radually
penetrates beyond their walls into the bosom of society, where it
descends to the lowest classes, so that at last the whole people
contract the habits and the tastes of the judicial magistrate."

In one respect, however, De Tocqueville erred. American "legalism,"
that curious infusion of politics with jurisprudence, that mutual
consultation of public opinion and established principles, which in the
past has so characterized the course of discussion and legislation
in America, is traceable to origins long antedating Marshall's chief
justiceship. On the other hand, there is no public career in American
history which ever built so largely upon this pervasive trait of the
national outlook as did Marshall's, or which has contributed so much to
render it effective in palpable institutions.

CHAPTER VIII. Among Friends And Neighbors

It is a circumstance of no little importance that the founder of
American Constitutional Law was in tastes and habit of life a simple
countryman. To the establishment of National Supremacy and the Sanctity
of Contracts Marshall brought the support not only of his office and
his command of the art of judicial reasoning but also the whole-souled
democracy and unpretentiousness of the fields. And it must be borne in
mind that Marshall was on view before his contemporaries as a private
citizen rather more of the time, perhaps, than as Chief Justice. His
official career was, in truth, a somewhat leisurely one. Until 1827 the
term at Washington rarely lasted over six weeks and subsequently not
over ten weeks. In the course of his thirty-four years on the Bench, the
Court handed down opinions in over 1100 cases, which is probably about
four times the number of opinions now handed down at a single term; and
of this number Marshall spoke for the Court in about half the cases.
Toward the middle of March, he left Washington for Richmond, and on the
22d of May opened court in his own circuit. Then, three weeks later, if
the docket permitted, he went on to Raleigh to hold court there for a
few days. The summers he usually spent on the estate which he inherited
from his father at Fauquier, or else he went higher up into the
mountains to escape malaria. But by the 22d of November at the latest he
was back once more in Richmond for court, and at the end of December for
a second brief term he again drove to Raleigh in his high-wheeled gig.
With his return to Washington early in February he completed