A judge for all seasons.

• Author: Newmyer, R. Kent
• Position: US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall

[Marshall] has done more to establish the Constitution of the United States on sound construction than any other man living.

John Quincy Adams (1)

He would have been deemed a great man in any age, and of all ages.

Joseph Story (2)

[I]f American law were to be represented by a single figure, sceptic [sic] and worshipper alike would agree without dispute that the figure could be but one alone, and that one, John Marshall.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (3)

Holmes was right--The evidence that John Marshall is the representative figure of American law is overwhelming. What was true in 1901 remains true today. There is a paradox involved, however, the kind Holmes himself loved to ponder as something that "would take the scum off your mind." (4) The paradox is that Marshall's reputation for greatness appears to exceed the scope of his juridical accomplishments. "If I were to think of John Marshall simply by numbers and measure in the abstract," Holmes opined, "I might hesitate in my superlatives." (5) He had a point. Concede that Marshall was a workhorse for the Court, that he spoke for the majority in forty-nine percent of all the cases heard during his tenure, in fifty-nine percent of all the constitutional law decisions, and in almost all of the leading ones. (6) The fact remains that only a handful of these opinions were truly memorable. As Holmes put it, "Remove a square inch of mucous membrane, and the tenor will sing no more." (7) Take away any three of Marshall's great opinions--say Marbury, (8) McCulloch, (9) and Gibbons (10)--and it would be difficult to argue that he was the constitutional lawgiver of all time. Keep in mind, also, that his circuit opinions, though competent, were not notable for pioneering new doctrine, as, for example, were those of Story on the New England circuit. Beyond Marshall's opinions, there is mainly the massive biography of George Washington in its various editions. Although it is better history than once was thought, it is remembered, when it is, more for what it reveals about Marshall than about Washington. In any case, the biography has little bearing on Marshall's legal reputation. Unlike other famous statesmen of the early Republic, Marshall's extant correspondence is decidedly minimalist, more like Lincoln's slender opus than that of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, or Washington. Nor was Marshall a legal educator as was his teacher George Wythe, or David Hoffman of Maryland, or his colleague Story. This leaves only the eleven polemical essays written in defense of McCulloch. Brilliant and revealing of Marshall's legal acuity as they are, they do not warrant comparison in terms of legal learning to St. George Tucker's edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, James Kent's four-volume Commentaries on American Law, or Story's dozen volumes of legal and constitutional commentaries. Even in the area of constitutional law, there was some measure of truth in Holmes's assessment that "after Hamilton and the Constitution itself," Marshall had little truly original to offer and not much beyond "a strong intellect, a good style, personal ascendancy in his court, courage, justice and convictions of his party." (11)

Beyond this grudging concession, Holmes offered little to resolve the paradox of Marshall's greatness, except for one keen heuristic insight: that like other great men, Marshall "represented a great ganglion in the nerves of society" and was "a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists in his being there." (12) Like others of the founding generation, Marshall was fortunate to have lived in an age that not only permitted but invited bold and creative statesmanship. Like Erick Erickson's young man Luther, however, Marshall was not only energized by the remarkable age in which he lived but modified its rich legacy, and, to steal a phrase from Benjamin Cardozo, he molded it creatively "in the fire of his own intense convictions." (13) Contrary to his own modest assessments of his career, what Marshall created has to a remarkable degree withstood the ravages of time. Not only has his reputation for greatness survived, but it has, if anything, taken on mythical proportions. It is the myth of Marshall's greatness that now needs to be explicated, if it can be.

JOHN MARSHALL ON JOHN MARSHALL

The Chief Justice died in Philadelphia July 6, 1835, a few months short of eighty years of age, brought down by an ailment that had plagued him for several years. Present during the final hours were his sons, except for Thomas, who, unbeknownst to his father, died in a freak accident on his way to join his brothers. Marshall's death was not a surprise. Though he continued to perform his duties on the Court, it was clear to family and friends and to Marshall himself that the end was approaching. He had long since put his affairs in order, with an eye as always to providing for his family. On April 9, 1832, after the death of his wife, he revised his earlier will, which had come down hard on James for his improvident ways. John Marshall bequeathed the family place at Oak Hill, plus other lands, to Thomas. Other extensive holdings, including "the slaves on the land," were parceled out fairly to Jaquelin, James Keith, and Edward Carrington. The Chickahominy plantation, "with all the slaves stock, and plantation utensils, thereon," and his Richmond properties, along with "slaves and household furniture," went in trust to his daughter Mary and her children, "so as to protect her and them from distress, whatever casualties may happen." Smaller bequests, including bank stock and land, went to various nephews and grandchildren, including 1000 acres "to each of my grandson's [sic] named John." To his "faithful servant Robin," Marshall bequeathed emancipation "if he chuses [sic] to conform to the laws on that subject requiring that he should leave the state, or if permission can be obtained for his continuing, to reside in it." If Robin chose Liberia, he was to receive a hundred dollars; if he chose to remain a slave, he could choose his master from among the Marshall children. (14)

With his family generously provided for, Marshall was free to continue his work on the Court and grapple with his own illness, which he did without complaint and, according to Story, with a stubborn disregard of his doctor's orders. Throughout his waning years, as throughout his life, he remained casual about his reputation. (15) He labored to complete the two-volume edition of the Washington biography and even began to plan for a one-volume student edition, but he seemed less concerned about his reputation as a biographer than about spreading the word of Washington's relevance to the new age. One slight vanity was his quaint and touching wish that at least one of his grandsons should be named John. Friend and foe alike, however, attested to his modesty, his "plain and unpretending" manner, and his republican simplicity.

This is not to suggest he doubted his own ability. He could not have sallied forth so valiantly in defense of his version of constitutional truth and justice, or stayed the course so long, had he been plagued with self-doubt. The substance and tone of his opinions bespoke his conviction and his determination to educate posterity to republican verities, to leave future generations a Constitution that was adequate to the "various crises of human affairs." (16) But his opinions, though they bore the imprint of his genius, were also, as he acknowledged, collective efforts. He was determined to shun "paltry vanity," as he once put it, and made no effort to save his papers, doubting whether the written record of his life was "worth communication or preserving." True to his word, he pored over his "old papers" in the spring of 1833 "to determine how many of them were worthy of being committed to the flames." (17) The letters that survived, found mostly in the papers of others, are devoid of puffery and self-justification, or even self-explanation. There are a couple brief autobiographical letters, plus a somewhat fuller one to Story, written at his request. There are the impressive journals Marshall kept while he was in Paris, relating mainly to the XYZ negotiations. But there is no personal diary, no memoir or journal, like those kept by Washington, John Adams, and John Quincy Adams, recording his thoughts or explaining himself to posterity. Unlike Webster, he did not quest for fame. Jefferson listed his greatest accomplishments on his tombstone; Marshall wanted only his name and dates, those of his parents, and, no doubt most important to him, the fact that he was the husband of Mary Willis Ambler. At his request, he was buried beside her in the "New Burying Ground" on Shockoe Hills.

Marshall's self-abnegation, so apparent in all he did and said, stemmed from a quality rare among the great men of the early Republic: he was a genuinely modest man. The more famous he became, the more modest he grew. What Thomas Babington Macaulay said of John Hampden fits Marshall exactly: He was "an almost solitary instance of a great man who neither sought nor shunned greatness, who found glory only because glory lay in the plain path of duty." (18) Nowhere is this more apparent than in the final years of his correspondence. As the end of his life approached, letters of admiration from old friends and admirers poured in; honors of all sorts, too numerous to list, were bestowed in recognition of his life's work. For him, it was a period of introspection and retrospection. There were tender and solicitous letters to Polly, and on the anniversary of her death in 1832, the heart-wrenching "Eulogy for Mary W. Marshall," celebrating the remembrance of their love and their life together. (19) Old friendships assumed a new meaning--witness his generous words of praise to his political opponent James Monroe for a life lived in honorable service to his country. (20) With Lafayette, another...