John Marshall: A Life in Law

Briefly, there are not enough superlatives in the English language sufficient to praise this book. Let me say, simply, that every American should read it. Baker not only gives us the life of an eminently admirable man, John Marshall, he describes in depth the importance of Marshall's thinking on the development of the United States, his immense imprint on the evolution of our law and government. One would think (if one were as ignorant as I), that the events and political disputes that frothed during the first decades of American independence are of interest only in understanding the history of the time. Instead, many of the issues and much of the polemics of the day are still are a part of our political rhetoric and action. The tension between states and the federal government, the issue of the rights of individuals and States versus federal power, of Jeffersonian Republicanism versus the Federalist concept of centralized government, are just as alive today as they were at the turn of the 19th Century. Grover Norquist's boast that conservative Republicans want to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub," is just an echo, albeit a crude one, of Jeffersonian philosophy. Curiously, despite the rhetoric, the ascension of Republicans to power in Jefferson's day ultimately meant the expansion of federal power, just as it has today. Marshall -- what a man and what a life! In his late teens, he commanded a company in the Revolutionary Army, wintered over at Valley Forge and ultimately served on General Washington's staff. He was a country boy with little formal education, whose father, also a Revolutionary war officer, owned large tracts of land in Virginia and Kentucky. His basic instruction in law was at the College of William and Mary, attending lectures for 2 months only during one Summer session. Most self-taught, he was admitted to the bar by Thomas Jefferson (then Governor of Virginia), and began a distinguished career as a lawyer in Virginia's new capital, Richmond. His experiences in an Army ill-equipped and starving at Valley Forge taught him that strong central government was needed for the regular and orderly management of national affairs. His extensive reading in law and history brought to him the significance of an independent judiciary. A Federalist in a land of Jeffersonians, he nevertheless fought successfully for the adoption of the federal Constitution in his home state, served in the state legislature, and eventually served as an emissary to France, as Attorney General of the United States, and, finally, as Chief Justice. His decades on the Supreme Court brought to the fore so many basic constitutional issues that it could be rightly said of Marshall that he was the first protector and interpreter of the Constitution, the one force that put the country on course as intended by its founders. Baker is a legal scholar with the special capacity to explain in clear and compelling prose both the