the cases finally disposed of during those eleven years did not exceed forty in number. But one important constitutional question was passed upon, and the people were so little pleased with the decision that they promptly overrode it by an amendment to the Constitution. The court had not even a reporter. Prior to Marshall's accession, its reports were published as an appendix to Dallas' reports of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Such reports are contained in 330 pages of Curtis' Decisions, while 2,400 pages are now necessary for the reports of a single term.

The importance of the court was greatly underestimated by the people and by the legal profession. Even the Chief-Justiceship was so little thought of that Jay resigned it to become Governor of New York, and subsequently declined a reappointment, to retire to private life. Rutledge resigned his position as Associate Justice to become Chief Justice of South Carolina. Robert H. Harrison hesitated long between a seat upon the Supreme bench and the Chancellorship of Maryland, and finally decided in favor of the latter, though he lived but a few months thereafter.

Marshall, however, had scarcely taken his seat upon the bench when the first of that series of constitutional cases (Marbury v. Madison) which were to make his name immortal was called to the attention of the court. With that case Marshall may be said to have entered upon his career as the expounder of the Constitution.

The great charter of our Federal Government, the Constitution of the United States, comparatively recent as it is, is believed to be, with the single exception of the Constitution of Massachusetts, the oldest written scheme of a National Government now in existence. While there are

many governments which are far older than our own,-indeed we may be said to belong to the younger generation of powers,- they are governments of tradition and growth, as distinguished from a government of premeditated and carefully considered design.

Had the Constitution no other title to our admiration than the mere fact that it has outlived all its contemporaries, survived the shock of a great civil war, and after the experience of a century remains substantially without alteration, the fundamental law of the land, it would be sufficient of itself to demonstrate its superiority to every other similar instrument. Its history in this particular forms a striking contrast to the experience of other countries. Since its adoption in 1789 the people of France have lived under no less than nine different constitutions; the people of Switzerland under four; the people of Spain under four; while there is scarcely a civilized nation in Europe that has not, within the past century, adopted and thrown aside a Constitution modeled to a greater or less extent upon our own. Indeed, it is scarcely too much to say that the whole continent of Europe is strewn with the wrecks of Constitutions which in their day were thought to represent the consummate flower of human wisdom, but which needed only the stress of civil war, or, perchance, a mob in the streets, or even an adverse vote in the legislature, to demonstrate their inefficiency.

If we were to inquire why this marvelous instrument has accomplished so much, it will be found in the fact that its framers set out to accomplish so little. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were not theorists. They had no thought of turning their backs upon the past, and evolving a model government from their inner consciousness. They had but one idea, and that was,

in their own language, "to form a more perfect union" between the States than was possible under the old Confederation. The preamble mentions other objects, but they were all subordinate to this. They wished only a working, practical government, representing not the dreams of enthusiasts, but the traditions which the people had inherited from their mother country, the experience of the several colonies under their charters, and the average wisdom of the delegates. They did not even enter upon their task willingly; but were driven to it by a stern necessity growing out of the utter failure of the Confederation, and the determination that this great continent, which it required no prophetic eye to see they were about to enter upon and possess, should not fritter away its strength in petty states, each with its own commercial system, and intent only upon securing its own prosperity at the expense of its neighbors.

The Constitution they framed is now almost universally regarded as embodying the best possible form of government for this country, and is revered as something too sacred to be trifled with or even criticised. It must not, however, be supposed that it was originally received with acclamation or adopted without strong opposition. The necessity of a union of the States, and the impossibility of holding them together under the Articles of Confederation, were freely conceded. A new Constitution was imperative, or the union of the thirteen colonies must go to pieces. The matter was discussed for months and years before a convention was called. The debates of that convention have not been preserved, but it is known that they were fierce and bitter. George Washington was its president, and the ablest and most experienced men in the country had been sent to it as delegates

from the several States. They were men who had signed the Declaration of Independence; men who had fought in the Revolution; members of the Continental Congress, and of the State legislatures.

There were two difficulties arising from opposite directions which threatened to render the whole scheme abortive. Upon the one hand, there was hatred of the British Crown and Parliament, and a fear lest the new government, which was to take its place, should prove too strong for the independence of the States; and, upon the other hand, there was a frank confession of the impotency of the old Confederation, and a conviction that a strong central government was absolutely essential to the great nation they proposed to found. There was also a feeling of jealousy between the larger and smaller States, and a fear that such little communities as Rhode Island and Delaware (Nevada had not yet been dreamed of) might be lost in a union with the great Commonwealths of Pennsylvania and Virginia. It is curious to note that at this time New York was reckoned among the smaller, and Massachusetts among the larger, States.

An entire summer was taken up in the discussion of the scheme, and upon the 17th of September, 1787, the convention finished its work and the Constitution was finally adopted, though sixteen of the fifty-five delegates refused to sanction it by their signatures. As was afterwards said by John Quincy Adams, it was a "compromise extorted from the grinding necessities of a reluctant people." It is related of Washington that he took no part in the debates except to suggest in a humorous way, in reply to a proposed resolution to limit the standing army to five thousand men, that foreign powers should be forbidden to invade the territory of the United States with more

than three thousand. The Constitution, however, was heartily indorsed by him, and within the next two years was ratified by the requisite number of States to give it effect. Such, in brief, was the birth of the great nation which we call the United States of America.

To the unlearned mind it might appear that the work of founding the government was then complete; that all disputed questions had been settled, and that nothing remained but to put it in motion. Nothing could be further from the truth: the questions which had been settled were as nothing to those which remained unanswered. The skeleton of a government was there, but the flesh and blood that were to give it life were wanting. It is a matter of common knowledge to the legal profession that in every line of the plainest written instrument there lurks an unsolved problem. There was the Constitution in black and white, but how should it be construed? Liberally, to create a great and powerful nation; or strictly, to preserve the sovereignty of the States? The Congress, the people, the press, and even the Supreme Court itself, were divided upon this question. It was not until the close of the civil war that it was finally determined that the Federal Government was not a mere agent of the States, as claimed by the States Rights party, but was a single, united, homogeneous nation. It was felt from the first that the solution of all problems connected with the construction of the Constitution must rest with the Supreme Court of the United States.

As already stated, but one important question of constitutional construction came before that court during the first ten years of its existence. In the great case of Chisholm v. The State of Georgia it was held, with but a single dissent, that a sovereign State might be sued by