Marshall, John (1755-1835)

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John Marshall (1755-1835)

Chief justice of the supreme court

Second Choice. John Marshall was President John Adams’s second choice for appointment to the Supreme Court when Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned in 1800. The selection of a chief justice took on heightened importance since the election of Thomas Jefferson, and a Republican Congress meant that the Federalists would no longer control the government. John Adams knew that the courts alone could impose a lasting Federalist balance to an otherwise politically lopsided government. He turned first to John Jay, former chief justice, the governor of New York, and an esteemed Federalist. Jay, however, had few fond memories of his service on the Supreme Court, with its punishing requirement of riding the circuit and the lack of a clearly defined constitutional role. He politely declined the honor, but his letter did not reach Adams until the middle of January 1801. With barely two months left in office, Adams had little time to deliberate on a substitute; he had to choose quickly. When Secretary of State John Marshall presented Jay’s letter to the president, Adams looked up and asked, “Who shall I nominate now?” Answering his own question, the president told Marshall: “I believe I must nominate you.”

Early Years. John Marshall was born in the frontier county of Fauquier, Virginia, on 24 September 1755, the first child of Thomas and Mary Keith Marshall. He was descended from the great Randolph family, a distinction he shared with his rival, Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Marshall made his life as a surveyor and land agent and somehow found the means to borrow or purchase a substantial library. He encouraged his young son to read history and poetry. Marshall recalled in later years great happiness in transcribing the works of Alexander Pope at the age of twelve. Marshall’s youth was steeped in the revolutionary spirit, and as a captain in the Continental Army he saw action in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. Marshall returned to Virginia in late 1779 and began to study law under George Wythe at William and Mary College. Marshall was still in the Continental Army when he was studying law, and this part-time education was his only formal legal training. He was admitted to the Virginia bar on 28 August 1780. In 1783 he married Mary Ambler, known as Polly.

Lawyer. Marshall became one of Virginia’s foremost lawyers, noted for his skill in thinking quickly on his feet. The 1783 Treaty of Paris had provided for repayment of prewar debts owed to British creditors, but states tried to protect their citizens from having to repay. Marshall made his fame and early fortune as a lawyer representing Virginians who sought to use state laws to stave off the claims of British creditors. In one case, Ware v. Hylton (1796), Marshall appeared before the Supreme Court to argue that a Virginia statute that allowed citizens to discharge their debts by making payments to the state treasury should be upheld. Judge James Iredell wrote that the oral argument before the Court reflected “a degree of ability equal to any occasion … an ingenuity, a depth of investigation, and a power of reasoning fully equal to anything I have ever witnessed.” Marshall’s talents were large, but he lost his case, the only one he ever argued before the Supreme Court. The Treaty of Paris had to be upheld, in Justice William Cushing’s words, as “being sanctioned as the supreme law, by the Constitution of the United States, which nobody pretends to deny to be paramount and controlling to all state laws, and even state constitutions, wheresoever they interfere or disagree.” Marshall would embrace these sentiments of the primacy of the federal laws and Constitution during his tenure on the Court.

“X,” “Y,” “Z.” Marshall’s commitment to the new nation led him to public service, and he was elected to the Virginia Assembly in 1782. He was an ardent nationalist and one of Virginia’s foremost supporters of ratification of the Constitution. At the 1788 Virginia Constitutional Convention Marshall offered a strong defense of Article III, the judiciary article. Marshall confronted the Anti-Federalist opposition by explaining the importance of an independent judiciary to the balance of federal power. Embracing the concept of judicial review, Marshall declared that if Congress were to enact a law not warranted by the Constitution, the Court “would declare it void.” In 1797 President Adams appointed Marshall, Virginia’s leading Federalist after Washington, to join Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Elbridge Gerry as a special envoy to Paris. Marshall was appalled when he and his colleagues were approached by French ministers soliciting bribes. In dispatches sent back to America he gave the ministers the code names “X,” “Y,” and “Z” and found himself something of a hero when he returned home. Marshall was elected to Congress as a Virginia Federalist, and President Adams appointed him secretary of war on 9 May 1800. Marshall requested that Adams withdraw his nomination. Adams was so determined to have Marshall in his cabinet that he dismissed Secretary of State Timothy Pickering in order to open up the post for Marshall. He did not decline this honor “for which I had vanity enough to think myself fitted.” After the sweeping Federalist losses in the election of 1800 Marshall expected to retire from public service with John Adams. However, when John Jay declined a second appointment as chief justice, John Marshall found himself at the head of the third branch of government, politically isolated and lacking any practical experience. He was just forty-five years old.

On the Bench. Marshall’s first act as chief justice was to administer the presidential oath to Thomas Jefferson on 4 March 1801. This was the first occasion when leadership in America passed from one party to another, a peaceful transfer of power. Resulting from a popular election, the event was a stunning demonstration of the great American experiment. As chief justice, Marshall developed the primacy of the Supreme Court in interpreting the Constitution and laws. Marshall established an overwhelming series of precedents: the doctrine of judicial review (Marbury v. Madison in 1803), a limited meaning of treason (the Aaron Burr trial of 1807), the federal government’s constitutional supremacy over the states (United States v. Peters in 1809), limits on the government’s power to interfere with contracts {Fletcher v. Peck in 1810), and broad powers for Congress (McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819). He also established the Supreme Court as the final voice when the states and the federal government disagreed. Marshall enhanced the Court by making it speak with one voice. He frowned on allowing each justice to write a separate opinion, and by the power of his social skills and legal reasoning he dominated the Court. Marshall’s Court decided the vast majority of cases unanimously, and he wrote the opinions in about half of the decisions handed down between 1801 and 1835.

Final Years. Marshall’s work on the Court was supplemented by his deep devotion to Polly, who was a sickly woman in need of regular care and attention, and to writing history. He wrote the first biography of George Washington in 1805–1807. After Polly died on Christmas Day 1831, Marshall’s health began to fail; he died on 6 July 1835. At his funeral in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell cracked while paying tribute to the great chief justice.