The Founding Fathers
Like
many of the delegates to the Constitutional
Convention, Luther Martin attended the College of New Jersey
(later Princeton), from which he graduated with honors in 1766. Though
born in Brunswick, NJ., in 1748, Martin moved to Maryland after
receiving his degree and taught there for 3 years. He then began to
study the law and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1771.
Martin was an early advocate of American
independence from Great Britain. In the fall of 1774 he served on the
patriot committee of Somerset County, and in December he attended a
convention of the Province of Maryland in Annapolis, which had been
called to consider the recommendations of the Continental
Congress. Maryland appointed Luther Martin its attorney general in
early 1778. In this capacity, Martin vigorously prosecuted Loyalists,
whose numbers were strong in many areas. Tensions had even led to
insurrection and open warfare in some counties. While still attorney
general, Martin joined the Baltimore Light Dragoons. In July 1781 his
unit joined Lafayette's forces
near Fredericksburg, VA., but Martin was recalled by the governor to
prosecute a treason trial.
Martin married Maria Cresap on Christmas Day
1783. Of their five children, three daughters lived to adulthood. His
postwar law practice grew to become one of the largest and most
successful in the country. In 1785 Martin was elected to the
Continental Congress, but this appointment was purely honorary. His
numerous public and private duties prevented him from traveling to
Philadelphia.
At the Constitutional Convention Martin
opposed the idea of a strong central government. When he arrived on
June 9, 1787, he expressed suspicion of the secrecy rule imposed on
the proceedings. He consistently sided with the small states and voted
against the Virginia Plan. On June 27 Martin spoke for more than 3
hours in opposition to the Virginia Plan's proposal for proportionate
representation in both houses of the legislature. Martin served on the
committee formed to seek a compromise on representation, where he
supported the case for equal numbers of delegates in at least one
house. Before the convention closed, he and another Maryland delegate,
John Francis Mercer, walked out.
In an address to the Maryland House of
Delegates in 1787 and in numerous newspaper articles, Martin attacked
the proposed new form of government and continued to fight
ratification of the Constitution
through 1788. He lamented the ascension of the national government
over the states and condemned what he saw as unequal representation in
Congress. Martin opposed including slaves in determining
representation and believed that the absence of a jury in the Supreme
Court gravely endangered freedom. At the convention, Martin
complained, the aggrandizement of particular states and individuals
often had been pursued more avidly than the welfare of the country.
The assumption of the term "federal" by those who favored a
national government also irritated Martin. Around 1791, however,
Martin turned to the Federalist party because of his animosity toward Thomas
Jefferson.
The first years of the 1800s saw Martin as
defense counsel in two controversial national cases. In the first
Martin won an acquittal for his close friend, Supreme
Court Justice Samuel Chase, in his impeachment trial in 1805. Two
years later Martin was one of Aaron Burr's defense lawyers when Burr
stood trial for treason in 1807.
After a record 28 consecutive years as state
attorney general, Luther Martin resigned in December 1805. In 1813
Martin became chief judge of the court of oyer and terminer for the
City and County of Baltimore. He was reappointed attorney general of
Maryland in 1818, and in 1819 he argued Maryland's position in the
landmark Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland. The plaintiff,
represented by Daniel Webster, William Pinckney, and William Wirt, won
the decision, which determined that states could not tax federal
institutions.
Martin's fortunes declined dramatically in
his last years. Heavy drinking, illness, and poverty all took their
toll. Paralysis, which had struck in 1819, forced him to retire as
Maryland's attorney general in 1822. In 1826, at the age of 78, Luther
Martin died in Aaron Burr's home in New York City and was buried in an
unmarked grave in St. John's churchyard.
Image: Courtesy
of The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
