to eminent distinction. In the spring of 1782, he was elected a member of the State Legislature, and before its close, a member of the Executive Council. He was married in 1783, to Miss Ambler, a daughter of the treasurer of the State. This lady, after a long term of sickness and suffering, descended a few years ago to the grave. In 1784, he resigned his place at the executive board, and resumed his professional pursuits; but immediately afterwards, and again in 1787, he was re-elected to the Legislature, and took an active and efficient part in the momentous controversies of the time. He was also a member of the Convention, called together in Virginia, for the ratification of the Federal Constitution. In this remarkable assembly, in which the most commanding eloquence and talent were liberally displayed, no man exhibited greater power of reasoning or patriotic ardor than Mr. Marshall.

Mr. Marshall continued in public life, as a member of the Legislature of Virginia, till the close of its session in 1791. He then retired for three years, but was returned again in 1795, and distinguished himself by an argument of remarkable ability, on the power of the Federal Executive to conclude a commercial treaty. This was at the time when the country was agitated by the controversies growing out of the treaty negotiated with Great Britain, by Mr. Jay. In the following year, he was invited by Washington to accept the office of Attorney General, but declined it, (on the ground that it would interfere with his extensive practice in Virginia. When Mr. Monroe was recalled from France, Mr. Marshall was urged by Washington to accept an appointment, as his successor. This also he was compelled by urgent private considerations to decline. But when Mr. Adams, who had in the mean time succeeded to the Presidency, appointed him an envoy to that country, in connexion with Mr. Gerry and General Pinckney, he accepted the appointment. The envoys were, however, not accredited by the French Government, and in the summer of 1798, Mr. Marshall returned to this country.

On his return he was solicited by General Washington to become a candidate for a seat in Congress. He yielded with reluctance, and being elected after a severe contest,took his seat in December,1799. While he was a candidate for this station, he declined a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, which became vacant by the death of Judge Iredell, and was offered him by President Adams. The session of Congress in the winter of 1799-1800 was a very memorable one. In the debate on the resolutions offered by Mr. Livingston, relative to the case of Thomas Nash, alias Jonathan Robbins, a case too long to be here detailed, and doubtless fresh in the recollection of many readers, Mr. Marshall spoke in opposition to them with

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admirable force and talent. His speech on that occasion is preserved; it is regarded as one of the most remarkable arguments of its author; and a higher estimate of his merit could not easily be made.

In May, 1800, Mr. Marshall was nominated by President Adams, to the office of Secretary of War. He desired that the nomination might be withdrawn, but his request was disregarded, and it was confirmed by the Senate. Shortly afterwards, he was called to succeed Mr. Pickering as Secretary of State. On the resignation of Chief Justice Ellsworth, the President advised with Mr. Marshall respecting the appointment of his successor, who at once recommended Judge Patterson. This was an appointment, which the President was reluctant to make, from an unwillingness to wound the feelings of Judge Cushing, who was the senior of Mr. Patterson on the bench. The office was then offered to Mr. Jay, who declined it, and the President immediately nominated Mr. Marshall, who on the 31st of January, 1801, accordingly became Chief Justice of the United States.

It were equally vain and needless to attempt to convey an adequate idea of the extent and value of the official labors of Chief Justice Marshall. For a period of nearly thirty-five years his matchless intellect and admirable virtues have constituted the magnetic and benignant power, which has bound the orbs of our magnificent system of government together, while the disturbing forces of party, rivalry and suffering, have often tempted them to rush asunder. The qualities of his mind were such, as led him instinctively into the paths of truth; and he illustrated those paths so fully and clearly with the light of profound sagacity and resistless reasoning, that men were led to distrust the judgment, whose conclusions were not in unison with his. No man had ever a stronger influence upon the minds of others. That influence was not founded only on his intellectual superiority; it was sustained and elevated by that perfect purity of purpose, that true simplicity and kindness of heart, that deep reverence for virtue and religion, which will cause his memory to be honored so long as true patriotism shall be venerated by the sons of men.

The foregoing sketch is taken from the columns of the Boston Daily Advertiser. Resolutions have been passed at meetings of the different bars throughout the country, expressive of respect and attachment to the distinguished dead.

At a meeting of the Philadelphia Bar on the 7th July, appropriate resolutions were passed, one of them recommending to the Bar of the United States to coöperate in erecting a monument to the memory of Chief Justice Marshall at some suitable place in the City of Washington. A committee of thirty was appointed to make arrangements with their brethren in other places for carrying this resolution into effect

It was also resolved to wear crape thirty days, and if consistent with the arrangements of the near friends of the deceased, to accompany his remains in a body to the place of embarkation from Philadelphia on its way to Richmond. A committee of six, consisting of Mr. Justice Baldwin, of the Supreme Court of the United States, Richard Peters, John Sergeant, William Rawle, Jr., T. I. Wharton and E. D. Ingraham, was appointed on the part of the Bar, to accompany the remains of the Chief Justice to Richmond, and to attend the funeral there. JOHN SERGEANT was appointed to deliver a eulogy on the deceased at some future time, to be hereafter designated.

At a meeting of the Bar of New-York on the 9th July, resolutions were passed of a similar character with those of the Bar of Philadelphia; also, one requesting Chancellor Kent to pronounce a eulogy on the character and virtues of the deceased.

At a meeting of the Bar of Boston on the 13th July, resolutions were also passed of a similar character. It was resolved, also, that the President of the Bar, in behalf of the Bar, should move the Circuit Court of the United States for the First Circuit, on the next day of its session in Boston, that these proceedings be entered on the records of the Court. Mr. Justice Story, on the ensuing day, upon motion made accordingly, directed the resolutions to be entered upon the records of the Court, accompanying the direction with some remarks on the deceased, expressed in the warm and felicitous manner which characterizes this eminent judge. MR. JUSTICE STORY has been appointed to pronounce an address to the Bar on the life and professional character of the late Chief Justice; and the brethren of the profession in the State of Massachusetts, and in the counties in other States adjacent thereto, have been invited to attend, by themselves or their delegates, at the delivery thereof.

Other resolutions have been passed by different Bars, and by various assembles of our fellow-citizens throughout the country. HORACE BINNEY has been appointed to pronounce an eulogium upon the deceased before the Common Council, of the City of Philadelphia.

Reports of the Supreme Court of the United States. The following letter properly belongs to the Correspondence which was published in our last number, in relation to the proposed publication by Mr. Coxe of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Being

printed in a different paper from the other letters, we were unaware of its existence until our attention was called to it by the kindness of a distant correspondent. We accordingly insert it, even at this late day, as an act of justice to Mr. Coxe, but we cannot forbear adding, that we regret the spirit in which it is written.

RICHARD PETERS, ESQ.

Washington, March 15, 1835.

SIR: Various engagements of an important character have so fully occupied my attention for the last few days, that it has not been convenient, or indeed scarcely practicable, to make an earlier reply to your communication of the 11th instant. I regret to perceive such a manifestation of feeling as that paper exhibits, being wholly unconscious of having done anything justly calculated to awaken it.

You are pleased to designate the publication, of which I apprized you, as 'an unwarrantable proceeding.' Upon this point I must be allowed to differ with you in opinion; and, so long as the question remains undecided judicially, you cannot but allow that ample ground exists for great difference of opinion as to the extent of the rights of the Reporter of the Supreme Court, and as to what may amount to an interference with those rights.

So far as I am myself interested in this question, I may remark, that heretofore I have exercised what has ever before been considered as an undoubted right, the privilege of reporting, from my own notes taken in Court, the arguments and decisions of that tribunal, not only without incurring the complaint of your predecessor, but with the distinct approbation of several of the Judges.

Indeed, the point of your objection is not, to my mind, very distinct. You assure me, that it is to you' a matter of perfect indifference,' and yet indicate a degree of feeling not easily reconcileable with such an assertion.

It would seem that this excitement has been produced, not by any considerations of a personal character, but as the champion of the Court, whose dignity and respect you appear to think are threatened by the contemplated publication. The reference you have made to any language of mine, in regard to that tribunal, is wholly irrelevant upon any other view of the subject, and perhaps not entirely pertinent even upon this. Of this I may assure you, that I entertain too exalted an opinion of the members of that Court to apprehend that they will permit themselves to imbibe unfavorable impressions of any individual from the reports made of private conversations. When a faithful representation is made, even of such conversations, I cannot anticipate that I shall lose any thing in their estimation.

If your interest in this matter be such as I have conjectured, it may be as well to apprize you that it is my intention hereafter, as heretofore, to express the opinion which I sincerely entertain in regard to the decisions and proceedings of the Court. Even if I held the office of 'the selected reporter' of those decisions and proceedings, it would not comport with my sense of self-respect, or my ideas of duty towards that tribunal, to yield my judgment implicitly to theirs. I should scorn to hold even that exalted office by a tenure which would require, that while I was rarely competent to anticipate correctly what judgment would be pronounced, upon even the simplest case, it would be required of me to laud each decision, when delivered, as the evidence of the most profound learning and most unerring judgment. These, also, are matters in which you have not now to learn, for the first time, that our opinions are not in entire accordance; and my esteem of the characters of the gentlemen who occupy that bench, is such, that I believe I can easily anticipate their judgment, should the question be fully and fairly presented for their decision.

I apprehend, however, that the Supreme Court is fully competent to vindicate its own dignity whenever it may be menaced or assailed, without the gratuitous interference of myself or even of 'their selected reporter.'

We shall, I presume, henceforward fully understand our relative positions. It is my intention to maintain my own rights, without infringing yours; and I shall look for a corresponding deportment at your hands. Your obedient servant,

RICHARD S. COXE.

Foreign Notices of Mr. Justice Story's Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws. Since our last number we have seen several very flattering notices of these Commentaries in foreign Journals. The London Monthly Review has spoken of them in the highest terms. The Scotch Law Journal, an able periodical, published at Edinburgh, has used the following language with respect to them:

'Dr. Story's work is altogether of so excellent a description, and betokens a mind so completely imbued with the purest principles of legal philosophy, that it ought to be in the hands of every person who aims at studying, in an intelligent way, the higher departments of professional knowledge.'—Law Journal, No. XI.

From the following notice in the Perthshire Courier, we learn that