Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

A COLLECTION

OF THE

POLITICAL WRITINGS

OF

WILLIAM LEGGETT,

SELECTED AND ARRANGED,

WITH A PREFACE,

BY

THEODORE SEDGWICK, JR.

NEW YORK

IN TWO VOLUMES.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839,

BY W. C. BRYANT,

In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New-York.

MEA AOBR

H. LUDWIG, PRINTER, 72, Vesey-street, N. Y.

A COLLECTION

OF THE

POLITICAL WRITINGS

OF

WILLIAM LEGGETT.

CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.

[From the Evening Post, July 28, 1835.]

WE perceive with pleasure that. public and spontaneous demonstrations of respect for the character and talents of the late Judge Marshall have taken place in every part of the country where the tidings of his death have been received. These tributes to the memory of departed excellence have a most salutary effect on the living; and few men have existed in our republic who so entirely deserved to be thus distinguished as examples, by a universal expression of sorrow at their death, as he whose loss the nation now laments. Possessed of a vast hereditary fortune, he had none of the foolish ostentation or arrogance which are the usual companions of wealth. Occupying an office too potent-lifted too high above the influence of popular will-there was no man who in his private intercourse and habits, exhibited a more

general and equal regard for the people. He was accesible to men of all degrees, and " familiar, but by no means vulgar" in his bearing, he was distinguished as much in the retired walks of life by his unaffected simplicity and kindness, as in public by the exercise of his great talents and acquirements.

The death of such a man, of great wisdom and worth, whose whole life has been passed in the public service, and whose history is interwoven with that of our country in some of its brightest and most interesting passages, furnishes a proper occasion for the expression of general respect and regret. In these sentiments we most fully join; but at the same time we cannot so far lose sight of those great principles of government which we consider essential to the permanent prosperity of man, as to neglect the occasion offered by the death of Judge Marshall to express our satisfaction that the enormous powers of the Supreme tribunal' of the country will no longer be exercised by one whose cardinal maxim in politics inculcated distrust of popular intelligence and virtue, and whose constant object, in the decision of all constitutional questions, was to strengthen government at the expense of the people's rights.

[ocr errors]

The hackneyed phrase, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, must be of comprehensive meaning, indeed, if it is intended that the grave shall effecutally shelter the theoretic opinions and official conduct of men from animadversion, as well as the foibles and offences of their private lives. In this sense at least we do not understand the precept, and if such were its obvious purport we should refuse to make it our law. Paramount considerations seemed to us to demand that, in recording the death of Judge Marshall, and joining our voice to that of general eulogy on his clear and venerable name, we should at the same time record our rooted hostility to the political principles he

maintained, and for the advancement of which he was able to do so much in his great office.

Few things have ever given us more disgust than the fawning, hypocritical and unqualified lamentations, which are poured out by the public press on the demise of any conspicuous political opponent. Of the man whom the day before it denounced in terms of the most unmeasured bitterness, let him but shuffle off his mortal coil, and the next day it is loud in undiscriminating, unlimited praise. We would not have journalists wage their political dissentions over the grave, and pour the ebullitions of party hostility on the dull cold ear of death. Neither would we have them stand aloof in dogged silence, refusing to join in the tribute to the memory of a great man who had made his exit from this theatre of perpetual strife, because, while he lived, they were found in the ranks of his opponents. But if there is any sincerity in the political doctrines they profess; if they are not mere jugglers in a game of cheatery and fraud; if they are really contending, with their whole heart and soul, in behalf of certain great principles, the success. of which they consider of vital importance to the best interests of man: then not even the death of an opponent and more especially of one whose mind was so vigorous and enlightened, whose heart was so benignant, and whose whole life had been so pure and exemplary as that of Judge Marshall-not even the death of such an opponent, we say, should restrain them from accompanying their tribute of respect with an expression of dissent from his political opinions.

There is no journalist who entertained a truer respect for the virtues of Judge Marshall than ourselves; there is none who believed more fully in the ardour of his pa triotism, or the sincerity of his political faith. But according to our firm opinion, the articles of his creed,

« PredošláPokračovať »