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:—

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

“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.

In 1801, President John Adams called the profound lawyer, John Marshall, to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

It was a most wise appointment, as we shall now see.

EXPOUNDING THE CONSTITUTION

Chief Justice Marshall took his place at the head of the National Judiciary. The Government under the Constitution, was only organized twelve years before, and in the interval eleven amendments of the Constitution had been regularly proposed and adopted.

Comparatively nothing had been done judicially to define the powers or develop the resources of the Constitution. In short, the Nation, the Constitution, and the Laws were in their infancy.

Under these circumstances, it was most fortunate for the Country, that the great Chief Justice retained his high position for thirty-four years, and that during all that time, with scarcely any interruption, he kept on with the work he showed himself so competent to perform.

As year after year went by and new occasion required, with his irresistible logic, enforced by his cogent English, he developed the hidden treasures of the Constitution, demonstrated its capacities, and showed beyond all possibility of doubt, that a Government rightfully administered under its authority, could protect itself against itself and against the world.

Hardly a day now passes in the Court he so dignified and adorned, without reference to some decision of his time, as establishing a principle which, from that day to this, has been accepted as undoubted law.

In all the various questions of constitutional, international, and general law, the Chief Justice was at home; and when, at the end of his long and eminent career, he laid down his life, he and those who had so ably assisted him in his great work, had the right to say, that the judicial power of the United States had been carefully preserved and wisely administered.

The Nation can never honour him or them, too much for the work they accomplished.

Chief Justice Waite (Arranged)

THE GREAT CHIEF JUSTICE

Respected by All

When the venerable life of the Chief Justice was near its close, he was called to give his parting counsel to his native State, in the revision of her Constitution.

A spectacle of greater dignity than the Convention of Virginia in the year 1829, has been rarely exhibited. At its head was James Monroe, conducted to the chair by James Madison and John Marshall, and surrounded by the strength of Virginia, including many of the greatest names of the Union.

The reverence manifested for Chief Justice Marshall, was one of the most beautiful features of the scene. The gentleness of his temper, the purity of his motives, the sincerity of his convictions and his wisdom, were confessed by all.

He stood in the centre of his native State, in his very home of fifty years, surrounded by men who had known him as long as they had known anything, and there was no one to rise up even to question his opinions, without a tribute to his personal excellence.

The True Man

This admirable man, extraordinary in the powers of his mind, illustrious by his services, exalted by his public station, was one of the most warm-hearted, unassuming, and excellent of men.

His life from youth to old age was one unbroken harmony of mind, affections, principles, and manners.

His kinsman says of him, “He had no frays in boyhood. He had no quarrels or outbreakings in manhood. He was the composer of strifes. He spoke ill of no man. He meddled not with their affairs. He viewed their worst deeds through the medium of charity.”

Another of his intimate personal friends has said of him, “In private life he was upright and scrupulously just in all his transactions. His friendships were ardent, sincere, and constant, his charity and benevolence unbounded. Magnanimous and forgiving, he never bore malice. Religious from sentiment and reflection, he was a Christian, believed in the Gospel, and practiced its tenets.”

Horace Binney (Condensed)

WHAT OF THE CONSTITUTION?

The Unity of Government, which constitutes you One People, is also now dear to you.

It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real Independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. ...

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable.

Washington, from his Farewell Address

To me it is a marvel that the Constitution of the United States has operated so successfully.... But the United States is a singular example of political virtue and moral rectitude.

That Nation has been cradled in Liberty, has been nurtured in Liberty, and has been maintained by pure Liberty. I will add that the People of the United States are unique in the history of the human race.

Simon Bolivar, the Liberator

Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the People of all the States to this Constitution for Ages to come.

We have a great, popular constitutional Government ... defended by the affections of the whole People. No monarchical throne presses these States together. No iron chain of military power encircles them. They live and stand under a Government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for ever.... Its daily respiration is Liberty and Patriotism. Its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honourable love of glory and renown.

Daniel Webster

May our children and our children’s children for a thousand generations continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a United Country, and have cause yet to rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and his compeers! Now, my friends—soldiers and citizens—I can only say once more, Farewell.

Abraham Lincoln