By Edward S. Corwin A Chronicle of the Supreme Court Volume 16 of the Chronicles of America Series ∴ Allen Johnson, Editor Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. Jefferys Abraham Lincoln Edition New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1920 Copyright, 1919 by Yale University Press JOHN MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION ∴...

The Establishment Of The National Judiciary The monarch of ancient times mingled the functions of priest and judge. It is therefore not altogether surprising that even today a judicial system should be stamped with a certain resemblance to an ecclesiastical hierarchy. If the Church of the Middle Ages was “an army encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most efficient discipline, animated with a common purpose, every soldier panoplied with inviolability a

Marshall’s Early Years John Marshall was born on September 24, 1755, in Fauquier County, Virginia. Though like Jefferson he was descended on his mother’s side from the Randolphs of Turkey Island, colonial grandees who were also progenitors of John Randolph, Edmund Randolph, and Robert E. Lee, his father, Thomas Marshall, was “a planter of narrow fortune” and modest lineage and a pioneer. Fauquier was then on the frontier, and a few years after John was born the family moved still farther westwar

Jefferson’s War On The Judiciary By a singular coincidence Marshall took his seat as Chief Justice at the opening of the first term of Court in Washington, the new capital, on Wednesday, February 4, 1801. The most beautiful of capital cities was then little more than a swamp, athwart which ran a streak of mire named by solemn congressional enactment “Pennsylvania Avenue.” At one end of this difficult thoroughfare stood the President’s mansion—still in the hands of the builders but already saggin

The Trial Of Aaron Burr When , on March 30, 1807, Colonel Aaron Burr, late Vice-President of the United States, was brought before Chief Justice Marshall in the Eagle Tavern at Richmond on the charge of treason, there began the greatest criminal trial in American history and one of the notable trials in the annals of the law. “The Burr Conspiracy” still remains after a hundred years an unsolved enigma. Yet whether Burr actually planned treason against the United States in the year of grace 1806

The Tenets Of Nationalism “ John Marshall stands in history as one of that small group of men who have founded States. He was a nation-maker, a state-builder. His monument is in the history of the United States and his name is written upon the Constitution of his country.” So spoke Senator Lodge, on John Marshall Day, February 4, 1901. “I should feel a … doubt,” declared Justice Holmes on the same occasion, “whether, after Hamilton and the Constitution itself, Marshall’s work proved more than a

The Sanctity Of Contracts Marshall’s work was one of conservation in so far as it was concerned with interpreting the Constitution in accord with the intention which its framers had of establishing an efficient National Government. But he found a task of restoration awaiting him in that great field of Constitutional Law which defines state powers in relation to private rights. To provide adequate safeguards for property and contracts against state legislative power was one of the most important

The Menace Of State Rights Marshall’s reading of the Constitution may be summarized in a phrase: it transfixed State Sovereignty with a two-edged sword, one edge of which was inscribed “National Supremacy,” and the other “Private Rights.” Yet State Sovereignty, ever reanimated by the democratic impulse of the times, remained a serpent which was scotched but not killed. To be sure, this dangerous enemy to national unity had failed to secure for the state Legislatures the right to interpret the Co

Among Friends And Neighbors It is a circumstance of no little importance that the founder of American Constitutional Law was in tastes and habit of life a simple countryman. To the establishment of National Supremacy and the Sanctity of Contracts Marshall brought the support not only of his office and his command of the art of judicial reasoning but also the whole-souled democracy and unpretentiousness of the fields. And it must be borne in mind that Marshall was on view before his contemporarie

Epilogue In the brief period of twenty-seven months following the death of Marshall the Supreme Court received a new Chief Justice and five new Associate Justices. The effect of this change in personnel upon the doctrine of the Court soon became manifest. In the eleventh volume of Peters’s Reports, the first issued while Roger B. Taney was Chief Justice, are three decisions of constitutional cases sustaining state laws which on earlier argument Marshall had assessed as unconstitutional. The firs

All accounts of Marshall’s career previous to his appointment as Chief Justice have been superseded by Albert J. Beveridge’s two admirable volumes, The Life of John Marshall (Boston, 1916). The author paints on a large canvas and with notable skill. His work is history as well as biography. His ample plan enables him to quote liberally from Marshall’s writings and from all the really valuable first-hand sources. Both text and notes are valuable repositories of material. Beveridge has substantial

The Chronicles of America Series has two similar editions of each volume in the series. One version is the Abraham Lincoln edition of the series, a premium version which includes full-page pictures. A textbook edition was also produced, which does not contain the pictures and captions associated with the pictures, but is otherwise the same book. This book was produced to match the textbook edition of the book. We have retained the original punctuation and spelling in the book, but there are a fe

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