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THE MARSHALL COURT AND CULTURAL CHANGE, 1815-1835
mark which that great lawyer ever made," and "not much inferior to
those of Webster, Hopkinson, and Pinkney," whose arguments he had
respectively described as "meticulous," "superb," and "great."170 Mar-
tin's argument in McCulloch also had its personal drama, with Martin,
by 1819 one of the few surviving participants in the Philadelphia Con-
vention, making his own history part of his advocacy.171
Martin was seventy-one at the time of his appearance in McCulloch,
but there was one sad chapter in his life yet to come. A stroke in August
1819 temporarily incapacitated him, although as late as 1821 he could
write a letter giving an interpretation of a Maryland insolvency statute.172
He began, however, to wander aimlessly into courtrooms, staring vacantly
and munching gingerbread, appearing to one observer as a "trembling
old dotard."173 In 1822 the Maryland legislature, in an unprecedented
gesture, passed a resolution assessing each member of the Maryland bar
five dollars annually "to the use of ... Luther Martin." The resolution
referred to the "afflicting disposition of divine Providence" that had
"bereaved [Martin] of his intellectual powers" and to the fact that Martin
was "poor and unable to procure support."174 That resolution was re-
pealed less than a year later, however, because Aaron Burr, who had
returned to America in 1812, re-established his law practice, and reversed
his financial misfortunes, offered to take Martin in as a boarder in Burr's
New York home. A strange friendship was thus renewed, and the two
veterans of the Burr trial lived together until 1826, when Martin died.175
Of all the lawyers portrayed in this chapter, Martin was the least
able to benefit from his considerable talents. His "unfortunate habits,"
Taney said, "made him reckless in money matters. ... He was kind to
17(1 Beveridge, John Marshall, IV,
285-87-
171 McCulloch was not Martin's last
Marshall Court argument. Ten days
later he appeared in Sergeant's Lessee
v. Biddle, 4 Wheat. 508 (1819), a rou-
tine civil procedure case in which his
argument was not reported.
172 Luther Martin to Richard Peters,
Jr., August [no date given) 1821. Rich-
ard Peters Papers, Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
173 Henry P. Goodard, as recounted
in Goodard, "Luther Martin: 'The Fed-
eral Bulldog,' " Md. Hist. Soc. Pub.,
24:10-11 (1887). The gingerbread ref-
erences are from John H. B. Latrohe's
recollections of seeing Martin when I.a
trobe was in his early twenties:
[I]t was an affecting sight. [Martin]
was in his dotage. He used to come
240
into the Courts when they were in
session, an aged man. decrepit in his
movements, dressed in the style of
the past generation . . . eating a star
ginger head as a child would do, and
smiling with a vacant lack lustre eye
as the members of the bar made way
for him.
Quoted in J. Semmes, John H. B. La-
trobc and His Times (1917), 204. La-
trobe, a Baltimore practitioner who ar-
gued before the Taney Court, was born
in 1803 and died in 1891.
174 Resolution No. 60. Feb. 23,
1822, quoted in Clarkson and Jett. Lu-
thcr Martin, 303.
175 For the last years of Martin's life,
see Clarkson and Jett. Luther Martin,
302-303.
Chapter IV: Prominent Lawyers Before the Marshall Court
young members of the profession, and liberal, and indeed profuse, in his
charities, and easily imposed upon by unworthy objects."176 His private
life had some unfortunate aspects, including the early death of his wife,
some unsuccessful infatuations, the elopement of one daughter at the age
of fifteen, and the institutionalization of another for mental illness.177 His
excessive drinking throughout his professional life occasionally led to
skirmishes in court and caused him personal embarrassment.178 But one
has the sense that Martin, for all the unhappiness of his domestic life and
the sad circumstances of his death, defied life rather than being buffeted
by it. He was, in a self-conscious, elegant, and circumspect age, an
independent, ebullient, and vivid spirit.
We have noted the contrasts in styles and temperaments in passing
from Emmet to Tazewell and then to Martin; another striking contrast
occurs in passing from Martin to William Pinkney. In this instance the
contrast is one any spectator witnessing arguments in the Marshall Court
could easily have marked. Pinkney was once reported as "writh[ing] as
if in pain when listening to Martin speaking in his slovenly way in broken
sentences, using the most indefensible vulgarisms and sometimes mis-
pronouncing his words."179 If Martin's mode of discourse offended Pink-
ney, so surely must his mode of dress, for whereas Martin was probably
the most "slovenly" of the leading Marshall Court advocates in his ap-
pearance, Pinkney was undoubtedly the most resplendent. "The personal
appearance of Mr. P.," Story recalled, "was as polished as if he had
been taken right from the drawer; his coat of the finest blue, was nicely
brushed; his boots shone with the highest polish; his waistcoat, of perfect
whiteness, glittered with gold buttons; he played in his hand with a light
cane; in short, he seemed perfectly satisfied with himself."180 Taney's
portrait went further:
[Pinkney] was very attentive to his dress, indeed more so than was
thought suitable for his age and station. It approached to dandyism, if
it did not reach it. He was always dressed in the extreme of the newest
176 Taney in Tyler, Memoir of Ta-
ney, 61.
177 See Clarkson and Jett, Luther
Martin, 192-96, 255, 291.
17S Goddard, "Luther Martin."
31-32, and Clarkson and Jett. Lutlier
Martin, 279-80, report examples, as
does Tyler, Memoir of Taney, 122-23,
recounting an anecdote told to him by
Taney. Martin was quoted as defining
"drunk" as "when after drinking liq-
uor [a man] says or does that which he
would not otherwise have said or
done." Quoted in Goddard, "Luther
Martin," 37.
l7'' Taney in Tyler. Memoir of Ta-
ney, 70.
1X0 J. Story, "Notes for a Lecture on
William Pinkney," in W. Story, Life
ami Letters, II, 491.
241
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