The Life of John Marshall

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III INTERNATIONAL LAW It was Marshall's lot in more than one case to blaze the way in the establishment of rales of international conduct. (John Bassett Moore.) The defects of our system of government must be remedied, not by the judiciary, but by the sovereign power of the people. (Judge William...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III INTERNATIONAL LAW It was Marshall's lot in more than one case to blaze the way in the establishment of rales of international conduct. (John Bassett Moore.) The defects of our system of government must be remedied, not by the judiciary, but by the sovereign power of the people. (Judge William H. Cabell of the Virginia Court of Appeals.) I look upon this question as one which may affect, in its consequences, the permanence of the American Union. (Justice William Johnson of the Supreme Court.) While Marshall unhesitatingly struck down State laws and shackled State authority, he just as firmly and promptly upheld National laws and National authority. In Marbury vs. Madison he proclaimed the power of National courts over Congressional legislation so that the denial of that power might not be admitted at a time when, to do so, would have yielded forever the vital principle of Judiciary supervision.1 But that opinion is the significant exception to his otherwise unbroken practice of recognizing the validity of acts of Congress. He carried out this practice even when he believed the law before him to be unwise in itself, injurious to the Nation, and, indeed, of extremely doubtful constitutionality. This course was but a part of Marshall's Nationalist policy. The purpose of his life was to strengthen and enlarge the powers of the National Government; to coordinate into harmonious operation its various departments; and to make it in fact, as well as in principle, the agent ofa people constituting a single, a strong, and efficient Nation. 1 See vol. ni, chap, in, of this work. A good example of his maintenance of National laws is his treatment of the Embargo, Non-Importation, and Non-Intercourse Acts. The hostility of the Chief Justice to those stat...