For thirty-four years John
Marshall labored ceaselessly to counteract Jefferson's constitutional
principles, while Jefferson always denounced the political partiality of
the federal courts, and above all the "rancorous hatred which Marshall
bears to the government of his country, and ... the cunning and
sophistry within which he is able to enshroud himself."[11]
No one, at this day, would be disposed to dispute that the Constitution,
as a device to postpone war among the states, at least for a period, was
successful, and that, as I have already pointed out, during the
tentative interval which extended until Appomattox, the Supreme Court
served perhaps as well, in ordinary times, as an arbiter between the
states and the general government, as any which could have been
suggested. So much may be conceded, and yet it remains true, as the
record will show, that when it passed this point and entered into
factional strife, the Supreme Court somewhat lamentably failed, probably
injuring itself and popular respect for law, far more by its errors,
than it aided the Union by its political adjudications.
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