Volume IV Part 36 (1/2)

The Chief Justice is a master of the ”science of verbality” by which the Const.i.tution may be rendered ”as unintelligible, as a single word would be made by a syllabick dislocation, or a jumble of its letters; and turn it into a reservoir of every meaning for which its expounder may have occasion.”

Where does Marshall's ”artifice of verbalizing” lead?[941] To an ”artificially reared, a monied interest ... which is gradually obtaining an influence over the federal government,” and ”craftily works upon the pa.s.sions of the states it has been able to delude” [on the slavery question], ”to coerce the defrauded and discontented states into submission.” For this reason talk of civil war abounds. ”For what are the states talking about disunion, and for what are they going to war among themselves? To create or establish a monied sect, composed of privileged combinations, as an aristocratical oppressor of them all.”[942] Marshall's doctrine that Congress may bestow ”exclusive privileges” is at the bottom of the Missouri controversy. ”Had the motive ... never existed, the discussion itself would never have existed; but if the same cause continues, more fatal controversies may be expected.”[943]

Finally Taylor hurls at the Nation the challenge of the South, which the representatives of that section, from the floor of Congress, quickly repeated in threatenings of civil war.[944] ”There remains a right, anterior to every political power whatsoever, ... the natural right of self-defence.... It is allowed, on all hands, that danger to the slave-holding states lurks in their existing situation, ... and it must be admitted that the right of self-defence applies to that situation....

I leave to the reader the application of these observations.”[945]

Immediately upon its publication, Ritchie sent a copy of Taylor's book to Jefferson, who answered that he knew ”before reading it” that it would prove ”orthodox.” The attack upon the National courts could not be pressed too energetically: ”The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric.... An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy and timid a.s.sociates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning.”[946]

FOOTNOTES:

[784] These penalties were forfeits of $500 for every offense--a sum that would have aggregated hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars, in the case of the Baltimore branch, which did an enormous business. The Maryland law also provided that ”every person having any agency in circulating” any such unauthorized note of the Bank should be fined one hundred dollars. (Act of Feb. 11, 1818, _Laws of Maryland_, 174.)

[785] Story to White, March 3, 1819, Story, I, 325.

[786] Webster always dressed with extreme care when he expected to make a notable speech or argument. For a description of his appearance on such an occasion see Sargent: _Public Men and Events_, I, 172.

[787] 4 Wheaton, 323.

[788] _Ib._ 324.

[789] _Ib._ 327.

[790] _Ib._ 328.

[791] 4 Wheaton, 330 _et seq._

[792] _Ib._ 362 _et seq._

[793] _Ib._ 272-73.

[794] _Ib._ 374.

[795] Tyler: _Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney_, 141.

[796] The student should carefully examine Pinkney's argument. Although the abstract of it given in Wheaton's report is very long, a painstaking study of it will be helpful to a better understanding of the development of American Const.i.tutional law. (4 Wheaton, 377-400.)

[797] Story to White, March 3, 1819, Story, I, 324-25.

[798] 4 Wheaton, 426.

[799] See _supra_, chap. V.

[800] Webster to Mason, Feb. 24, 1819, Van Tyne, 78-79.

[801] Webster to Smith, Feb. 28, 1819, _ib._ 79-80.

[802] From February 22 to February 27 and from March 1 to March 3, 1819.

[803] February 18, 1819. See _Annals_, 15th Cong. 2d Sess. 1240.

[804] _Ib._ 1242.