n public service, and in public
esteem, that our political establishment affords. Fortunate, indeed, is
he who, in the estimate of the profession of the law, and in the general
judgment of his countrymen, combines the great natural powers, the
disciplined faculties, the large learning, the larger wisdom, the firm
temper, the amiable serenity, the stainless purity, the sagacious
statesmanship, the penetrating insight, which make up the qualities that
should preside at this high altar of justice, and dispense to this great
people the final decrees of a government "not of men, but of laws." To
whatever President it comes, as a function of his supreme authority, to
assign this great duty to the worthiest, there is given an opportunity
of immeasurable honor for his own name, and of vast benefits to his
countrymen, outlasting his own brief authority, and perpetuating its
remembrance in the permanent records of justice, "the main interest of
all human society," so long as it holds sway among men. John Adams, from
the Declaration of Independence down, and with the singular felicity of
his line of personal descendants, has many titles to renown, but by no
act of his life has he done more to maintain the constituted liberties
which he joined in declaring, or to confirm his own fame, than by giving
to the United States the great Chief-Justice Marshall, to be to us,
forever, through every storm that shall beset our ship of state--

"Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,
And saving them that eye it."

In this disposition, Mr. Lincoln appointed Mr. Chase to the vacant
seat, and the general voice recognized the great fitness of the
selection.

I may be permitted to borrow from the well-considered and sober words of
an eminent judge, the senior Associate on the bench of the Supreme
Court--words that will carry weight with the country which mine could
not--a judicial estimate of this selection. Mr. Justice Clifford says:
"Appointed, as it were, by common consent, he seated himself easily and
naturally in the chair of justice, and gracefully answered every demand
upon the station, whether it had respect to the dignity of the office,
or to the elevation of the individual character of the incumbent, or to
his firmness, purity, or vigor of mind. From the first moment he drew
the judicial robes around him he viewed all questions submitted to him
as a judge in the calm atmosphere of the bench, and with the deliberate
considerat