National University - Docket Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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MELVILLE W. FULLER— 1888-1910

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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-

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tice Taney, who leaned toward strict construction to a greater degree than his distinguished predecessor, was more interested in the preservation of individual liberty and less interested in the preservation of property rights. He is best known in connection with the famous Dred Scott decision, which, intended to allay sectional strife by removing the question of slavery exten- sion from politics, had the effect of further inflaming the North and hasten- ing the coming of the Civil War. In the midst of that great conflict Chief Justice Taney died, and Presi- dent Lincoln appointed in his place Salmon Portland Chase, who was born in 1808 in New Hampshire, but who had settled in Ohio. Chase was edu- cated at Dartmouth and Cincinnati College. After serving as Governor and United States Senator he became Lincoln’s first Secretary of the Treas- ury. As head of the Treasury Department he put “In God We Trust” on our coins; as Chief Justice he gave us a popular saying which is quoted almost daily. In a letter dated May 1 7, 1 866, to Horace Greeley, he wrote : “The way to resumption is to resume.” He has been the only Chief Justice to preside over the Senate during the impeachment trial of a President of the United States. Chase’s death occurred in 1873 and President Grant chose to succeed him Morrison Remick Waite (1816-1888), who was born in Connecticut and who was educated at Yale, but who settled in Ohio. Upon Waite’s death in 1888 President Cleveland appointed Melville Weston Fuller (1888-1910) to succeed him. Fuller was a native of Maine and a graduate of Bowdoin, but had gone to Chicago and plunged into an active legal and political career. He has been the only Chief Justice who was small physically, all his predeces- sors and successors thus far having been tall and large men. A natural politician, thoroughly acquainted with the changing industrial conditions of his day, he was perhaps the best business head the Court has ever had.