Part 21

It was twenty-five years after the death of Washington. It was 1824. In New York City, joy bells were ringing, bands playing, cannon saluting, flags waving, and two hundred thousand people wildly cheering.

The Marquis de Lafayette was visiting America. He was landing at the Battery. He was no longer the slender, debonair, young French officer who, afire with ardent courage, had served under Washington, but a man of sixty-seven, large, massive, almost six feet tall, his rugged face expressing a strong noble character, his fine hazel eyes beaming with pleasure and affection. But his manner was the same courtly, gracious one of the young man of nineteen who so long ago had exclaimed, “I will join the Americans--I will help them fight for Freedom!”

Since the American War for Independence, Lafayette had been through the terrible French Revolution, and had spent five years in an Austrian prison. Now, as he landed once more on American soil, he was the honoured and idolized guest of millions of grateful citizens of the United States.

As he stepped from a gayly decorated boat, and stood among the throngs of cheering New York folk, his eyes filled with tears. He had expected only a little welcome; instead he found the whole Nation waiting expectant and eager to do him honour.

His tour of the country in a barouche drawn by four white horses, was one continuous procession. Enormous crowds gathered everywhere to greet him as he went from city to city, town to town, and village to village. He passed beneath arches of flowers and arbours of evergreens. Children and young girls welcomed him with songs, and officials with addresses. He was banqueted and fêted. “Lafayette! Lafayette!” was the roar that went up from millions of throats.

At Fort McHenry, he was conducted into the tent that had been Washington’s during the War for Independence. There, some of Lafayette’s old comrades-in-arms, veteran members of the Society of the Cincinnati, were awaiting him.

Lafayette embraced them with tears of joy. Then looking around the tent, and seeing some of Washington’s equipment, he exclaimed in a subdued voice:--

“I remember! I remember!”

Later in the day, a procession was formed, which as it passed through the streets of Baltimore, displayed in a place of honour the crimson silk banner of Count Pulaski, embroidered for him by the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

In Boston, Lafayette in a barouche drawn by four beautiful white horses, was escorted by a brilliant procession through the streets. At the Common, he passed between two lines of school-children, girls in white, and boys in blue and white; and a lovely little girl crowned him with a wreath of blossoms.

Across Washington Street, were thrown two arches decorated with flags, and inscribed with the words:--

WELCOME, LAFAYETTE!

_The Fathers in glory shall sleep, That gathered with thee to the fight, But the Sons will eternally keep The Tablet of Gratitude bright. We bow not the neck, and we bend not the knee, But our hearts, Lafayette, we surrender to thee._

And when he entered Lexington, he passed beneath an arch on which was written in flowers:

_Welcome! Friend of America! To the Birthplace of American Liberty._

SEPTEMBER 24

JOHN MARSHALL

THE EXPOUNDER OF THE CONSTITUTION

_I had grown up at a time ... when the maxim, “United we stand, divided we fall,” was the maxim of every orthodox American; and I had imbibed these sentiments so thoroughly that they constituted a part of my being._

JOHN MARSHALL.

_He had a deep sense of moral and religious obligation, and a love of truth, constant, enduring, unflinching. It naturally gave rise to a sincerity of thought, purpose, expression and conduct, which, though never severe, was always open, manly, and straightforward._

_Yet it was combined with such a gentle and bland demeanour, that it never gave offense. But it was, on the contrary, most persuasive in its appeals to the understanding._

_Justice_ JOSEPH STORY

JOHN MARSHALL was born in Virginia, September 24, 1755

Became an officer in a Company of Minute Men, 1775

Was Envoy to France, 1797

Was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1801

He died, July 6, 1835

THE BOY OF THE FRONTIER

_In a Log Cabin_

Through the ancient and unbroken forests, toward the Monongahela River, Braddock made his slow and painful way. Weeks passed, then months. But the Colonists felt no impatience because everybody knew what would happen when his scarlet columns should finally meet and throw themselves upon the enemy.

Yet this meeting when it came, proved to be one of the lesser tragedies of history, and had a deep and fateful effect upon American public opinion, and upon the life and future of the American People.

Time has not dulled the vivid picture of that disaster. The golden sunshine of that July day; the pleasant murmur of the waters of the Monongahela; the silent and sombre forests; the steady tramp, tramp of the British to the inspiriting music of their regimental bands, playing the martial airs of England; the bright uniforms of the advancing columns giving to the background of stream and forest a touch of splendour;--and then the ambush and surprise; the war-whoops of savage foes that could not be seen; the hail of invisible death, no pellet of which went astray; the pathetic volleys which the doomed British troops fired at hidden antagonists; the panic; the rout; the pursuit; the slaughter; the crushing, humiliating defeat!

Most of the British officers were killed or wounded, as they vainly tried to halt the stampede. Braddock himself received a mortal hurt.

Furious at what he felt was the stupidity and cowardice of the British regulars, the youthful Washington rode among the fear-frenzied Englishmen striving to save the day. Two horses were shot under him. Four bullets rent his uniform. But crazed with fright, the Royal soldiers were beyond human control.

Only the Virginia Rangers kept their heads and their courage. Obeying the shouted orders of their young Commander, they threw themselves between the terror-stricken British and the savage victors, and, fighting behind trees and rocks, were an ever-moving rampart of fire that saved the flying remnants of the English troops.

But for Washington and his Rangers, Braddock’s whole force would have been annihilated.

So everywhere went up the cry, “The British are beaten!”

At first, rumour had it, that the whole force was destroyed, and that Washington had been killed in action. But soon another word followed hard upon this error--the word that the boyish Virginia Captain and his Rangers had fought with coolness, skill, and courage; that they alone had prevented the extinction of the British Regulars.

Thus it was that the American Colonists suddenly came to think, that they themselves must be their own defenders. It was a revelation, all the more impressive because it was so abrupt, unexpected, and dramatic, that the red-coated professional soldiers were not the unconquerable warriors, the Colonists had been told that they were. From colonial mansion to log cabin, from the provincial capitals to the mean and exposed frontier settlements, Braddock’s defeat sowed the seed of the idea that Americans must depend upon themselves.

Close upon the heels of this epoch-making event, John Marshall came into the world.

He was born in a little log cabin in what is now a part of Virginia, eleven weeks after Braddock’s defeat. The Marshall cabin stood about a mile and a half from a cluster of a dozen similar log structures, a little settlement practically on the frontier.

_Off to the Blue Ridge_

Some ten years after Braddock’s defeat, we can picture a strong rude wagon drawn by two horses, crawling along the stumpy, rock-roughened, and mud-mired road through the dense woods that led to a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In the wagon sat a young woman. By her side a sturdy red-cheeked boy looked out with alert but quiet interest showing from his brilliant black eyes. And three other children cried their delight or vexation as the hours wore on.

The red-cheeked boy was John Marshall.

In this wagon, too, were piled the little family’s household goods. By the side of the wagon, strode a young man dressed in the costume of the frontier. Tall, broad-shouldered, lithe-hipped, erect, he was a very oak of a man. His splendid head was carried with a peculiar dignity. And the grave but kindly command that shone from his face, together with the brooding thoughtfulness and fearless light of his striking eyes, would have singled him out in any assemblage, as a man to be respected and trusted.

A negro drove the team, and a negro girl walked behind. So went little John Marshall with his father and mother, from the log cabin to their new Blue Ridge home, which was not a log cabin, but a frame house built of whipsawed uprights and boards.

_Making an American_

John Marshall lived near the frontier, until he was nineteen, when as Lieutenant of the famous Culpeper Minute Men, he marched away to battle.

And during those nineteen years he had been growing up to be _an American_.

The earliest stories told little John Marshall must have been frontier ones of daring and sacrifice.

Almost from the home-made cradle, he was taught the idea of American solidarity. Braddock’s defeat was the theme of fireside talk of the Colonists, and from this grew in time the conviction that Americans, if united, could not only protect their homes from the savages and the French, but could defeat, if need be, the British themselves.

So thought John Marshall’s father and mother, and so they taught their children.

For the most part, the boy’s days were spent studying and reading, or rifle in hand, in the surrounding mountains and by the pleasant waters that flowed through the valley of his forest home. He helped his mother, of course, did the innumerable chores which the day’s work required, and looked after the younger children. He ate game from the forest and fish from the stream. Bear meat was plentiful.

Whether at home with his mother, or on surveying trips with his father, the boy continually was under the influence and direction of hardy, clear-minded unusual parents.

Their lofty and simple ideals, their rational thinking, their unbending uprightness, their religious convictions--these were the intellectual companions of John Marshall’s childhood and youth.

_Give Me Liberty!_

Thomas Marshall, John’s father, served in the Virginia House of Burgesses of which Patrick Henry was a member.

When Thomas Marshall returned to his Blue Ridge home, he described, of course, the scenes he had witnessed and taken part in. The heart of his son thrilled, we may be sure, as he listened to his father reciting Patrick Henry’s words of fire.

And again, when Patrick Henry became the voice of America, and offered the “Resolutions for Arming and Defense,” and carried them with that amazing speech ending with:--

_Give me Liberty or give me Death!_

Thomas Marshall sat beneath its spell.

And John Marshall, now nineteen years old, heard those words from his father’s lips, as the family clustered around the fireside of Oak Hill, their Blue Ridge home.

The effect on John Marshall’s mind and spirit was heroic and profound.

_Albert J. Beveridge_ (_Arranged_)

THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT

When John Marshall was nineteen, he was about six feet high, straight, and rather slender, and of dark complexion. His eyes were dark to blackness, strong and penetrating, beaming with intelligence and good nature. His raven black hair was of unusual thickness.

He was Lieutenant of a Company, and wore a purple or pale blue hunting shirt, and trousers of the same material fringed with white. A round black hat, with a buck-tail for a cockade, crowned his figure.

The news of the Battle of Lexington reached him, and he was soon on the muster-field training his Company.

First, he made his men a speech, telling them that he had come to meet them as fellow soldiers, who were likely to be called on to defend their Country and their own rights and liberties--that there had been a battle at Lexington in which the Americans were victorious, but that more fighting was expected--that soldiers were called for--and that it was time to brighten their firearms, and learn to use them in the field--and that, if they would fall into a single line, he would show them the new manual exercise, for which purpose he had brought his own gun.

Then before he required the men to imitate him, he went through the manual exercise by word and motion, deliberately pronounced and performed. He then proceeded to exercise them with the most perfect temper. Never did man possess a temper more happy, or one more subdued or better disciplined.

After a few lessons, he dismissed the Company, saying that if they wished to hear more about the war, he would tell them what he understood about it. The men formed a circle about him, and he talked to them for about an hour.

After that he challenged an acquaintance to a game of quoits. And they closed the day with foot-races and other athletic exercises.

_Horace Binney_ (_Retold_)

SERVING THE CAUSE

Young John Marshall became a Lieutenant in the first regiment of Minute Men raised in Virginia. These were the citizen soldiery of the Colonies, who “were raised in a minute; armed in a minute; marched in a minute; fought in a minute; and vanquished in a minute.”

His father Thomas Marshall was Major of this Virginia regiment of Minute Men. Their appearance was calculated to strike terror into the hearts of an enemy. They were dressed in green hunting-shirts, home-spun, home-woven, and home-made, with the words,

_Liberty or Death!_

in large white letters on their bosoms.

They wore in their hats, buck-tails, and in their belts, tomahawks and scalping knives. Their savage, warlike appearance excited the terror of the inhabitants as they marched through the country.

Lord Dunmore told his troops, before the action at the Great Bridge, that if they fell into the hands of the “shirt-men,” they would be scalped.

To the honour of the “shirt-men,” it should be observed, that they treated the British prisoners with great kindness--a kindness which was felt and gratefully acknowledged.

_Henry Flanders_ (_Arranged_)

AT VALLEY FORGE

Through the battles of Iron Hill, of Brandywine, of Germantown, and of Monmouth, John Marshall bore himself bravely. And through the dreary privations, the hunger, and the nakedness of that ghastly Winter at Valley Forge, his patient endurance and his cheeriness bespoke the very sweetest temper that ever man was blessed with.

So long as any lived to speak, men would tell how he was loved by the soldiers and by his brother officers; how he was the arbiter of their differences and the composer of their disputes. And when called to act, as he often was, as Judge Advocate, he exercised that peculiar and delicate judgment required of him, who is not only the prosecutor but the protector of the accused.

It was in the duties of this office that he first met and came to know well the two men, whom of all others on earth he most admired and loved, and whose impress he bore through his life--Washington and Hamilton.

_William Henry Rawle_ (_Arranged_)

SILVER HEELS

Young John Marshall surpassed in athletics, any man in the Army. When the soldiers were idle at their quarters, it was usual for the officers to engage in a game of quoits or in jumping and racing. Then he would throw a quoit farther, and beat at a race any other. He was the only man, who with a running jump, could clear a stick laid on the heads of two men as tall as himself.

On one occasion, he ran a race in his stocking feet with a comrade. His mother, in knitting his stockings, had knit the legs of blue yarn and the heels of white. Because of this and because he always won the races, the soldiers called him:--

“Silver Heels.”

_J. B. Thayer_ (_Arranged_)

WITHOUT BREAD

_Told by John Marshall’s Sister_

He was then an officer in the American Army, and he came home for a visit, accompanied by some of his brother officers, some young French gentlemen.

When supper time arrived, Mother had the meal prepared for them, and had made into bread a little flour, the last she had, which had been saved for such an occasion.

The little ones cried for some, and Brother John inquired into matters. He would eat no more of the bread, which could not be shared with us.

He was greatly distressed at the straits to which the fortunes of war had reduced us. And Mother had not intended him to know our condition.

_From the Green Bag_

HIS MOTHER

John Marshall’s mother, Mary Isham Keith, was a woman of great force of character and strong religious faith. She was pleasing in mind, person, and manners. And her son loved her with that chivalrous tender devotion, which made him gentle with all women throughout his life.

A few weeks before his death, John Marshall told his friend, Judge Story, that he had never failed to repeat each night, through his long life, the little prayer which begins:--

_Now I lay me down to sleep_,

that he had learned, when a baby, at his mother’s knee.

_Sallie E. Marshall Hardy_ (_Arranged_)

HIS FATHER

His father, Thomas Marshall, served with great distinction during the War for Independence. He was a man of uncommon capacity and vigour of intellect.

John Marshall, after he became Chief Justice, used often to speak of him in terms of the deepest affection and reverence. Indeed, he never named his father, without dwelling on his character with a fond and winning enthusiasm.

“My father,” he would say with kindled feelings and emphasis, “my father was a far abler man than any of his sons. To him I owe the solid foundation of all my own success in life.”

_Justice Joseph Story_ (_Condensed_)

THREE STORIES

_What was in the Saddlebags_

One Autumn, John Marshall was invited to visit Mount Vernon, in company with Washington’s nephew.

On their way to Mount Vernon, the two travellers met with a misadventure, which gave great amusement to Washington, and of which he enjoyed telling his friends.

They came on horseback, and carried but one pair of saddlebags, each using one side. Arriving thoroughly drenched by rain, they were shown to a chamber to change their garments.

One opened his side of the bags, and drew forth _a black bottle of whiskey_. He insisted that he had opened his companion’s repository.

Unlocking the other side, they found _a big twist of tobacco, some corn bread, and the equipment of a pack-saddle_.

They had exchanged saddlebags with some traveller, and now had to appear in a ludicrous misfit of borrowed clothes!

_Eating Cherries_

After the war, John Marshall studied law, and began practice in Virginia courts. He served in many important offices both of his State and of the Nation.

Here is a little story told of him when he first began his practice. At that time, he was very simple though neat, in his dress.

He was one morning strolling, we are told, through the streets of Richmond, attired in a plain linen roundabout and shorts, with his hat under his arm, from which he was eating cherries, when he stopped in the porch of the Eagle Hotel, indulged in a little pleasantry with the landlord, and then passed on.

A gentleman from the country was present, who had a case coming on before the Court of Appeals, and was referred by the landlord to Marshall as the best lawyer to employ. But “the careless languid air” of Marshall, had so prejudiced the man that he refused to employ him.

The clerk, when this client entered the courtroom, also recommended Marshall, but the other would have none of him.

A venerable-looking lawyer, with powdered wig and in black cloth, soon entered, and the gentleman engaged him.

In the first case that came up, this man and Marshall spoke on opposite sides. The gentleman listened, saw his mistake, and secured Marshall at once, frankly telling him the whole story, and adding, that while he had come with one hundred dollars to pay his lawyer, he had but five dollars left.

Marshall good-naturedly took this, and helped in the case.

_Learned in the Law of Nations_

In time, John Marshall became a great lawyer. He declined the office of District Attorney of the United States at Richmond, that of Attorney General of the United States, and that of Minister to France, all offered him by Washington.

When President Adams persuaded him to go as envoy to France, he wrote to another envoy of “General Marshall,” as he was then called, from his rank of Brigadier-General in the Virginia Militia:--

“He is a plain man, very sensible, cautious, guarded, and learned in the Law of Nations.”

_James B. Thayer_ (_Arranged_)

THE CONSTITUTION

_As the British Constitution is the most subtile organism, which has proceeded from progressive history; so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time, by the brain and purpose of man._

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE

“A Constitution,” says the dictionary, is “the fundamental organic law or principles of Government of a Nation, State, Society, or other organized body of men.

“Also a written instrument embodying such law.”

This is not so hard to understand:--

The first statement may be applied to the English Constitution, which is not a written Document like ours. It is, instead, a vast body of laws and judicial decisions, which, accumulating through the centuries, and beginning long before the time of the Magna Carta, have been handed down from one generation to another.

On the other hand, the second statement in the dictionary, may be applied to the Constitution of the United States, which is a Document, a written instrument, framed and adopted for our protection by those able and noble Patriots who met in the Federal Convention, over which George Washington himself presided. They were wise men, learned in the Law, and far-sighted. They planned a Government for the great future of a very great Free People.

Since its adoption, other Republics of the world have used our Constitution as a model for their own.

Our Constitution guarantees self-government, and regulates just government. It is the foundation of our national life. Without it, we should be threatened with anarchy. Anarchy means universal confusion, terror, bloodshed, lawlessness of every description, and the destruction of religion, education, business, and of everything which makes life and home beautiful and safe.

After we had declared our Independence and won our Liberty, this Country was threatened with anarchy because we had as yet no Constitution to regulate Government, and each State did much as it pleased.

But after the Constitution was adopted, and the States were united and had became One People under One Government, order, peace, and prosperity resulted.

Thus the amazingly rapid growth of “Our Beloved Country,” as Washington called it, is due to the safeguards of that most precious Document, the Constitution of the United States. For which reason every boy and girl should read it carefully, should regard it with reverence, and should surround it with every protection, as being, with the blessing of God, the source of the life and welfare of our Nation.

As for John Marshall, he did not help to frame the Constitution; but it was largely through his efforts and those of James Madison, that the Virginia State Legislature ratified it. In another way, also, he had a great part in its making.

After the Constitution was adopted, being a new Document there existed no body of judicial decisions interpreting its meanings, like the decisions of England which guided English judges. A body of American decisions had to be made to interpret our Constitution in order to guide American judges. This was John Marshall’s great work.