Chief Justice John Marshall was introduced when we discussed the cases of Marbury v. Madison and the trial of Aaron Burr. In his middle years on the court, Marshal decided a number of cases that bore on relations between the federal government and the states. Marshall was a strong nationalist who held a Hamiltonian view of the Constitution. His decisions constantly favored manufacturing and business interests, advanced economic development, and established the supremacy of national legislation over state laws, both generally and in
Ally and in the economic arena. He also affirmed the Constitution as "the Supreme Law of the Land."
John Marshall's father, Thomas Marshall, a lawyer for George Washington, had trained his son in the law when John was still in his teens. Educated mostly at home, John Marshall had studied William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, the most famous legal text of its time, and had learned by heart much of the poetry of Alexander Pope. He served in the Virginia militia early in the Revolution and was later on Washington's staff during the winter at Valley Forge.
Following his service in the American Revolution Marshall attended law lectures given by George Wythe at the College of William and Mary, and his license to practice in Virginia was signed by Governor Thomas Jefferson, ironic because of the bitterness that arose between the two men. He developed a successful law practice in Richmond and argued a case before the United States Supreme Court. Offered the position of Attorney General by George Washington, he was obliged to turn it down because of business demands. (At Washington's request he forwarded the letter to the next candidate in line—the process of appointing cabinet members was far less formal in those days.)
Marshall's nationalist decisions strengthened the power of the federal government, but his decisions were always written with a thorough explanation of constitutional principles. His clear definitions of obligations under legal contracts and jurisdictional matters regarding commerce provided the basis for the expansion of American capitalist enterprises.
Marshall's tenure on the Court established not only important legal precedents, but the great Chief Justice also instituted practices still followed by the court. For example, the justices all shake hands before entering the chambers to hear a case. The collegiality instituted by Marshall among the justices has persisted down to the present time. A colleague and friend of Marshall once remarked of the man, "He was more loved than he was respected, and he was very much respected."
The Marshall Court set important precedents in its decisions, many of which established important building blocks of American jurisprudence. The Marshall Court:
• Upheld the sanctity of contracts, beginning with Fletcher v. Peck, the Yazoo Land Fraud case in 1810;
• Asserted the precedence of federal power over state authority, and in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) the Court affirmed the constitutionality of the Second Bank of the United States, thereby legitimizing the doctrine of implied powers;
• Defined Interstate Commerce in Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824 and asserted the right of the Federal Government to exclusive control over that commerce, though later decisions granted the right of states to act where the Federal Government had not done so;
• Nationalized many issues, and can be said to have made the U. S. far more amenable to capitalism;
• Established a hierarchy of law: Constitution—Federal—State.
World History
