National University - Docket Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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tinued to make Federalist laws long after the Federalist Party was dead. John Adams had lef t the Capital in a huff without waiting to see his suc- cessor inaugurated, but he had, without realizing it at the time, left behind a greater force for consolidating the national government than Alexander H amilton and a dozen other leading Federalists combined. Chief Justice Marshall boldly declared that any act of Congress repugnant to the Constitution is void and that it is the function of the Supreme Court to so declare. This power, often criticized, remains un- shaken to the present day. However, contrary to the popular notion, com- paratively few of the many acts passed by Congress are later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It is estimated that between 1789 and 1929 Congress passed about 55,000 separate acts, considerably more than half of which were of a public nature. During this period of one hun- dred and forty years the Supreme Court, according to its librarian, declared only fifty-six acts and parts of acts of Congress unconstitutional. Associate Justice Samuel Chase of Maryland, a signer of the Declara- tion of Independence and the only Justice of the Supreme Court ever im- peached, was impeached in the early years of Marshall’s Chief Justiceship. The Senate acquitted him. In 1804 the Court received a valuable acquisi- tion in Associate Justice William Johnson of South Carolina, the youngest man who has ever been a member of the Court. He was thirty-two years of age when appointed and he served under Marshall for more than thirty years. The Constitution does not provide that persons shall have attained a certain age before they are qualified to become F ederal judges, as it does in the cases of the President, Vice-President, Senators and Representatives, and therefore it is presumed that any person of legal age is qualified in that respect. The feeling of the Jeffersonian party against the administration of the Supreme Court under Marshall subsided during the more conservative

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administrations of Monroe and John Quincy Adams, but it blazed anew after Andrew Jackson obtained the reins of government. In 1832 , when he was seventy-seven years old, the great Chief Justice handed down his decision in the case of W orcester v. Georgia. Worcester was a missionary who had been imprisoned in Georgia for preaching the gospel among the Cherokee Indians in violation of a State law. Georgia formally denied the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States and refused to appear at the hearing. In his decision Marshall declared the statute under which the missionary had been arrested was unconstitutional and the de- cision of the State court, which had convicted Worcester, was “reversed and annulled.” President Jackson, a strong believer in states rights and in sym- pathy with Georgia, declared, according to tradition, that “John Marshall has made his decision — now let him enforce it.” Of course the Court was powerless without the aid and cooperation of the executive branch of the Federal Government and consequently the mandate was never obeyed by Georgia. Even before his death the Marshall legend was growing so rapidly that many people assumed that he was the first instead of the fourth Chief Justice. He died July 6, 1835, in Philadelphia, full of years and greatness. Two days later the famous Liberty Bell of Revolutionary times was cracked while it was being tolled as the remains of the great Chief Justice were removed from the City of Brotherly Love to Virginia for burial. President Jackson’s choice to succeed Marshall was Roger Brooke Taney, who as Attorney-General had rendered an opinion in favor of the right of the President to remove the deposits from the United States Bank and who as Secretary of the Treasury had actually made the removal. Taney belonged to an old Roman Catholic family in Maryland, and his mother was related to the Thomas Brooke from whom the village of T. B. in Prince Georges County received its name. Broadly speaking, Chief Jus-