Beacon Lights of History, Volume 11 | Page 3

Federal party.
United States Envoy to France (1797-98).
Member of Congress from Virginia (1799-1800), and supporter of
President Adams's administration.
Secretary of State in Adams's Cabinet (1800-01).
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
His many important decisions on constitutional questions.
Maintains power of the Supreme Court to decide upon the
constitutionality of Acts of Congress.

Asserts power of Federal Government to incorporate banks, with
freedom from State control and taxation.
Maintains also its power to regulate commerce, free from State
hindrance or obstruction.
His constitutional opinion, authoritative and unshaken.
His decisions on questions of International Law.
Decides the status of a captured American vessel visiting her native
port as a foreign man-of-war.
Sound decision respecting prize cases.
His views and rulings respecting confiscation of persons and property
in time of war.
Personal characteristics and legal acumen.
Weight and influence of the Supreme Court of the United States.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XI.
Surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown. _After the painting by
Ch. Ed. Armand Dumaresq_
Puritans Going to Church _After the painting by G. H. Boughton_.
Benjamin Franklin _After the painting by Baron Jos. Sifrède
Duplessis_.
Franklin's Experiments with Electricity After the painting by Karl
Storch.
The Fight of the Bonhomme Richard and Serapis _After the painting
by J. O. Davidson_.

George Washington After the painting by Gilbert Stuart Washington's
Home at Mt. Vernon From a photograph.
Alexander Hamilton After the painting by Gilbert Stuart.
Duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr _After the painting
by J. Mund_.
John Adams After the painting by Gilbert Stuart.
Patrick Henry's Speech in the House of Burgesses After the painting by
Rothermel.
Thomas Jefferson After the painting by Gilbert Stuart.
John Marshall From an engraving after the painting by Inman.

PRELIMINARY CHAPTER
THE AMERICAN IDEA.
1600-1775.
In a survey of American Institutions there seem to be three fundamental
principles on which they are based: first, that all men are naturally
equal in rights; second, that a people cannot be taxed without their own
consent; and third, that they may delegate their power of
self-government to representatives chosen by themselves.
The remote origin of these principles it is difficult to trace. Some
suppose that they are innate, appealing to consciousness,--concerning
which there can be no dispute or argument. Others suppose that they
exist only so far as men can assert and use them, whether granted by
rulers or seized by society. Some find that they arose among our
Teutonic ancestors in their German forests, while still others go back to
Jewish, Grecian, and Roman history for their origin. Wherever they
originated, their practical enforcement has been a slow and unequal

growth among various peoples, and it is always the evident result of an
evolution, or development of civilization.
In the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson
asserts that "all men are created equal," and that among their
indisputable rights are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Nobody disputes this; and yet, looking critically into the matter, it
seems strange that, despite Jefferson's own strong anti-slavery
sentiments, his associates should have excluded the colored race from
the common benefits of humanity, unless the negroes in their
plantations were not men at all, only things or chattels. The American
people went through a great war and spent thousands of millions of
dollars to maintain the indissoluble union of their States; but the events
of that war and the civil reconstruction forced the demonstration that
African slaves have the same inalienable rights for recognition before
the law as the free descendants of the English and the Dutch. The
statement of the Declaration has been formally made good; and yet,
whence came it?
If we go back to the New Testament, the great Charter of Christendom,
in search of rights, we are much puzzled to find them definitely
declared anywhere; but we find, instead, duties enjoined with great
clearness and made universally binding. It is only by a series of
deductions, especially from Saint Paul's epistles, that we infer the right
of Christian liberty, with no other check than conscience,--the being
made free by the gospel of Christ, emancipated from superstition and
tyrannies of opinion; yet Paul says not a word about the manumission
of slaves, as a right to which they are justly entitled, any more than he
urges rebellion against a constituted civil government because it is a
despotism. The burden of his political injunctions is submission to
authority, exhortations to patience under the load of evils and
tribulations which so many have to bear without hope of relief.
In the earlier Jewish jurisprudence we find laws in relation to property
which recognize natural justice as clearly as does the jurisprudence of
Rome; but revolt and rebellion against bad rulers or kings, although apt
to take place, were nowhere enjoined, unless royal command should

militate