The American Judiciary, page 299 by Simeon E. Baldwin
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xcept for the gravest cause. Judicial independence had been secured by the very struggle to defeat it. What has won in any contest finds favor with the multitude. They admire a victor. From this time on the courts both of the United States and the States grew in public esteem. When those of the former seemed to trench on the fields of State sovereignty, particularly in the South, the inroad was resented.[Footnote: See letters of Marshall alluding to this, in "Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society," 2d Series, XIV, 325, 327, 329, 330.] In one Southern State it was even opposed by force.[Footnote: See Chap. X.] As late as 1854 the supremacy of the Supreme Court of the United States in expounding the federal Constitution was contested by the courts of a Northern State; there also in a case growing out of the system of slavery.[Footnote: Ableman v. Booth, 21 Howard's Reports, 506.]
Another decision by the same tribunal of a similar nature--that in the Dred Scott case[Footnote: Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 Howard's Reports, 393.]--greatly strengthened the confidence of the Southern people in the federal courts, and weakened that of the North.
It did much to bring on the Civil War, but the result of that struggle was to confirm the authority not only of the Supreme Court but of the Supreme Court as it was under Marshall and his original associates. In 1901, the centenary of his appointment was celebrated all over the country, North and South. Such a tribute was never paid before in any country to the memory of a judge. His services were commemorated for the very reason that led Jefferson to depreciate them--because they led to the establishment of a strong national government with a controlling judicial authority adequate to protect it within its sphere from interference or obstruction in any way by any State.
Confidence in the State courts has also been strengthened during the last century. It was greatly shaken at the time of the fall of the Federalists. They had los