John Marshall biography

Dromo's Den

John Marshall Biography

MARSHALL, John (1755–1835). The most famous of American jurists, for 34 years Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was born Sept. 24, 1755, in Fauquier Co., Va.; studied under a private tutor; then attended an academy in Westmoreland County; and studied law until the outbreak of the Revolution, when he entered the army as a volunteer. He soon rose to the rank of first lieutenant, and by 1777 was a captain. His first fight was near Norfolk; he afterward served in the New Jersey campaign, was at Valley Forge during the memorable winter of 1777–78, and participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, and in the capture of Stony Point. During most of 1780, while without a command, he attended the law lectures delivered by the famous Chancellor George Wythe at William and Mary College. The following year he was admitted to the bar of Fauquier County, where he practiced for two years. In 1782 he was elected to a seat in the Virginia Legislature and soon became a member of the Executive Council. In the meantime he had removed to Richmond. In 1784 he was again elected to represent Fauquier County in the Legislature. In 1787 he was chosen to represent Henrico, the county in which he had lately taken up his residence, and in the following year was a delegate to the State convention which was called to ratify the Federal Constitution. The distinction of securing the adoption of the Constitution by Virginia belongs to Marshall and Madison perhaps more than to any others. Marshall's refutations of Patrick Henry's arguments against adoption were particularly effective. In the meantime his law practice was rapidly increasing, and he declined a reëlection to the Legislature in 1792 in order to devote his whole time to his practice, but in 1795 he was again persuaded to stand for reëlection and was successful. It was about this time that Marshall appeared before the Supreme Court in the famous case of Ware v. Hilton, in which the validity of the Virginia Sequestration Act was involved, and his able argument added greatly to his growing reputation. He declined to accept the post of Attorney-General or the French mission tendered him by President Washington, but finally consented to go to Paris in 1797 with C. C. Pinekney and Elbridge Gerry to induce the Directory to remove the restrictions which it had laid on American commerce. Although the negotiations proved fruitless, Marshall's conduct seems to have been more satisfactory to the government than that of either of his colleagues. In 1798 he declined to accept a seat on the bench of the United States Supreme Court as the successor of James Wilson, but in the same year at the solicitation of Washington became a candidate for Congress and was elected, although his constituency was decidedly Anti-Federalist in politics. In Congress he supported the administration in particular and Federalist measures generally, although he voted for the repeal of the obnoxious Alien and Sedition Acts. His most notable effort in Congress was a speech in support of the conduct of the President in surrendering Jonathan Robbins, the murderer of a man on a British frigate, who had escaped to the United States and had been delivered up to the British government by the President. Marshall showed conclusively that the surrender of Robbins was clearly within the President's constitutional power. In May, 1800, he was invited by President Adams to take the office of Secretary of War, but declined. However, he accepted the position of Secretary of State, which he held for a short time. On Jan. 31, 1801, he was commissioned Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The accession of Marshall to the bench of the Supreme Court as Chief Justice marks a turning point in his life and an epoch in the legal and constitutional history of the United States. He died July 6, 1835, at Philadelphia, whither he had gone for medical treatment. For 34 years Marshall dominated the court by his great learning, his masterful power of analysis and clearness of statement. Perhaps no judge ever excelled him in the capacity to hold a legal proposition before the eyes of others in such various forms and colors. He resolved every argument by the most subtle analysis into its ultimate principles, and then applied them to the decision of the case in question. His service on the bench, which continued until his death, was effective and conspicuous not only in securing for the court the recognition and profound respect for which hitherto there had been no especial occasion, but also in so expounding the Constitution as to make clear for the first time the nature of the national government and to forecast the lines along which, in actual development as well as in judicial interpretation, the nation was to proceed. In the period of Marshall's predominance the court upheld the Federalist theories, as in the national bank case of McCulloch v. Maryland, and gave a clear definition of the relations of the State and national governments. On the subject of the constitutional prohibition against the impairment of contracts, several noteworthy opinions were rendered by him, culminating in the famous Dartmouth College case, the soundness of which has more recently been questioned. Particularly in the field of constitutional law the work of Marshall forms the greatest contribution to American jurisprudence made by any judge. In a single decision, the famous case of Marbury v. Madison (1 Cranch, 137), he established the authority of the Federal courts to set aside an act of Congress on the ground of its unconstitutionality, and thus he placed on a firm footing the principle of judicial supremacy. His interpretations of the Constitution have long been recognized as an important and permanent feature of American public law. In the field of international law, also, his contribution was very great, as witness especially his opinion in Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon (7 Cranch, 116). This aspect of Marshall's importance had not been widely appreciated until it was discussed by John Bassett Moore in John Marshall (Boston, 1901). Mr. Moore says that from 1790 to 1801 only six decisions involving Constitutional questions had been rendered by the Supreme Court; from 1801 to 1835 there were 62, of which 36 were written by Marshall. During his period of service there were 195 cases involving points of international law, and Marshall delivered the opinion in 80 of these. Aside from his judicial labors, Marshall wrote a Life of George Washington (5 vols., 1804–07; 2d ed., 2 vols., 1832). His introduction to this work, A History of the Colonies Planted by the English on the Coast of North America, was published separately in 1824. John Marshall, Complete Constitutional Decisions, edited by J. M. Dillon, appeared in 1903 (Chicago), and The Constitutional Decisions of John Marshall, edited with introductory essay by J. O. Cotton, Jr., in 1905 (2 vols., New York). Consult also: A. B. Magruder, John Marshall (Boston, 1885; new ed., 1908) ; Henry Hitchcock, in T. M. Cooley et al., Constitutional History of the United States as Seen in the Development of American Law (New York, 1887) ; J. F. Dillon, John Marshall (3 vols., Chicago, 1903) ; H. Flanders, Life of John Marshall (Philadelphia, 1905) ; J. E. Oster, The Political and Economic Doctrines of John Marshall; also his Speeches, Letters, and hitherto Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (New York, 1914)

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 135-136.