less a legal essayist; he was conscious of an official duty and an official authority; and considered that questions might be discussed elsewhere, but came to be settled by him. The dignity with which these duties were discharged was not the least admirable part of the display. It was wisdom on the seat of power, pronouncing the decrees of justice.

Political and legal sense are so distinct from one another as almost to be irreconcilable in the same mind. The latter is a mere course of deduction from premises; the other calls into exercise the highest order of perceptive faculties, and that quick felicity of intuition which flashes to its conclusions by a species of mental sympathy rather than by any conscious process of argumentation. The one requires that the susceptibility of the judgment should be kept exquisitely alive to every suggestion of the practical, so as to catch and follow the insensible reasonings of life, rather than to reason itself: the other demands the exclusion of every thing not rigorously exact, and the concentration of the whole consciousness of the mind in kindling implicit truth into formal principles. The wonder, in Judge Marshall's case, was to see these two almost inconsistent faculties, in quality so matchless, and in development so magnificent, harmonized and united in his marvellous intelligence. We beheld him pass from one to the other department without confusing their nature, and without perplexing his own understanding. When he approached a question of constitutional jurisprudence, we saw the lawyer expand into the legislator; and in returning to a narrower sphere, pause from the creative glow of statesmanship, and descend from intercourse with the great conceptions and great feelings by which nations are guided and society is advanced, to submit his faculties with docility to the yoke of legal forms, and with impassible calmness to thread the tangled intricacies of forensic technicalities.

There was in this extraordinary man an unusual combination of the capacity of apprehending truth, with the ability to demonstrate and make it palpable to others. They often exist together in unequal degrees. Lord Mansfield's power of luminous explication was so surpassing that one might almost say that he made others perceive what he did not understand himself; but the numerous instances in which his decisions have been directly overthrown by his successors, and the still greater number of cases in which his opinions have been silently departed from, compel a belief that his judgment was not of the truest kind. Lord Eldon's judicial sagacity was a species of inspiration; but he seemed to be unable not only to convince others; but even to certify himself of the correctness of his own greatest and wisest determinations. But Judge Marshall's sense appeared to be at once both instinctive and analytical: his logic extended as far as his perception: he had no propositions in his thoughts which he could not resolve into their axioms. Truth came to him as a revelation, and from him as a demonstration. His mind was more than the faculty of vision; it was a body of light, which irradiated the subject to which it was directed, and rendered it as distinct to every other eye as it was to its own.

The mental integrity of this illustrious man was not the least important element of his greatness. Those qualities of vanity, fondness for display, the love of effect, the solicitation of applause, sensibility to opinions, which are the immoralities of intellect, never attached to that stainless essence of pure reason. He seemed to men to be a passionless intelligence; susceptible to no feeling but the constant love of right; subject to no affection but a polarity toward truth.

As has already been stated, the great chief justice was married when twenty-eight years of age, to Miss Ambler, of York, in Virginia; there have been few such unions in every respect more fortunate and delightful; the wife died but a short time before the husband, who, not more than two days previous to his own decease, directed that his body should be laid with hers, and that the plain stone to indicate the place of their rest should have only this simple inscription:

"John Marshall, son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was born on the
24th of September, 1755, intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler on
the 3d of January, 1783, and departed this life the ---- day
of ---- 18--."

With no other alteration than the filling of the blanks, this is engraved on the modest white marble which is over their remains in the beautiful cemetery on Shoccoe Hill, of Richmond.

The chief justice always lived in a style of singular simplicity; when Secretary of State at Washington, he resided in a brick building hardly larger than most of the kitchens now in use, and his house in Richmond, to which he soon after removed, was characteristically unostentatious. From Richmond he frequently walked out three or four miles to his farm in the county of Henrico; and once a year he made a protracted visit to his other farm, near his birth-place, in Fauquier.

No man had a keener relish for social and convivial enjoyments, and numerous anecdotes are told in illustration of this trait in his character. Nearly all the period of his residence in Richmond, he was a member of a club which met near the city once a fortnight to pitch quoits, and mingle in relaxing conversation; there was no one more punctual in his attendance at its meetings, or who contributed more to their pleasantness; and such was his skill in the manly game he practised, that he would hurl his iron ring, weighing two pounds, with rarely erring aim, fifty-five or sixty feet, and when he or his partner made any specially successful exhibition of skill, he would leap up and clap his hands with the light-hearted enthusiasm of boyhood.

=Ames.=

AMES.

The house in which FISHER AMES was born was pulled down somewhere about 1818. It used to stand on the main street of Dedham, a little to the northeast, and over the way from where the court-house now stands. It was a roomy, two-story, peaked-roofed old building, with its end to the street; the oldest part having an addition of more modern construction on the front, or what, with reference to the street, was the end. The rooms were low, the windows small, and the lower floor was sunken a little below the ground. A large buttonwood overshadowed it in front, and from behind an elm, the latter still standing. There was no fence between the house and the street, and the intervening space was covered with grass of that thick and stubbed growth peculiar to such localities. Behind was a large barn, while on both sides, and back for fifty or sixty rods, to the Charles River, stretched a broad field of irregular surface. Just across the street was the "Front Lot," a piece of unoccupied land, including that on which the court-house now stands, and extending east nearly as far as the post-office. On the corner of this lot, directly in front of the house stood, subsequently,--that is, to the year 1776, when it was erected,--a stone pillar supporting a column, surmounted by a wooden head of Pitt, the same having been set up by the "Sons of Liberty," a brother of Fisher Ames among the number, on the repeal of the Stamp Act. This structure, after testifying to America's gratitude for a number of years, and furnishing to the corner on which it stood, the name of "Pitt's Head," was eventually overthrown. The stone pillar with its glowing inscription, after lying awhile by the roadside, and offering a seat to chatting children, and a place, in the spaces of the letters, for cracking nuts, was at length set up in its old place, on the erection of the court-house some twenty-five years since, where it still stands. But of the fate of the column and the head we have no account. This wooden head, intended by its enthusiastic raisers, without a doubt, to be "aere perennius," lay kicking about the street; and perhaps found refuge at last from the vicissitudes of the weather and the wasting jack-knife of the schoolboy, in the wood-box or the garret of some hospitable patriot.

The old house was long kept as an inn, both by Dr. Nathaniel Ames, the father of Fisher, and, after his death, by his wife. Innkeeping in those days was not so engrossing an occupation as at present, and Dr. Ames, by no means mainly a Boniface, found time for the care of his farm, for the practice of his profession, for the study of mathematics, astronomy, and kindred subjects; and for the application of the knowledge thus acquired, in the making of almanacs; a business which he carried on for forty years. In their veracious pages, besides indicating the doings and intentions of the heavenly bodies, and predicting storms with all the accuracy of which the case was susceptible, Dr. Ames used to portray the exciting events of the time in verse, more patriotic and vivid, perhaps, than poetic. He was, in truth, a man of no small consideration in Dedham, of much natural ability, of wit and spirit.

He showed these last qualities once on a time, when the colonial judges decided some law case against him. He thought they had disregarded the law, and their Reverences were soon seen, sketched on a sign-board in front of the tavern, in full bottomed wigs, tippling, with their _backs_ to the volume labelled "The Province Law." The authorities at Boston taking umbrage at this, dispatched some officers to Dedham to remove the sign. But Dr. Ames was too quick for them; and the baffled tipstaves on reaching the house found nothing hanging but a board, on which was inscribed, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh for a sign, but no sign shall be given them."

Dr. Ames died in 1764, when his son Fisher, the youngest child, was six years old; having besides him, a son of his own name and profession, who was afterwards a violent democrat and opponent of Fisher Ames, two other sons and a daughter. Of these, Fisher was the only one who left descendants. Mrs. Ames continued to keep the inn, and married again. She was a very shrewd and sensible woman, of a strong and singular cast of mind. She took a hearty interest in politics, and hated the Jacobins devoutly. Innkeeping was a favorite occupation with her, and she carried matters with a high hand. We have heard her compared to Meg Dods, the landlady in St. Ronan's Well. She outlived her son Fisher some ten years or more.