John Marshall
John Marshall (
September 24,
1755–
July 6,
1835) was an
American statesman and jurist who more than anyone shaped American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court a center of power. Marshall was the fourth
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from
February 4,
1801 until his death. He served in the
United States House of Representatives from
March 4,
1799 to
June 7,
1800, and under President
John Adams was
Secretary of State from
June 6,
1800 to
March 4,
1801. Marshall was a native of the state of
Virginia and a leader of the
Federalist Party.
The longest-serving Chief Justice in
Supreme Court history, Marshall dominated the Court for over three decades and played a significant role in the development of the American legal system. Most notably, he established that the courts are entitled to exercise
judicial review, i.e., the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. Thus, Marshall has been credited with cementing the position of the judiciary as an independent and influential branch of government. Furthermore, Marshall made several important decisions relating to Federalism, shaping the balance of power between the federal government and the states during the early years of the republic. In particular, he repeatedly confirmed the supremacy of federal law over state law, and supported an expansive reading of the
enumerated powers.
John Marshall was born in a
log cabin near
Germantown, a rural community on the
Virginia frontier, in what is now
Fauquier County near
Midland, Virginia. His parents were Thomas Marshall, a planter, and Mary Randolph Keith. (His mother was a cousin of
Thomas Jefferson; his cousin was
United States Representative Humphrey Marshall.) John was the oldest of fifteen children (seven boys and eight girls), all of whom survived into adulthood, and many of whom were remarkably significant in the development of the republic. Marshall was of
English descent.
["Marshall, John." (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. London: Cambridge University Press.] As a young man, he studied the
classics and English literature, eventually working with a private tutor from
Scotland, the Reverend James Thompson. At the age of fourteen, he was sent to a classical academy in
Westmoreland County for additional instruction.
James Monroe, who would later become the fifth President of the United States, studied alongside Marshall. After a year, he returned home to resume studies with the Reverend Thompson.
As the
American Revolutionary War began in 1775, Marshall joined the
Culpeper Minutemen and was appointed as a lieutenant. He fought at the
Battle of Great Bridge, where the minutemen defeated British troops under
Lord Dunmore, permanently ending British control of Virginia. In 1776, Marshall's company was attached to the
Eleventh Virginia Continental Regiment. He participated in many battles, including
Brandywine,
Germantown,
Monmouth,
Stony Point and
Paulus Hook. In the winter of 1777-1778, he was at
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with
General George Washington's troops.
["John Marshall" Encyclopædia Britannica, from Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004 DVD. Copyright © 1994-2003 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. May 30, 2003] During his military service, he became personally acquainted with Washington.
Having reached the rank of captain, Marshall returned to Virginia in 1779. He studied law privately, attending lectures conducted by
George Wythe at the
College of William and Mary. He was admitted to the bar in 1780, but returned to the army when British troops invaded Virginia later in the same year. He served under the
Baron von Steuben until 1781, when he resigned his army commission in order to begin private law practice. Soon, Marshall gained a reputation as a leading lawyer. He married seventeen-year-old Mary Willis Ambler in 1783; the couple would have ten children, of whom six would survive into adulthood. With his new wife, the young lawyer settled in
Richmond, the state capital.
["Marshall, John." (1888). Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton and Company.]In 1782, Marshall entered politics, winning a seat in the
Virginia House of Delegates, in which he served until 1790, and again from 1795–1796. The
Virginia General Assembly elected him to serve on the Council of State later in the same year. In 1785, Marshall took up the additional office of Recorder of the Richmond City
Hustings Court.
["Marshall, John." Federal Judicial Center.]In 1788, Marshall was selected as a delegate to the Virginia convention responsible for ratifying or rejecting the
United States Constitution, which had been proposed by the
Philadelphia Convention a year earlier. Together with
James Madison and
Edmund Randolph, Marshall led the fight for ratification. He was especially active in defense of Article III which provides for the Federal judiciary.
His most prominent opponent at the ratification convention was the
anti-Federalist leader
Patrick Henry. Ultimately, the convention approved the constitution by a vote of 89–79. Marshall identified with the new
Federalist Party (which supported a strong national government and commercial interests), rather than Jefferson's
Republican Party (which advocated
states' rights and idealized the yeoman farmer and the
French Revolution).
Meanwhile, Marshall's private law practice continued to flourish. He successfully represented the heirs of
Lord Fairfax in
Hite v. Fairfax (1786), an important
Virginia Supreme Court case involving a large tract of land in the
Northern Neck of Virginia. In
1796, he appeared before the United States Supreme Court in another important case,
Ware v. Hylton, a case involving the validity of a Virginia law providing for the confiscation of debts owed to British subjects. Marshall argued that the law was a legitimate exercise of the state's power; however, the Supreme Court ruled against him, holding that the
Treaty of Paris required the collection of such debts.
|
An engraving of Justice Marshall made by Charles-Balthazar-Julien Fevret de Saint-Mémin in 1808. |
In 1795, Marshall declined Washington's offer of
Attorney General of the United States, and in 1796 declined to serve as minister to
France. In 1797 he accepted when President
John Adams appointed him to a three-member commission to represent the United States in France. (The other members of this commission were
Charles Pinckney and
Elbridge Gerry.) However, when the envoys arrived, the French refused to conduct diplomatic negotiations unless the United States paid enormous bribes. This diplomatic scandal became known as the
XYZ Affair, inflaming anti-French opinion in the United States. Hostility increased even further when the
Directoire expelled Marshall and Pinckney from France. Marshall's handling of the affair, as well as public resentment towards the French, made him popular with the American public when he returned to the United States.
In 1798, Marshall declined a Supreme Court appointment, recommending
Bushrod Washington, who would later become one of Marshall's staunchest allies on the Court.
[Ariens, Michael. "John Marshall."] In
1799, Marshall reluctantly ran for a seat in the
United States House of Representatives. Although his congressional district (which included the city of
Richmond) favored the Republican Party, Marshall won the race, in part due to his conduct during the XYZ Affair and in part due to the support of
Patrick Henry. His most notable speech was related to the case of Thomas Nash (alias Jonathan Robbins), whom the government had extradited to Great Britain on charges of murder. Marshall defended the government's actions, arguing that nothing in the Constitution prevents the United States from extraditing one of its citizens.
On
May 7,
1799, President Adams nominated Congressman Marshall as
Secretary of War. However, on
May 12, Adams withdrew the nomination, instead naming him
Secretary of State, as a replacement for
Timothy Pickering. Confirmed by the Senate on
May 13, Marshall took office on
June 6,
1800. As Secretary of State, Marshall directed the negotiation of the
Convention of 1800 which ended the
Quasi-War with France and brought peace to the new nation.
It was in 1801 that Marshall embarked upon the most important work of his life, that of leading the Supreme Court of the United States. On
January 20 of that year, President Adams nominated him to replace
Oliver Ellsworth as Chief Justice. Adams had first offered the seat to ex-Chief Justice
John Jay, who declined on the grounds that the Court lacked "energy, weight, and dignity."
[Goldman, Jerry. "John Jay." OYEZ Project.] Marshall was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on
January 27 and took office on
February 4. However, he continued to serve as Secretary of State until President Adams' term expired on
March 4.
Soon after becoming Chief Justice, Marshall revolutionized the manner in which the Supreme Court announced its decisions. Previously, each Justice would author a separate opinion (known as a
seriatim opinion). Under Marshall, however, the Supreme Court adopted the practice of handing down a single opinion of the Court. As Marshall was almost always the author of this opinion, he essentially became the Court's sole mouthpiece in important cases. His forceful personality allowed him to dominate his fellow Justices; he very rarely found himself on the losing side. (The case of
Ogden v. Saunders in 1827 was the sole constitutional case in which he dissented from the majority.)
The first important case of Marshall's career was
Marbury v. Madison (1803), in which the Supreme Court invalidated a provision of the
Judiciary Act of 1789 on the grounds that it violated the Constitution.
Marbury was the first case in which the Supreme Court ruled an act of Congress unconstitutional; it firmly established the doctrine of
judicial review. Oddly enough the Justice-of-the-Peace commissions which were the subject of the Marbury case were to be delivered to the nominees by then Secretary of State, John Marshall. Some historians have speculated that Marshall may have deliberately failed to deliver several of the commissions so as to trigger a case that would ultimately create the doctrine of judicial review. The Court's decision was opposed by President
Thomas Jefferson, who lamented that this doctrine made the Constitution "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."
[Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to Spencer Roane.]In 1807, he presided, with Judge
Cyrus Griffin, at the great state trial of former Vice President
Aaron Burr, who was charged with
treason and misdemeanor. Prior to the trial, President Jefferson condemned Burr and strongly supported conviction. Marshall, however, narrowly construed the definition of treason provided in Article III of the Constitution; he noted that the prosecution had failed to prove that Burr had committed an "overt act," as the Constitution required. As a result, the jury acquitted the defendant, leading to increased animosity between the President and the Chief Justice.
[Linder, Doug. "The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr."]During the 1810s and 1820s, Marshall made a series of decisions involving the balance of power between the federal government and the states. He repeatedly affirmed federal supremacy; for example, he established in
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) that states could not tax federal institutions and upheld congressional authority to create the
Second Bank of the United States, even though the authority to do this was not expressly stated in the Constitution. Also, in
Cohens v. Virginia (1821), he established that the Federal judiciary could hear appeals from decisions of state courts. Justices
Bushrod Washington and
Joseph Story proved to be his strongest allies in these cases.
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The text of the McCulloch v. Maryland decision, handed down March 6, 1819, as recorded in the minutes of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Court determined the separate states could not tax the federal government. |
As the young nation was endangered by regional and local interests which often threatened to fracture its hard-fought unity, Marshall repeatedly interpreted the Constitution broadly so that the Federal Government had the power to become a respected and creative force guiding and encouraging the nation's growth. Thus, for all practical purposes, the
Constitution in its most important aspects today is the Constitution as John Marshall interpreted it. As Chief Justice, he embodied the majesty of the
judiciary of the government as fully as the
President of the United States stood for the power of the
Executive Branch.
Marshall wrote several important
Supreme Court opinions, including:
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)
Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. 87 (1810)
McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)
Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819)
Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264 (1821)
Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824)
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832)
Marshall served as Chief Justice through all or part of six Presidential administrations (
John Adams,
Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison,
James Monroe,
John Quincy Adams and
Andrew Jackson), and remained a stalwart proponent of
Federalism and a nemesis of the
Jeffersonian school of government throughout its heyday. He participated in over 1000 decisions, writing 519 of the opinions himself.
Marshall loved his home near Richmond, Virginia and spent as much time there as possible in quiet contentment. For approximately three months in every year, however, he would be away in Washington for the Court's annual term, and he would also be away for several weeks to serve on the circuit court in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In 1805, he published a five-volume biography of
George Washington, the
Life of Washington, based on records and papers provided him by the President's family, of which the first volume was in
1824 reissued separately as
A History of the American Colonies. The work reflected Marshall's Federalist principles.
In 1823, he became first president of the Richmond branch of the
American Colonization Society, which was dedicated to resettling freed
American slaves in
Liberia, on the West coast of
Africa.
In 1828, he presided over a convention to promote internal improvements in Virginia.
In 1829, he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention where he was again joined by fellow American statesman and loyal Virginians,
James Madison and
James Monroe, although all were quite old by that time. Marshall mainly spoke at this convention to promote the necessity of an independent judiciary.
On
Christmas Day, 1831, Mary, his beloved wife of some 49 years, died. Most who knew him agreed that after Mary's death, he was never quite the same.
In 1832, Marshall's revised and condensed two-volume
Life of Washington was published.
On returning from
Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1835 he suffered severe contusions resulting from an accident to the stage coach in which he was riding. His health, which had not been good, now rapidly declined and in June he journeyed to
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for medical attendance. There he died on
July 6, at the age of 79, having served as Chief Justice for over 34 years.
Two days before his death he enjoined his friends to place only a plain slab over his and his wife's graves, and he wrote the simple inscription himself. His body, which was taken to Richmond, lies in Shockhoe Hill Cemetery.
JOHN MARSHALL
Son of Thomas and Mary Marshall
was born the 24th of September 1755
Intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler
the 3rd of January 1783
Departed this life
the 6th day of July 1835.
He was the last person for whom the
Liberty Bell tolled. After it tolled for his death, the next time someone went to see it, the bell was broken.
|
Marshall Memorial by WW Story |
Marshall's home in
Richmond, Virginia has been preserved by
APVA Preservation Virginia.
The United States Bar Association commissioned sculptor
William Wetmore Story to execute the statue of Marshall that now stands [sits] in Washington D.C. Story's father
Joseph Story had served as an Associate Jusice on the
United States Supreme Court with Marshall. The statue was dedicated in
1884.
An engraved portrait of Marshall appears on U.S. paper money on the series 1890 and 1891 treasury notes. These rare notes are in great demand by collectors today. Also, in 1914, an engraved portrait of Marshall was used as the central vignette on series 1914 $500 federal reserve notes. These notes are also quite scarce. Example of both notes are available for viewing on the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco website.
Two law schools today bear his name: The
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, and
The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois.
John Marshall's brithplace in
Fauquier County is a park, the John Marshall Birthplace Park, and a marker can be seen on
Route 28 noting this event.
Fauquier County is also part of the
John Marshall Soil and Water Conservation District which was named in his honor.
* Collon, Joseph P., Jr., ed.,
Constitutional Decisions of John Marshall, (New York and London, 1905)
* Corwin, Edward W.,
John Marshall and the Constitution: A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919. Online Edition: Project Gutenberg
*
Jean Edward Smith,
John Marshall: Definer Of A Nation, New York: Henry, Holt & Company, 1996.
*
Joseph Story, ed.,
The Writings of John Marshall, late Chief Justice of the United States, upon the Federal Constitution, Boston, 1839.
**
Discourse upon the Life, Character, and Services of John Marshall* Flanders, Henry,
The lives and times of the chief justices of the Supreme court of the United States, (2d series, Philadelphia, 1858). Online Edition: Making of America Books
* Beveridge, Albert J.,
The Life of John Marshall, Four Volumes (1916-1919). Long considered the standard, albeit laudatory, biography of Marshall. Out of print but may be found on Internet used book web sites.
*
*
*
List of places and things named for John Marshall*
Free ebook of John Marshall at
Project Gutenberg*
Supreme Court Historical Society: John Marshall*
"John and Tom -- Rivals in Everything" by Georgia Bennett, Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 10, 1935*
The John Marshall House, Richmond, Virginia*
Pictures of US Treasury Notes featuring John Marshall, provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.*
Pictures of large size Federal Reserve Notes featuring John Marshall, provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
