Chapter VIII · HIS LAST DAYS

CHAPTER VIII HIS LAST DAYS

The year 1831 was a sad one for Marshall. The greatest apprehensions were felt for his health. “Wirt,” says John Quincy Adams in his diary, on February 13, 1831, “spoke to me, also, in deep concern and alarm at the state of Chief Justice Marshall’s health.” In the autumn he went to Philadelphia to undergo the torture of the operation of lithotomy, before the days of ether. It was the last operation performed by the distinguished surgeon, Dr. Physick. Another eminent surgeon, who assisted him, Dr. Randall, has given an account of this occasion, in which he says:—

“It will be readily admitted that, in consequence of Judge Marshall’s very advanced age, the hazard attending the operation, however skillfully performed, was considerably increased. I consider it but an act of justice, due to the memory of that great and good man, to state that, in my opinion, his recovery was in a great degree owing to his extraordinary self-possession, and to the calm and philosophical views which he took of his case, and the various circumstances attending it.

“It fell to my lot to make the necessary preparations. In the discharge of this duty I visited him on the morning of the day fixed on for the operation, two hours previously to that at which it was to be performed. Upon entering his room I found him engaged in eating his breakfast. He received me with a pleasant smile upon his countenance, and said: ‘Well, doctor, you find me taking breakfast, and I assure you I have had a good one. I thought it very probable that this might be my last chance, and therefore I determined to enjoy it and eat heartily.’ I expressed the great pleasure which I felt at seeing him so cheerful, and said that I hoped all would soon be happily over. He replied to this that he did not feel the least anxiety or uneasiness respecting the operation or its results. He said that he had not the slightest desire to live, laboring under the sufferings to which he was then subjected; that he was perfectly ready to take all the chances of an operation, and he knew there were many against him; and that if he could be relieved by it he was willing to live out his appointed time, but if not, would rather die than hold existence accompanied with the pain and misery which he then endured.

“After he finished his breakfast I administered to him some medicine; he then inquired at what hour the operation would be performed. I mentioned the hour of eleven. He said, ‘Very well, do you wish me now for any other purpose, or may I lie down and go to sleep?’ I was a good deal surprised at this question, but told him that if he could sleep it would be very desirable. He immediately placed himself upon the bed, and fell into a profound sleep, and continued so until I was obliged to rouse him in order to undergo the operation. He exhibited the same fortitude, scarcely uttering a murmur, throughout the whole procedure, which, from the peculiar nature of his complaint, was necessarily tedious.”

From the patient over a thousand calculi were taken. He had a perfect recovery; nor did the disorder ever return.[54]

On Christmas Day of that year, as I have said, his wife died, the object of his tenderest affection ever since he had first seen her, more than fifty years before. The day before she died, she hung about his neck a locket with some of her hair. He wore it always, night and day; and, by his order, it was the last thing removed from his body when he died.[55]

It was at this period, in 1831 and 1832, that Inman’s fine portrait of him, now hanging in the rooms of the Law Association of Philadelphia, was painted, for the bar of that city. A replica which Marshall himself bought for his daughter, is on the walls of the state library in Richmond. This portrait is regarded as the best of those painted in his later life. Certainly it best answers the description of him by an English traveler, who, seeing him often in the spring of 1835, remarked that “the venerable dignity of his appearance would not suffer in comparison with that of the most respected and distinguished-looking peer in the British House of Lords.”[56]

After his recovery, in 1831, Marshall seems to have been in good health down to the early part of 1835. Then, we are told, he suffered “severe contusions” in the stage-coach in returning from Washington.[57] His health now rapidly declined. He went again for relief to Philadelphia, and died there on July 6, 1835, of a serious disorder of the liver. He had missed from his bedside his oldest son, Thomas, for whom he had been asking. Upon the gravestone of that son, behind the old house at Oakhill, you may read the pathetic tragedy, withheld from his father, that accounts for this absence. While hastening to Philadelphia, at the end of June, he was passing through the streets of Baltimore, in the midst of a tempest, and was killed by the falling of a chimney in the storm.

The great Chief Justice was carried home with every demonstration of respect and reverence. He was buried by the side of his wife, in the Shockoe Hill Cemetery in Richmond. There, upon horizontal tablets, are two inscriptions of affecting simplicity, both written by himself. The first runs thus: “John Marshall, Son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was born the 24th of September, 1755. Intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler, the 3d of January, 1783. Departed this life the [6th] day of July, 1835.” The second, thus: “Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Mary Willis Marshall, Consort of John Marshall, Born the 13th of March, 1766. Departed this life the 25th of December, 1831. This stone is devoted to her memory by him who best knew her worth, And most deplores her loss.”

Among the tributes to Chief Justice Marshall which were made in the months that followed his death, and in later times, nothing finer has been said than the heartfelt expression of the bar of his own circuit, at Richmond, in November, 1835. The resolutions of Mr. B. Watkins Leigh, unanimously adopted, recalled “the memory of the venerable judge” who had presided there for more than thirty-four years “with such remarkable diligence in office, that until he was disabled by the disease which removed him from life, he was never known to be absent from the bench, during term time, even for a day,—with such indulgence to counsel and suitors that everybody’s convenience was consulted but his own,—with a dignity, sustained without effort, and apparently without care to sustain it, to which all men were solicitous to pay due respect,—with such profound sagacity, such quick penetration, such acuteness, clearness, strength, and comprehension of mind, that in his hands the most complicated causes were plain, the weightiest and most difficult, easy and light,—with such striking impartiality and justice, and a judgment so sure, as to inspire universal confidence, so that few appeals were ever taken from his decisions, during his long administration of justice in this court, and those only in cases where he himself expressed doubt,—with such modesty that he seemed wholly unconscious of his own gigantic powers,—with such equanimity, such benignity of temper, such amenity of manners, that not only none of the judges who sat with him on the bench, but no member of the bar, no officer of the court, no juror, no witness, no suitor, in a single instance, ever found or imagined, in anything said or done, or omitted by him, the slightest cause of offense.

“His private life was worthy of the exalted character he sustained in public station. The unaffected simplicity of his manners; the spotless purity of his morals; his social, gentle, cheerful disposition; his habitual self-denial, and boundless generosity towards others; the strength and constancy of his attachments, his kindness to his friends and neighbors; his exemplary conduct in the relations of son, brother, husband, father; his numerous charities; his benevolence toward all men, and his ever active beneficence; these amiable qualities shone so conspicuously in him, throughout his life, that highly as he was respected, he had the rare happiness to be yet more beloved. He was, indeed, a bright example of the true wisdom which consists in the union of the greatest ability and the greatest virtue.”

On the west side of the Capitol at Washington, midway between the staircases that ascend from the garden to the great building, and a little in advance, there is a colossal bronze figure of Marshall by the sculptor Story, the son of the great man’s colleague and friend,—placed there in 1884. It is a very noble work of art, worthy of the subject and the place. The Chief Justice is sitting, clothed in his judicial robe, in the easy attitude of one engaged in expounding a subject of which he is master. The figure is leaning back in the chair with the head slightly inclining forward; the right arm rests on the arm of the chair, with the hand open and extended; the left hand, holding a scroll, lies easily on the other arm of the chair. The crossed legs are covered by the gown, while low shoes and buckles, and hair gathered in a queue, speak of lifelong habits. The solid and beautiful head, and the grave and collected dignity of the features and the whole composition are very noble, satisfactory, and ideally true.

The figure, standing, would be ten feet high. It sits seven feet high, and is raised upon a suitable pedestal, decorated with marble bas-reliefs of classical designs. These, if the truth were told, might well be spared, but the statue itself will fitly commemorate for many ages one of the greatest, noblest and most engaging characters in American history.

The Riverside Press Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.

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