America’s greatest chief justice.
Born in Virginia on September 24, 1755, John Marshall
became a devoted nationalist during his years as a soldier in
the Continental Army. He rose to the rank of captain and
fought in battles throughout New York, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and Virginia in the Revolutionary War. Marshall often
credited his years as a soldier as the turning point of his life.
He was fond of saying that he joined the Continental Army as
a Virginian, but he left as an American. His devotion to the
nation led him to support the Constitution at Virginia’s ratifying convention, and he later joined the Federalist Party.
Marshall became a Federalist congressional representative
from Virginia and also served as both minister to France and
secretary of state under the administration of John Adams. As
one of Adams’s last acts in office, he appointed Marshall chief
justice of the Supreme Court.
When Marshall assumed his new post, the Supreme Court
still had no clear purpose. Article 3 of the Constitution gave
few details concerning the Court’s role in the new government. Justices had struggled for more than a decade with this
problem. The new chief justice wasted little time in establishing the Court’s precise role. He shaped it as an equal branch
of the national government alongside both the legislative and
executive branches. In the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803),
Marshall established the principle of judicial review that allowed the Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality
of laws. Later, in the case of McCullough v. Maryland (1814),
he decided that the Congress did have the power to create the
Bank of the United States. In this case, he also established the
powerful principle that the nation must always take precedence over the states when their laws conflict. Marshall died
July 6, 1835.
—Mary Stockwell
References
Smith, Jean Edward. John Marshall: Definer of a Nation. New
York: Henry Holt, 1998.