John Marshall: The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation

by Harlow Giles Unger

A hero in America's war against British tyranny, John Marshall with his heroics as Chief Justice turned the Supreme Court into a bulwark against presidential and congressional tyranny and saved American democracy.

In this startling biography, award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals how Virginia-born John Marshall emerged from the Revolutionary War's bloodiest battlefields to become one of the nation's most important Founding America's greatest Chief Justice. Marshall served his country as an officer, Congressman, diplomat, and Secretary of State before President John Adams named him the nation's fourth Chief Justice, the longest-serving in American history. Marshall transformed the Supreme Court from an irrelevant appeals court into a powerful branch of government—and provoked the ire of thousands of Americans who, like millions today, accused him and the court of issuing decisions that were tantamount to new laws and Constitutional amendments.

And the Court's critics were right! Marshall admitted as much.

With nine decisions that shocked the nation, John Marshall and his court assumed powers to strike down laws it deemed unconstitutional. In doing so, Marshall's court acted without Constitutional authority, but its decisions saved American liberty by protecting individual rights and the rights of private business against tyranny by federal, state, and local government.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, American History, Audiobook, Politics, Law

384 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2014

About the author

Harlow Giles Unger is an American author, historian, journalist, broadcaster, and educator known for his extensive work on American history and education. Educated at the Taft School, Yale College, and California State University, Unger began his career as a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune Overseas News Service in Paris. He later wrote for newspapers and magazines across Britain, Canada, and other countries, while also working in radio broadcasting and teaching English and journalism at New York-area colleges.
Unger has written over twenty-seven books, including ten biographies of America's Founding Fathers and a notable biography of Henry Clay. His historical works include Noah Webster: The Life and Times of an American Patriot, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, and First Founding Father: Richard Henry Lee and the Call to Independence. He is also the author of the Encyclopedia of American Education, a three-volume reference work.
A former Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at Mount Vernon, Unger has lived in Paris and currently resides in New York City. An avid skier and horseman, he has spent time in Chamonix, France, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He has one son, Richard C. Unger.

Reviews

[jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Biography is an art with no shortage of pitfalls. A writer can be overly critical of their topic or, just as bad, worshipful. Warping details to suit a particular narrative goal is bad; lazily getting facts wrong is worse. Such a list of problems comes to mind while reading Harlow Giles Unger’s “John Marshall: The Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Who Transformed the Young Republic.” In this volume the author makes each and every one of these mistakes.

From the very first, Unger’s praise for Marshall dashes past merely admiring to rank idolatry. No saint was ever so saintly. As a soldier, Marshall is endlessly valiant. In friendship, he is perfectly loyal. In matters of law, he is flawlessly just. Did Marshall suffer from e a single deficiency in character or judgment? Unger’s biography answers with a resounding no. Indeed, in the generation of visionary giants who birthed the Republic, for Unger “Marshall was at heart an ordinary man, but a straight thinking one, governed solely by logic and a love of justice – undeterred by flattery or verbal ornamentation unrelated to the matter at hand.” Given that Marshall was among the ablest and most persuasive politicians of his time -- famously as Chief Justice able to charm to his side every new justice appointed specifically to break his hold on the near unanimous court -- such descriptions hardly do him justice.

Worse still, in his effort to beatify John Marshall, Unger feels the need to turn his political opponents into mustache-twisting villains, characters better suited to a comic strip. One may not like Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, there is much to dislike about the third president. Still, it would be understatement to describe him merely as complex. Unger’s Jefferson, however, is instead simple. For Unger, Thomas Jefferson is a Jacobin bent on bringing down America’s constitutional system. Indeed, Unger’s biography accepts as wholly accurate many of the most inflated claims of early American newspapers. Action after action by Jefferson is, in Unger’s description, a “coup,” “quasi-coup,” or a “coup-detat” (for Unger, every step away from strict construction, whether Washington ordering Hamilton to borrow money without Congressional authorization, the passage of the Alien and Sedition acts, and even the Constitutional Convention deciding to scrap the Articles of Confederation earns the label “coup”). Good historians take over heated rhetoric and refines them through the light of analysis. Unger, in contrast, just generates more heat. Nor is Jefferson alone as a target of obvious animus. Perhaps owing to Unger’s loyalty to a John Adams, the subject of a previous biography, Alexander Hamilton comes off as similarly villainous.

Curiously, a character who earns a great deal of elegiac praise here is none other than Aaron Burr. No doubt, Burr’s for his role in America’s founding deserves more consideration than he generally receives. Burr possessed a complex personality and a keen mind. Yet whatever complexity Burr possessed is lost here. For Unger, Burr serves mainly as a foil to Marshall’s “arch-nemesis,” Jefferson. To that end, Unger even goes so far as to portray the Burr Conspiracy as entirely a creation of Jeffersonian sycophants without a whiff of truth. Unger claims that there never was any scheme by Burr to detach part of the West into a new nation. And he is certainly entitled to that opinion, though it sets him firmly among the minority of historians. However, Unger does not so much as make a case, as pretend his peculiar opinion is self-evident and uncontradictable. Moreover, Unger’s frequent factual errors and out of date interpretations leave the reader considerable reasons to doubt his analysis.

Unger’s factual errors are too many to easily count. Some stem from either sloppiness. Others come from efforts to further a particular narrative end. Take for example his statement that the Supreme Court created by the US Constitution was “curious” because it denied “…respondents a right [to a jury trial] guaranteed in the English speaking world since 1215 when King John signed the Magna Carta…” This however ignores that the Supreme Court is an appellate court. Appellate court lacking juries were already common under English common law. Unger also repeats a classic mistake with regard to the infamous “3/5 compromise” stating “…with both branches dominated by southern Republicans, a handful of powerful plantation owners would rule the nation by casting the votes of the 1.7 million slaves they owned,” and in case one imagines this an oversight, he adds in a note”…the 1.7 million slaves… [were] the equivalent of about 1 million white voters.”

Of course this claim pairs two misunderstandings, common to middle school history students but unforgivable in a historian. First, no one cast the “votes” of slaves. In a system (north and south alike) which almost exclusively limited the franchise to propertied white men (the exceptions, being few but interesting), the question was one of representation. Fewer than 20% of residents of the new United States could cast a vote. . The question was one of representation, both in the House of Representatives and in the count of Presidential electors. Under the infamous compromise, “free” non-voters (men with insufficient property, women, children) each counted as one person for apportionment. By contrast, each slave counted as only 3/5ths of a person. An owner of 100 slaves still cast only a single vote, equal to a sufficiently propertied voter who owned not a single slave.

Unger commits other errors that are more insidious. Time and again, he points to the Marshall Court decisions claiming that “…twenty-five years after his death those decisions plunged the nation into civil war.” It is of course true that Marshall’s insistence on Federal supremacy did indeed provoke violence and even at times outright defiance from the states as well as other branches of government. Yet despite more than a century of revisionist history, the fact remains that it was slavery (and in particular the effort to limit the expansion of that “peculiar institution” in the west and fear of eventual abolition) that drove succession. Benign and amorphous terms such as “state’s right” are mere euphemisms for the institution of chattel slavery. Pennsylvania did not abandon the union because the Court struck down the state’s effort to void a federal rule on awards to privateers (United States v. Peters), nor Maryland because of their inability to tax the National Bank (McCulloch v. Maryland), nor New York when the court limited their right to establish monopolies (Gibbons v. Ogden). Such doughy-headed revisionism has no place in serious history.
Despite his frequent errors and his desire to turn complex history into a thin morality play, Unger does offer the occasional surprising factoid. I was unaware that prior to Marshall’ rise to the bench, Federal judges dressed not in plain black robes but in the over-resplendent garb of the British judiciary. Likewise, it says something about John Marshall that he earned his great wealth by using his formidable legal skills to win a court case in which he cleared his title to a vast tract of land over which ownership was in dispute. None of this, however, makes up for this book’s many deficiencies. John Marshall stands tall among the giants who established our Republic. His keen mind and political skill took the bones of the Constitution and built a strong supple body politic that has stood the test of time. He well-deserves to be honored and memorialized. Jean Edward Smith's biography, "John Marshall: Definer of a Nation" is an excellent choice for interested readers. Smith thoughtfully covers the material, giving Marshall a full fair treatment, without swerving into sycophancy. The same can not be said of Unger's work. A biography of this poor quality demeans Marshall's legacy and denies him his humanity.

[Dee Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audible.com 8 hours 55 min. Narrated by Robert Fass (B)

If only the author had constrained himself to writing a biography about John Marshall instead of writing a history of the United States from 1774--1836 and fitting in the occasions where Marshall's life impacted, the book would have been half the length. I wish I'd thought to count the numerous times certain descriptions were repeated. Unger traces how the the lives of Marshall, James Monroe, and Aaron Burr, Jr. where entwined. I'm no fan of Thomas Jefferson, but I didn't expect to the author to be so completely biased against him. Unger thoroughly explains eight important Supreme Court cases as they came up during Marshall's life which I found interesting, but then he takes the final chapter to summarize the cases again. I feel I'm prepped for a quiz. Now that I'm marginally acquainted with Marshall, my interest in Aaron Burr is piqued, and I might look for good book about his life.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The other biographies I've read by Harlow Giles Unger were all clearly biased favorably towards his subjects, but this biography of John Marshall is the most blatant apple-polishing of a historical figure I've read yet. Not only does Unger practically attach a halo to John Marshall's head, he casts a clear villain in the story: Thomas Jefferson.

Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton was not particularly flattering to Jefferson, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical cast Jefferson as Hamilton's antagonist, but Harlow Giles Unger frequently strips away objectivity in declaring Jefferson cowardly, disingenuous, treasonous, meddling, and generally representing just about everything he did as self-serving and disingenuous, especially when it was in opposition to John Marshall.

And I am broadly sympathetic to Unger's POV here. John Marshall was a Federalist who established the independence and equal stature of the Supreme Court, at a time when Jefferson wanted the United States to be no more than a confederation, and the judiciary to be completely subordinate to executive power. From reading previous Founding Father histories, I was already predisposed to dislike Jefferson. Nonetheless, it was notable in this book that everything John Marshall did was wise and principled and patriotic (oh yeah and he owned slaves *cough* *cough*) and everyone who disagreed with him was either Thomas Jefferson or a puppet of Jefferson.

Unger really pulls out all the stops in vilifying Jefferson. When our old muckraking friend James T. Callender shows up (he was the guy who exposed Alexander Hamilton's infidelity and Thomas Jefferson's affair with Sally Hemmings), Unger all but accuses Jefferson of having him killed. (Callender, a known drunkard, was found drowned in the James River, and while the timing of his death was convenient and he had no shortage of enemies, there does not seem to have been any actual evidence that he was murdered.)

John Marshall's father surveyed the colonial frontier with a young George Washington. John Marshall became a surveyor himself, which was a profitable career at that time, before he became a lawyer. When the Revolutionary War rolled around, Marshall served in the Continental Army, rising to the rank of Colonel.

The story of John Marshall meeting his wife, Polly Ambler, who would be the love of his life for the next fifty years, is a sweet and charming love story with an asterisk. He was a young officer who had been invited with several others to attend a ball being thrown by the wealthy Jaquelin Ambler, who had several eligible daughters to show off. They were all very excited to meet the dashing officer, until Marshall stumbled in, haggard, badly dressed, unwashed, unshaven, his uniform much the worse for wear... in other words, he looked like a soldier just coming in from the field. The Ambler sisters were unimpressed... except for fourteen-year-old Polly, who wasn't supposed to be there because she was too young. But she snuck into the ball, met John Marshall, and they fell in love...

Yup, 26-year-old John Marshall wooed a fourteen-year-old. This was, of course, not so eyebrow-raising back then, but it certainly got a raised eyebrow from me as Unger waxed on about the saintly Marshall.

Polly would prove to be an anxious, fragile woman. Like many women of her time, she spent much of her life pregnant, and suffered multiple miscarriages. This took a severe toll on her physical and mental health, and though John was a devoted husband (even Polly's sisters eventually came to like him), she seemed to live much of her life either recovering from illness or difficult pregnancies, or being terrified for her husband's safety.

John Marshall's political career began in the Virginia state legislature, where he defended the ratification of the Constitution, even standing up to the venerable Patrick Henry and calling him a hypocrite at one point.

Under President Adams, Marshall was asked to go to France to try to negotiate peace during the "Quasi-War" with Revolutionary France. He was one of the American envoys who was solicited for a bribe by agents of French Minister Tallyrand in what became known as the XYZ Affair. Marshall was one of the few people who came out looking good to the American public.

Not so much to his wife, though. While in France, Marshall and his fellow American envoys were put up in the luxurious estate of a wealthy French lady who they thought was just the nicest mademoiselle ever, until they found out she was more of a madam — literally a courtesan in Tallyrand's employ. John Marshall, so far as is known, never succumbed to the little fille's advances, but he made the mistake of writing home about how gay Paris was and the lovely house and the nice lady he was staying with, while Polly was suffering from another failed pregnancy and separation anxiety. It did not go over well. Polly became convinced her husband was being seduced by a fancy French trollop, which did nothing for her mental health.

When he returned home, he reunited with his wife, convinced her he had not been out on the town with French courtesans, and ran for Congress. In 1800, John Adams made Marshall Secretary of State, and Marshall was widely considered a future contender for President. Then came the split in the Federalist Party, precipitated by Alexander Hamilton's dislike of both Adams and Jefferson. Realizing that he had probably lost reelection, in the waning days of his administration, John Adams appointed John Marshall to the Supreme Court. (Marshall was not, in fact, Adams' first choice, but John Jay, his first pick, turned it down.)

For the man who would later become a stalwart defender of the Constitution, Unger does point out that under Adams, John Marshall was given a vast amount of power that the Constitution does not delegate to the Secretary of State. Adams literally made Marshall his proxy. Along with Marshall, Adams also filled the federal courts with Federalists, who would become known as "midnight judges," and be a source of contention and some of the Supreme Court's biggest legal battles under the Jefferson administration.

John Marshall basically created the Supreme Court as we know it today. The Supreme Court is defined in Article III of the Constitution, but it was left to Congress to organize it, and initially, it wasn't a significant part of the government. In the 11 years before John Marshall took the bench, the Supreme Court had decided 11 cases, none of them particularly significant to the country overall.

Then came Thomas Jefferson, who as Unger describes it, basically went about trying to strip all power from anyone who opposed him. He started by trying to undo everything the Federalists had done, including John Adams' "midnight judges." He didn't have the Constitutional power to undo judicial nominations that had been confirmed by the Senate, so instead, he simply refused to deliver their commissions. One of the judges who had effectively been prevented from taking the bench he'd been appointed to, William Marbury, filed suit against Secretary of State James Madison (who was technically the one withholding commissions).

The court ruled against Madison, and moreover, ruled that a federal law that was tangential to the case was unconstitutional and thus invalid.

Many legal scholars consider Marbury vs. Madison the most important case the U.S. Supreme Court ever decided, because it basically established the Court's power to strike down laws passed by the legislature, or executive orders, as unconstitutional. While arguably this power was implicit in the Constitution (obviously, because it's the argument John Marshall made), it came as a surprise to many of the signers of the Constitution, including President Jefferson. It made the Supreme Court an independent and coequal branch of the government.

Thomas Jefferson would spend the rest of his presidency trying to get rid of John Marshall.

Here, again, Unger takes an extremely partisan view, one that I am partial to, but it would have been a better book if the author had acknowledged that Marbury vs. Madison is controversial to this day, and that Jefferson's concerns were not solely pique at being foiled. All the complaints we hear today about "activist judges" stem from Marbury vs. Madison, and indeed, most of the Founding Fathers didn't envision the Supreme Court as a body that could effectively write new law. For better or for worse, this was an unanticipated evolution of the court as defined in the Constitution, and the Marshall court unquestionably changed the course of history.

For starters, Thomas Jefferson tried to have Associate Justice Samuel Chase impeached on trumped up charges of judicial bias. Chase was apparently prone to making scornful and rude comments from the bench, a practice that Marshall convinced him was unbecoming of a judge, but the real reason Jefferson wanted to get rid of him was that he was a Federalist and a friend of John Marshall. Jefferson made many attempts to bring the Supreme Court to heel and dismiss judges he didn't like. He "packed" the court by increasing it to seven judges, and experienced another phenomenon that would plague many later presidents: the discovery that putting someone you think is ideologically aligned on the bench does not guarantee they're going to rule the way you'd like. Jefferson repeatedly appointed anti-Federalists to the Supreme Court, only for them to become friends with John Marshall, and also to decide that they liked being independent and able to rule according to what they actually believed the Constitution said.

Good old Aaron Burr, the other arch-villain of Hamilton, and most Founding Father biographies. I've noted that most biographers cast Burr in an extremely negative light, not just for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, but for a career of political shenanigans aimed at advancing his own political interests... like every other politician then and now. I wondered if his frequent depiction as an unprincipled gigolo was doing the man justice.

Unger is very sympathetic to Aaron Burr, but mostly because Burr was one of Jefferson's enemies. He represents Burr as being a politician, yes, but emphasizes how principled and fair he was in his role as Vice President and President of the Senate... again, because he was voting against Jefferson.

When Aaron Burr went off to (allegedly) try to create an empire in Spanish territory, Jefferson had him charged with treason. His case came before the Supreme Court, and John Marshall dismissed the treason charge as having no foundation, but held him over for trial on the misdemeanor charge of trying to start shit with Spain, a charge of which he was eventually acquitted. Other biographers have heavily implied that Burr really was trying to start his own empire, while Unger takes Burr's claims — that he was just trying to acquire real estate and become a farmer — at face value.

(According to Unger, Burr also literally became a gigolo when he went off to Europe following his legal troubles.)

Jefferson was furious, and stirred up so much hatred of John Marshall that people were burning him in effigy in Baltimore, something that nearly caused Marshall's wife Polly to have another breakdown.

Most of the rest of the book covers the Marshall's courts significant rulings, of which there were many. Most every power of the Supreme Court today was created in the Marshall court.

McCulloch v. Maryland was probably the most far-reaching case, next to Marbury vs. Madison, as it gave Congress the authority to charter a national bank, and established that states could not tax the federal government. It all but settled the question of the federal government vs. states' rights in favor of the federal government... and essentially made the Civil War inevitable.

Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia was probably the most infamous and tragic case of John Marshall's career. The state of Georgia had essentially stripped the Cherokee of all rights and ordered them removed from their lands. Marshall was sympathetic, but unable to help them because, under U.S. law, the Cherokee literally had no legal standing. But when a group of white missionaries brought suit, the Marshall court was able to rule against Georgia. Georgia's response was to flat-out ignore the Supreme Court's judgment, and President Andrew Jackson, refusing to do anything about it, uttered his famous rebuke to the court: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

The Supreme Court has always had to perform a delicate balancing act, well aware that it has the responsibility of defending the Constitution against politicians who would love to just do whatever they want, but also aware that they have no enforcement powers, and that Congress and the President have a lot of power to strip the court of the powers it does have. The idea that Supreme Court justices act in a vacuum and never take political considerations into account is false; they have to take political considerations into account, not just for their own ideological reasons, but to preserve their own legitimacy. I didn't learn that from this book, but from other books on the history of the court, but this book described a lot of the early foundations of the court and how it came to be, and just how pivotal a figure John Marshall was.

Like all of Harlow Unger's biographies, I found this well-written and informative, but it was definitely more biased than his previous works. Here, his subject is almost saintly, his enemies dastardly enemies of the Constitution. John Marshall was a great and brilliant man, but he certainly had personal and political flaws. I wish we'd seen them through a slightly less adoring lens.

[Jim Angstadt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book just got better and better, the more I read.

It paints a picture of two men, Marshall and Jefferson, on opposite sides of the "Federalism" vs. "Democratic" divide, that includes their philosophy, accomplishments, temperament, ethics, and self-control.

The author, Harlow Giles Unger, does not soft-soap their words or actions; it is surprisingly candid and even-handed. I will surely read more by this author.

The book does a great job of explaining the relationship of the federal government to the state governments.
Today, we take for granted these principals of law; but it took Chief Justice Marshall and many others with foresight to identify and bring into being these principals.

The most important of these principals are summarized in the appendix. Their context and issues are more completely described in various chapters.

This book deserves a thoughtful reading.


Notes while reading:

The book I am reading is hard-cover, and has a different sub-title:
"The Chief Justice Who Saved The Nation"
But that didn't show as an available edition for this author.
Oh, well.

Chap 1: Chaos!
- A collection of sovereign states or one nation?
- The rule of law not whim.
- JM raised in a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains
- Fought in war, unlike cousin Thomas Jefferson, who bailed to his plantation.
- Under-funded war effort, inexperience, mistakes, peril.

Chap 2: Commotions
- Meets future wife Polly Ambler.
- Studies law for a year.
- Jefferson bails as Virginia governor.
- JM builds law practice.
- Ex-soldiers, now farmers and debtors, revolt; "Farmers Rebellion" of 1786.
- "The commotions" threaten peace and stability.

Chap 3: "We, Sir, Idolize democracy!"
- State sovereignty rules.
- "Articles of Confederation created no central authority."
- "No powers to tax, raise an army, or ..."
- Territorial disputes.
- General dis-function.
- George Washington organizes common commercial interests with Maryland and Virginia.
- Other states join in, except RI.
- Shay rebellion forces states to "forestall the spread of anarchy" by strengthening central gov.
- Save the nation in peace as they had in war.
- May - Sept 1787, convention to amend Articles of Confederation actually wrote the Constitution.
- Ratified by 10 states in 1789.

Chap 4: Quoits Was the Game
- JM resumes his legal career. 2 notable cases:
-- With Patrick Henry, defends a man charged with infantcide.
-- Again with Henry, pleaded the "British Debts Case" re pre-war loans.
Legal scholars from US and UK cited the case as "just and equitable to creditors and debtors."
- JM has some time for socializing (quoits), while following his legal interests.
- JM declines an appointment by Washington.
- Unger states that many of Washington's former military subordinates also declines other posts.
Some of those who did serve, "did so only for lust of power."
- Family issues claim most of JM's time. He leaves public service, sells his legal practice,
and moves to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Chap 5: The Great Divide
- Hamilton vs. Jefferson.
- Federalism vs. state sovereignty.
- French-English war exacerbated the divide.
- Washington's neutrality proclamation.
- French envoy Genet stirs up trouble.
- Unger continues to blast Jefferson's ethics.

Chap 6: The Two Happiest People on Earth
- Genet and Jefferson leave the capitol.
- The economy is better due to war sales.
- Calls to take sides in the French-English are rejected.
- Hamilton leaves Treasury but gets 3 allies appointed to War, Treasury, and State.
- Jefferson continues to agitate and spread lies.
- The Jay Treaty resolves a long-standing uncertainty of land ownership and other matters.
-- JM benefits. Can now buy land at a big discount. No more money worries.

Chap 7: X, Y, Z
- JM plus 2 go to France on a diplomatic mission.
- Talleyrand, Bonaparte, and others, demand "sweeteners", ie, pay for access.
- JM responds: "No"; and the sequence repeats numerous times, until they return to the US.
- Sentiment in the US takes on a more anti-France tone.
- "Millions for defense but not a cent for tribute."

Chap 8: Our Washington Is No More
- Ultra-Federalists in congress, 1797, push first of 4 Alien and Sedition Acts, aimed at US French.
- "Effectively annulling the Bill of Rights."
- JM is held in high esteem.
- Napoleon defeated in Egypt; France loses around the globe.
- JM elected to congress.
- Washington dies.

Chap 9: Midnight Judges
- Loving his descriptions of Jefferson's actions and motives!
-- Personalizes the federal vs. state perspective.
-- Shows the dirty tricks used by some iconic founding fathers
-- Shows just how precarious our young nation was.
- Adams adds new justices and nominates JM as Chief Justice.

Chap 10: Mr. Chief Justice
- Hamilton splits the Federalist party.
- Jefferson and Burr tie for president.
- 34 votes later, still a tie.
- Bayard of Delaware switches to Jefferson.
- "Astonished the British and Europeans as much as it did the Americans."
- First modern time an incumbent party ceded control without violence.
- Jefferson has congress repeal the midnight judges and related provisions for two years.
- Jefferson's rational: each branch of gov. is the final judge of it's proper functions.
- which opposes the idea of checks and balances.

Chap 11: Party Rage
- In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court states the proposition that the President and the Congress must comply with the constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court.
- Jefferson is strongly opposed.
- James Monroe purchases Louisiana territory from France.
- Jefferson has 2 judges removed.

Chap 12: A Deadly Interview
- The impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Chase failed.
- Stopped Jefferson's attempts to neuter the high court.
- Marshall: "our duty is to the constitution - and only to the constitution."
- Yet, the justices realized that public comment, or behavior, could make their tasks harder.
- Burr resigns as VP.

Chap 13: The Trial
- Gen. Wilkinson sends letter to Jefferson accusing Burr of leading a conspiracy.
- Jefferson repeatedly has officials hound Burr.
- Burr is acquitted in all court proceedings.

Chap 14: The Court Must Be Obeyed
- General perception that Jefferson tries to "wreak vengeance on his perceived enemies and expand his personal power."
- President Madison sends federal troops to enforce a Supreme Court ruling.
- Philadelphia Aurora newspaper: "The decree of the Court must be obeyed."
- Jefferson, with a lawsuit that might reach the Supreme Court, encourages President Madison on two nominations to the Supreme Court.
- Both nominees - Gabriel Duvall and Joseph Story - once on the Court, join with Marshall and the others to produce good, fair verdicts.
- British ships attack US ships; country clamors for war; Madison declares war in 1812.

Chap 15: An Era of Good Feelings
- Navel encounters prompt UK to call for peace negotiations at Ghent, Belgium in 1813.
- Napoleon's armies fell across Europe and Russia, freeing up UK forces to attack US.
- Francis Scott Key observes the defense of Fort McHenry, and produces "The Star-Spangled Banner."
- Andrew Jackson repels a British attack on New Orleans.
- Shortly after, both sides declare the war ended, and returned to the status quo.
- Nereide decision: cargo and ship are distinct. During war, can take from enemy not friend.
- US UK sign commercial accord, economic prosperity ensues. Westward expansion jumps.
- In Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, the Supreme Court reasserted the power to overturn court decisions that violated the Constitution.
- 1817 President Monroe takes office.

Chap 16: The Final Arbiter
- Discusses significant cases not previously discussed.
- Jefferson tries again to undermine the Supreme Court, saying they are unaccountable and should be elected.
- Gibbons v. Ogden. The constitution gives congress the power to regulate commerce.
- July 4, 1826, both Adams and Jefferson die.
- The Cherokee Acts stripped Cherokees of citizenship and land (and gold), and voided Cherokee laws.
- Supreme Court ruled against Georgia; President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce.

Appendix: Nine Great Cases
- Marbury v. Madison, 1803, Established Supreme Court review of federal laws.
- US v. Peters, 1809, asserted supremacy of federal over state authority.
- Fletcher v. Peck, 1810, affirmed inviolability of contracts.
- Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1816, asserted treaties as "supreme law of the land."
- Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819, reiterated inviolability of contracts.
- McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819, limited state sovereignty, asserted federal over state laws, established principle of federal gov. "implied powers."
- Cohens v. Virginia, 1821, extended Supreme Court protection to all citizens in every court in the land.
- Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824, opened American interstate commerce to free competition.
- Worcester v. Georgia, 1832, put the power of federal troops behind enforcement of Supreme Court decisions.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent bio burdened with overwrought language and lackluater analysis.

Unger's 2014 bio of John Marshall does an admirable job of humanizing a figure most Americans know only for his aloof position as the longest serving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the opinions attributed him and the Court. Unger doestn ignore this (how could he?) but devotes a substsntial amount of his time to Marshall's time as a Revolutionary War Soldier, prominent Virginia politician, and father/husband.

While the book excels there, it falters in describing the political world Marshall was a part of. It's no secret that the early years of the America were filled with "heated" rhetoric. You couldn't turn your head without somebody accusing somebody else of being a monarchies, francophile, or doing something that would lead to dissolution of the union and civil war.

While that rhetoric was and has always been a part of the fabric of American political discourse, Unger seems to rely solely on the most heated excerpts from speeches/letters at every turn.

The effect of this is Unger describing darn near everything as a potential or actual "coup d'etat" - the phrase appears SEVERAL times. While Unger seems to mean this as various branches of govt and individuals asserting powers not clearly granted them under the Constitution (a very interesting topic by itself as the nation struggled with itself as to what this new controlling document meant), he never really analyzes it from that perspective.

Instead, it's selective overheated quotations that only the calm and measured Marshall can navigate and prevent conflict/civil war. This is the other major fault with Unger's work, he has a strong tendency to become far too enamored with his subject and drift into hagiography.

Overall, the heated rhetoric without adequate analysis makes for some fun reading but keeps this bio from becoming more than an enjoyable pulp diversion.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unger takes the interesting approach of illuminating the contributions of John Marshall to the protection and preservation of the Constitution by describing the many ways in which Thomas Jefferson sought to subvert it. This book will educate readers about the actual operations of the early republic, rather than the usual “patriotic” myths fed to students of history. Although revered as a “Founding Father,” Jefferson was in truth often interested more in advancing his own ideas and ambition than in honoring the Constitution.

Marshall’s legacy as the 4th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was the assurance of “the integrity and eminence of the Constitution and the federal government.” Marshall, who was the longest serving Chief Justice in American history, signed over 1,180 decisions, writing 549 of them. As Unger shows:

"In the course of his Supreme Court leadership Marshall stood at the center of the most riveting - and most important - courtroom dramas in the nation’s formative years. Case by case he defined, asserted, and when necessary, invented the authority he and the Court needed to render justice, stabilize the federal government, and preserve the Union and its Constitution.”

Because of Marshall’s efforts, the judiciary became an equal branch of the federal government. But it was not a predetermined outcome. When Jefferson didn't get his way, he used every means at his disposal to try to vitiate the judiciary. To his chagrin, however, even when he appointed his own men to the bench, they became so impressed with Marshall's erudition, devotion to the law, and integrity, that one by one, they became Marshall men instead of Jefferson men.

To this day, the decisions written or influenced by Marshall continue to shape the American polity. From his opinion in Marbury v. Madison, in which he established the independence of the federal judiciary, to his insistence in U.S. v. Burr that no one, not even the president, is above the law, Marshall made a lasting and positive imprint on the character of the country. And while Jefferson continued to insist, even when retired, that the federal and state governments represented two independent and equal sovereigns, Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland, set forth the precedent that state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government. The United States would be a radically different place had it not been for "the great,the good, the wise" John Marshall, as he was described by another famous and well-respected Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story.

Discussion: One reason I like Unger very much as a historian is that he has always been able to avoid portraying the Founding Fathers in sepia tones with golden halos. He is not loathe to point out, for example, that Jefferson was a vicious man who operated sub rosa through lackeys to destroy the careers and lives of anyone and everyone who disagreed with him. He is not reluctant to provide evidence for how much of the Declaration of Independence was lifted by Jefferson from other writings, such as those of John Locke, or how pusillanimously Jefferson behaved when the fighting broke out in the American Revolution. He also takes Jefferson to task for his treasonous acts against President John Adams when Jefferson himself was serving as Vice President. (This includes the concealment of evidence by Jefferson that would exonerate Adams from charges of impeachment, a movement for which Jefferson was leading the chorus.) And he doesn’t hesitate to speak of Jefferson’s bribes to members of the press to calumniate his opponents; his threats to start a Civil War if he were not elected in 1800; his blatant disdain of the Constitution when it got in the way of what he wanted to do; and his attempts to emasculate the judiciary so that it could not rule against any of his decisions.

Jefferson largely escapes such a close look at his behavior because of the need for the American narrative to show him as a great man, who joined other great men to create a great nation. Even the recent DNA evidence of Jefferson’s long-time affair with Sally Hemings has been downplayed, and those who acknowledge it are quick to point out Jefferson’s long-standing relationship with her, as if his alleged monogamy would make up for his taking up with a fifteen-year old girl when he was forty-six, a girl who was in his care as a slave, unable not to do his bidding. The entire time she was his mistress, she continued to serve as his slave, in addition to being pregnant almost continuously when he was in town. She was not even freed by his will when he died. But collective memory serves to establish moral, political, and social lessons, and to help form an understanding of who we are as a people. Truth can often fall by the wayside.

Unger, however, has a respect for facts.

He also has a keen eye for those early figures in our history who displayed more character, more nuance, more courage, and more loyalty to the aims of the young country. One of those was John Marshall. This well-written story will keep your attention from beginning to end. Highly recommended!

[Lisa Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to the study of John Marshal and the Supreme Court.

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a paradox in reading Harlow Unger; his histories and biographies are easier, more fun, to read than other biographies, sometimes reading like the narrative of a novel. However, they do not carry the depth or intellectual rigor of many other biographies. This paradox is apparent in his biography of John Marshall.

Sometimes this works. This contained by far the best explanation of the XYZ affair and why it affected the United States so strongly. Unger narrates the story as it unfolds, describes each approach by a French envoy to John Marshall and his two diplomatic team members when they arrive in France to try to negotiate a compromise with France to free up US shipping and hostages. Unger describes each demand for bribery or tribute and only when Marshall returns to the United States and the written demands are released does Unger describe the XYZ

A constant theme was the relationships among Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, James Monroe and John Marshall which were forged by their military service and heroics, a forge that allowed Monroe and Marshall to remain close friends even at peaks of political rivalries while the estrangement of Burr and Hamilton with the others and each other seems especially sad

Unger does a good job summarizing Marshall's court decisions that defined American constitutional law with Marbury vs Madison, of course getting in depth treatment. Unger also contrasts the reactions between Jefferson and Madison to the court decisions and gives Madison credit for backing Marshall on controversial decisions giving supremacy of federal government over state government ensuring that our Supreme Court and its interpretation of the constitution did not merely become a paper tiger

The best example of the lack of depth of this book was its treatment of Thomas Jefferson. While Unger appropriately and effectively details Jefferson's weaknesses, such as contrasting the bravery and sacrifice of Washington, Marshall, Burr, Monroe and Hamilton during the war with Jefferson's retreat and bringing wine and musical instruments to imbibe and play with Hessian prisoners of war; Unger never addresses the nuance in Jefferson and his effectiveness in building a majority party which continues to shape American politics today

But all in all, this was a great read

[Courtney Umlauf · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been taunting me from my currently reading shelf since April. Today I powered through.

John Marshall isn't someone I had any knowledge of until I read biographies of Washington and Adams. He's so important to the founding of the country, playing a large role in developing the judiciary branch and in defining the role of the federal and state governments, I'm surprised he's not someone you learn about in high school US history class. I thought this was a good introduction.

My only issue I have with this book is how biased Unger is against Jefferson, which isn't anything new. That's been a recurring theme in other books I've read by the author. From his descriptions, I would agree that Jefferson seems horrible. But there have to be other viewpoints regarding this issue. I would be more convinced if Unger addressed and refuted some competing interpretations of Jefferson's role as a founding father as opposed to simply injecting his strong dislike of him everywhere possible. In a book this size, he could have done this to some degree.

**There's one other thing that kept bothering me as I read. Maybe the reason it caught my attention so much is because I read such a large chunk in one day, but I couldn't help but notice a weird lack of commas everywhere in the text. I'm all for disregarding a rule of grammar if following it will make the text somehow less clear to the reader. After all, clarity is the goal. But in this case, I found that the meaning was often muddled by leaving out commas. He almost never inserts one after a prepositional phrase at the start of a sentence, even a long phrase. I thought "maybe he's decided to never include a comma there, for whatever reason". Then I come across two paragraphs back to back, each beginning with a sentence using a prepositional phrase at the start. One used a comma, one didn't, and they were both about the same number of words. Appositive phrases in the middle of a sentence don't even always get commas. There seems to be no consistent pattern. It's bizarre. I'm not a stickler for grammar, I just couldn't help but be annoyed and wonder how no one else seems to have noticed.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I would give it a 4.5 stars if possible.

John Marshall forms the backdrop of a very interesting era in America's history. At least half of the book concerns Marshall; the other half, woven throughout the book, concerns the times that Marshall lived--focussed in the 1790's and early 1800's.

Biographers often get criticized for falling in love with their subjects; and a case can be made here regarding this book. Yet, it makes no sense to senselessly disparage such a great man as Marshall ("great" is not an over estimation of my understanding of Marshall). So, I take the author's approach to Marshall at his word.

Most interesting is the author's expositions of Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson. Essentially, the author rehabilitates Burr and throws Jefferson under the bus.

The author's discussion of Jefferson is of special note. Jefferson, the author opines, exhibited traitorous conduct, cowardice, was power-hungry, and essentially a terrible President . That comes as a shock to me, although I am hard pressed to disagree with the author's carefully constructed arguments and historical references. Still, I think the author went slightly overboard with Jefferson; he had a very good first term and a terrible second term (largely his own doing). Nevertheless, the books' treatment of Jefferson is very interesting and contrary to some of the recent biographies that I have read regarding TJ.

I highly recommend the book. Buy it and read it. It is an easy read.

[Yvonne Desa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow what a book. Got better as it went along & quite frankly learned a great deal more than I thought I knew. Mr Jefferson truly was a man with a lot of vitoral directed towards Mr.Marshall who thank goodness carried himself in the highest standard and did not fall into the trap Jefferson had planned each and every time. Recommend the book to all who love history & how we came to be the great country we are.

[Giana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to start by saying that I am generally wary of Jefferson and have no complaints against Marshall. However, this book shocked me in its unwavering portrayal of Marshall as the epitome of all things good and saintly with Jefferson as his villainous foe whose sole intent in life is to destroy America and ruin Marshall. It was jarring to see Unger go out of his way within the first chapter or two to paint Jefferson as the worst person on the planet and it honestly led me to mistrust the entirety of this "biography." I put biography in quotes because, out of 300 pages, Marshall is featured in, at most, 1/3 of it. The entire last third of his life is shortened into a description of a couple cases and a few pages on the deaths of him and his wife. It seems Unger wanted to write about the "Men of Monmouth" but his publisher told him he had to choose one. He kept randomly circling back to how these men's lives revolved around each other, about how they fought together at this one battle but then betrayed each other by having different political ideologies. Unger would go pages and pages explaining just the general history of what was happening at the time, sometimes only to tangentially tie it back in to Marshall.

This also was not well written. I'm wondering if there was an editor involved and/or whether Unger listened to any of their advice. There were several jarring, almost nonsensical phrases (such as saying Marshall's trip took two nights but then saying he "sometimes stayed in a tavern, sometimes stayed with friends, sometimes stayed somewhere else that I can't really remember right now" (that obviously isn't a direct quote) or the time he said "Hamilton, who was the same age as Burr, rebuked" (this is closer to a direct quote but not quite) in a case where age or seniority or anything that would make that qualification relevant applied). The timeline was wonky and hard to follow at times, the chapter breaks came at bizarre points as if this were a fictional account trying to draw suspense (though Unger never did that) rather than a biographer trying to break someone's life up into cohesive chunks, and there was so much repetition (usually due to the bizarre chapter breaks- we'd have to review what happened in the previous chapter to make sure we were on track for what was happening in this chapter).

Also I can't get over the fact that Unger called Marshall's love story with his wife the most charming of the time (I can't remember his exact wording but something to that effect). They met when he was 26 and she was FOURTEEN. I feel like that's egregious, even for the time. I understand that kind of age gap is normal but I feel like courting doesn't start until the girl has reached a more reasonable age (evidenced by the fact that Polly wasn't even allowed at the party). The kicker is, after that, we see very little evidence to back up the claim of this so-called amazing love story. Marshall constantly leaves his frail wife behind (coming back just long enough to knock her up immediately after her previous traumatic pregnancy that left her physically and emotionally drained). Which, again, was normal of public figures at the time but doesn't seem to back up Unger's seeming idolization of their relationship.

I got this book at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. There was a large selection of books but the museum was going to close in ten minutes so I had to make a decision. I chose a biography on John Marshall because I thought he fit well with the constitutional theme of the place. I don't usually do all the research I normally do for books when it comes to biographies, but I didn't have time to do any of that research with this book and I'm sorely regretting it now. I'll have to implement a better vetting process in the future because I really feel like this book was a waste of my time and now I'll have to go looking for another biography on Marshall (if anyone has any recommendations, let me know).

[Bill Christman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harlow Giles Unger does not like Thomas Jefferson, at least the politician. This is making me a fan of Unger's. Jefferson comes up over and over in Unger's book John Marshall because they were enemies. It really got started when Marshall a citizen of Virginia, but serving in Washington's army during the revolution, got to hear about the destruction of Richmond and the ease of which British troops swarmed the state. Jefferson who was Governor had been warned by Washington to prepare Virginia for invasion, giving what military historians consider excellent advice, and Jefferson ignored then ignored it. He then ran off to Monticello to avoid combat and the British.

John Marshall was a warm charismatic man with a legal mind that may still be one of the best in the western world. Unger points out even European scholars admire his decisions and writings. John Marshall became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as a last minute appointee as the Adams administration was ending. Jefferson resented these Federalists taking over the 3rd branch of government and did what he could to get rid of them. A few of the issues of how to rid of the branch of Federalists came up in the case Marbury v Madison, a case where Marshall declared that it would be the Supreme Court that decided what was constitutional and what was not. The case was decided in such a way, no side getting everything and each getting something, that it was extremely difficult to overturn. Jefferson responded but getting a Judicial act through Congress that essentially kept the Supreme Court from getting together for 2 years. It is interesting that Jefferson said he knew what was meant in the Constitution, when he wasn't present at the creation. Jefferson in the John Marshall story comes across as one who did not like to be crossed and if he was one should watch their back. Marshall would defy Jefferson's view and fight for more power. Marshall had fought for ratification of the Constitution in Virginia and had conversed with many who were there.

Of those who were there many had become life long friends. Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, Aaron Burr, and George Washington were all present at the heated battle of Monmouth Court House and would be remembered fondly by Marshall. Marshall would defend the Washington administration policies, while rejecting Washington's offers to work for it. Based on his friends and his politics he was a nationalist who saw the Constitution as the Supreme law of the land. By the end of his life the southern attitudes had him believing there would be a civil war because the south kept becoming upset by the Judicial precedent he was setting.

Marshall established judicial review. His court also ruled that no court was too low for them to review, whether state or federal. The court also established that the Constitution was not a compact (in a decision written by a Jefferson appointee who Jefferson thought would slow Marshall down), and gave the court much of the power it has today. Towards the end of his life the court had a decision against states' rights backed up by President Andrew Jackson, no great fan of Marshall, with troops to assure compliance with the ruling.

Unger's book is an excellent look at the impact of the longest serving Chief Justice. At times he delves too much into other issues of the era but for one not familiar with the time it is probably helpful. I found it a time waster and the reason for 4 stars. I will repeat I am becoming a fan of this historian as he tackles the era between Jefferson's election and Lincoln's.

[David Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Marshall is one of the most important figures in American History, yet so few people know anything about him. Born in a log cabin in what was then the western frontier of the colony of Virginia he would rise until he became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Marshall was far more than a mere Chief Justice. During his tenure on the court from 1801 – 1835 he would reinvent the Court and make it the powerful institution that it is today. In Marbury v. Madison, Marshall would assert the power of the Court to determine the constitutionality of a law passed by Congress. This particular duty of the Supreme Court is so taken for granted today that we forget how controversial it was at the time. President Thomas Jefferson, who did not want an independent judiciary, did his best to undermine and destroy the power of the Court. The Speaker of the House was a staunch Jefferson supporter and led the charge to impeach Samuel Chase, one of the Justices. The hope was to impeach and remove the judges who disagreed with Jefferson one by one until the Court was packed with Jefferson supporters who would then undermine the power of the Court. The trial of Justice Chase came back with a “not guilty” verdict and Jefferson was handed a strong defeat. After this Marshall and the Court would go on to carve out and define the power of the Court and establish precedents that exist to this day.

Florence King once referred to Harlow Giles Unger as “America’s most readable historian.” John Marshall proves once again that Mr. Unger has not lost any of those skills. This volume is not a reference heavy tome meant for the professional historian. It is an excellent introduction to both John Marshall and his world. You do not need any outside knowledge to understand this book and what is going on throughout this time period. Unger does not delve deeply into the side characters so if you want to know more about men like James Monroe, James Madison, and others then you will need to read about them. Fortunately, there are many excellent books on those sources. Unger is dedicated to his own subject and he does not fall prey to that Siren song that so often entraps the historian: the rabbit trail. This book is recommended for anyone who would like to know more about the history of the United States and the foundation period when so much that we take for granted today came about. Marshall is a fascinating subject and Unger brings him to life. We see the man willing to disappoint President Washington and turn down important government posts because of family duties. We see a man willing to stand up to Thomas Jefferson and fight for the right to an independent judiciary. Captain, Congressman, Secretary of State, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are all official titles that he held from the period of the Revolution until his death in 1835. Those who knew him knew him as a son, husband, father, friend, patriot, a tireless worker for the new Union. Harlow Giles Unger shows us all of these aspects and gives us John Marshall.

[David Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

About 2/3 of the way through this book, I was planning on giving it only 2 stars. I have some serious issues with it. There are a few things that Unger states that are obviously not true (particularly where he discusses slaves in 1800 voting). If somebody tells me that it hails because the sky is plaid, I can't help but wonder what else they're telling me that isn't true.

But there are only a few of these, and they're generally contradicted elsewhere in the text. What isn't contradicted is the general tone. In this book, there is only one hero, only one "good guy", and that's Marshall. Almost everybody else is cast as villain. I've read thousands of pages of history and biography of the time, and this is the only work that describes Thomas Jefferson as a witless tyrant, interested only in personal power and glory and actively working to overthrow the government.

The thing is, Unger isn't incorrect in the facts he presents in support of Jefferson's villainy. The facts he brings forth are correct, but not the whole story. And he frames these facts in charged language. In this book, Jefferson never simply "says" anything. He crows, he sneers, he whispers. Unger always frames Jefferson (and, to a lesser degree, other villains) in the worst possible light. (Even the sources cited make me question Unger's viewpoint. One item sent me to the end of the book for notes. Did Jefferson really say what Unger said he said? The note for that particular quote indicates it came from "paragraphs omitted from message to Congress, December 8, 1801". Did he say this thing he didn't say?) For most of the book, this angered me. But it is certainly the historian's task to make people view history from multiple angles, see things in a different light. So there is value in this. Multiple viewpoints are necessary.

But why am I talking so much about Jefferson in a review of a Marshall biography? Sadly, because I think this is a rather weak biography of Marshall. It is a fairly good telling of US history during Marshall's adulthood, if somewhat biased against many of the key figures of the day. But that history isn't told through the telling of Marshall's life, it's told as more-or-less straight history, somewhat focused on Marshall's part in it.

The book is easy reading and does give short (perhaps too short) analyses of nine of the Marshall court's most important cases. But I don't think it did a good job of telling us about John Marshall. I probably won't read another biography of him, but I'd suggest that people interested in learning about Marshall seek a better work.

[Sonaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Founding Father for our times.

History is the only thing getting me through the awful news cycles we are living through. This story is especially inspiring and relevant right now because it helps complete a picture of how the best parts of our government have only come into existence in response crises that threaten to destroy it. Our best corruption laws were enacted after Watergate, our financial regulations after the great depression, and our federal court system itself only after the constitution was at risk of vanishing into obscurity after Washington left office. If you've never heard of the XYZ affair, there are more than a few parallels between it and where the US stands today: a foreign government meddling in a US election to promote a candidate sympathetic to its cause and willing to help it fight its regional rivals, treason, espionage, and eventually a president seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the Supreme Court by dismissing judges unsympathetic to its political aims.

It's astounding how John Marshall navigated these crises and - over the course of countless cases and rulings - established a legal system that could stand on equal footing with the executive and judicial branch.

So, this is a fantastic story. You can't fully appreciate how dangerous a man Thomas Jefferson was until you understand his assault on the judiciary and how it (thankfully) backfired.

At the same time, this specific book doesn't feel like a definitive account, and part of me wishes I'd read something a bit longer and more detailed like "John Marshall: Definer of a Nation." It will have to wait for another day.

Most of what's here is gripping, but there are a lot of details to his life that remain confusing - like his relationship to his wife, who seemed always on the verge of mental collapse, always pregnant, and always lonely. It's hard to reconcile who the man really was when his wife is remains so one-dimensional, and so tragic.

Anyways, hard to say this is :the: book to read, but I can't recommend reading up on John Marshall more highly.

[Holt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This "John Marshall biography" barely qualifies as such. The author is an accomplished historian of the founding and early republic (and that comes through quite clearly) - but does not meaningfully engage with Marshall or his judicial legacy. It is far more a survey of the events of the Revolution and young America than a study of Marshall.

Marshall is undoubtedly one of the most important figures of the early republic - perhaps the most important if measured by impact on the functioning of the United States government - but Unger neglects anything deeper than a cursory glance at his judicial legacy. Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton are equal if not greater focuses of this work than Marshall. There are chapters when Marshall is not mentioned or merely shoe-horned in. Sure, Unger tells us how important Marshall's SCOTUS are, but he does not show us. Descriptions of Marbury v Madison, Gibbons v Ogden, McCulloch v Maryland and other landmark cases read as nothing more than case briefs. There is no insight into Marshall's decision-making process. There is no analysis of his reasoning or examination of his judicial philosophy. Unger is clearly no constitutional scholar, but to create a worthwhile biography of the most impactful lawmaker in United States history, you pretty much need to become one.

I still gave this book three stars because I did enjoy what he offered. A survey of the young republic following Washington; excellent info on the Adams and Jefferson administrations, and particularly of the Burr treason affair. It is well-written, well-paced and fun to read. However, it is not what I hoped or what it promises to be. Perhaps I just need to find a Marshall bio written by a legal scholar.

[Steven Hix · Rating 2 out of 5]

If anyone was predisposed to like this book, it was me. I love history. I love constitutional law. I’m currently in law school, where everyone constantly idolizes John Marshall. But here I am giving it two stars.

The author lifts HUGE sections of his book verbatim from his other books without changing a single word. If you wondering how he copies entire sections of biographies of other people into this one, the answer is that the biography is barely about John Marshall. This “biography” is basically an overview of American history during the late 1700s and early 1800s, and also John Marshall happens to be there sometimes. There was an entire chapter of the book (lifted verbatim from the author’s John Quincy Adams biography) devoted to discussing the activities of a French ambassador, then the author made almost literally no attempt to connect those events to John Marshall’s life. It would have been a neat chapter in a book titled “The History of French-American Relations,” but it made no sense as such a prominent feature here.

When the author does finally focus on Marshall, the focus is so fleeting that it contributes almost no picture of the man at all. Even when events that orbited around Marshall are discussed from a 35,000 foot view and not from the perspective of a Marshall biography. These sections would barely have read differently if they were in a general purpose American history book.

The only thing giving this book its second star is how funny I find the author’s open and indiscriminate hatred of Thomas Jefferson and everything he did in his entire life.

[Zachary Hadsell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The history and biography of this novel is both sloppy and simplistic. I say novel because Unger doesn’t bother to treat the historical figures in this biography as complex actors with motivations and worldviews that drive their actions, but rather as caricatures of good guys and bad guys involved in a plot surrounding his subject, in this case John Marshall. It was reminiscent of those simplistic stories we were told as kids about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, but much worse because it’s done under the guise of legitimate history. Looking back I think the title of the book should have tipped me off to this, as you’d think John Marshall wore a cape as he rode the circuit saving the nation. The unapologetic lionizing did become entertaining at times and I got a good laugh when Unger compared Marshall’s first decision as Chief Justice to Moses coming down off Mt. Sinai.

The other thing is how amazingly absent John Marshall himself is. A good quarter of the book is dedicated to Washington’s first term, with only incidental references to Marshall and what his opinion was on an administrative decision. The rest of the book maintains this pattern. I picked up this book because I enjoyed Unger’s biography of Lafayette, but I probably won’t be coming back to another Unger biography again.

[Lindsey Barger · Rating 3 out of 5]

In reading about our first few American presidents, one name kept appear: John Marshall. Marshall is the son of Thomas Marshall, George Washington’s surveying partner. He attended school with James Monroe and his military career in the Revolution had him cross paths with Alexander Hamilton many times. Marshall is best known as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court – only it’s fourth Chief. His long tenure on the bench allowed him to establish many procedures and presidents still in use today including what cases the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over and the use of stare decisis, or legal precedent.

Harlow Giles Unger’s biography of the man, John Marshall: The Chief Justice who saved the nation, follows Marshall from childhood through death. This book connects the better-known stories of presidents and other prominent figures to relate how they affected Marshall’s life and his decision making on the bench. Unger brings in many supporting characters and spends a good bit of time retelling these stories throughout the book with only a cursory mention of Marshall’s impact after the fact. This book is more a tale of the early judiciary branch than a biography of America’s greatest Chief Justice. I was interested in the additional information on Aaron Burr provided by the author throughout, but again, this was a tangent that spent a great deal of time on someone other than the intended target of this biography.

I give John Marhsall 3 out of 5 stars. I was disappointed to find how much time the author spent on other historical figures and events than on Marshall himself. This book was more of a capstone read, pulling together all the books I have previously read about the Washingtons, the Adamses, and the supporting casts. I felt like this was a repeat of everything I have heard and not much new information learned. It is well written and was an enjoyable read, other than the repeat information.

I would recommend this book to readers who haven’t read as many books about this time period and its heroes as I have. I would also recommend this book for readers looking to learn about Supreme Court History. The final third of the text centers more on Marshall’s life on the bench and would be beneficial.

I chose John Marshall as my historical biography read for October. After encountering his name several times, I was intrigued. He barely received any formal education until after the Revolution and went out to become a great lawyer and juror. As stated above, I found myself interested in another character of this book – Aaron Burr. My next historical biography will follow Thomas Jefferson, the president for whom Burr served as second in command. As we progress through Jefferson’s time in office, I’m looking forward to learning more about this complicated man!

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating biography of a little-known, yet grand figure of the American Founding, from his involvement in the Revolutionary War, to his relationships with many other Founders, especially in difficult circumstances. From his years of public service to his role as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, including descriptions of many of his most important decisions while on the highest bench of the land.
One interesting note: Yellow Fever swept through Philadelphia in 1793-94 when followers of Pro-French and followers of Pro-English factions threatened to push the country into civil war. John Adams noted later that "Nothing but the Yellow Fever could have saved the United States from a fatal revolution of government."
Marshall was a principled, brilliant, articulate, and loving man and public servant whose influence was ubiquitous during the Founding era. John Quincy Adams said that Marshall "cemented the union..."

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh...just missed

I was recommended this book by the Vice Dean of my law school. It was not a bad read. It told a story and I was touched at the end when Marshall died (I love and hate biographies because I hate to say goodbye to a protagonist). There's a huge but: I just missed the message. I felt like "Saved the Nation" wasn't really stated much in the book. It left me feeling like Marshall played Monkey in the Middle and would occasionally catch the ball, way a finger then let everyone play their games again.

The book is very unkind and slightly sided when it comes to Thomas Jefferson. It felt like it was too much tearing apart Jefferson instead of playing up Marshall's ability to mitigate fairly.

I have never said this about any history book ever but... I kind of wish I had the time it took me to read this back.

[Karen Floyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a galloping, enthusiastically written biography of John Marshall. I was initially suspicious because of a couple of factual errors at the beginning, but Unger's life of Marshall was so entertaining, and his admiration so blatant, that I couldn't put it down until I was done. (It was also, I must confess, a relief to read an author who doesn't idolize Thomas Jefferson.) As a country we have a lot to be grateful to Marshall for, in the decisions made by his Supreme Court. The last part of the book abandons biographical narrative to review and explain some of Marshall's most important decisions as Chief Justice. I think this is a good, if perhaps too uncritical, introduction to Marshall's life and legacy. I will be reading other biographies to get a fuller picture of Marshall and his life and times.

[Benjamin Schauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unger is clearly a John Marshall fanboy because this book is essentially a love letter to the Chief Justice. On the opposite side, it is very clear that the author is not a Thomas Jefferson fan, as he is painted as a villainous and ruinous president that couldn’t stop meddling to bring about his vision of the United States.

Despite the bias, it was an interesting listen. It’s sometimes hard to imagine the Founding Fathers outside of the Revolution time period, but Marshall lived to the end of Andrew Jackson’s presidency. Though some readers have criticized the background history as superfluous, I found it to be engaging and crucial to understanding why certain cases were heard and how they ripples through American society. I’ll be looking for additional sources on the life and work of this monumental Chief Justice.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much more a history of the early United States than a detailed biography of Marshall, I found it really enlightening on the early battles and personalities that shaped the country. The author tended towards grandiose statements and harsh summaries of the personalities and motivations of key characters - but backed up his assessments with scholarship (though not always his own). I think in many ways this book is a partisan representation of Marshall and the importance of federalists in forging the country - but that framework worked very well in my opinion. It was like reading an argument for the importance of federalism - and I find that format very illuminating even if other works might argue different perspectives.

[John Findlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about the Chief Justice who established the role of the Supreme Court through a series of rulings over a period of 35 years. He was also heavily involved in the early days of America, from the Revolution to the Constitutional Convention. Jefferson, who comes off poorly in this book, hated Marshall because Jefferson insisted that states were supreme over the federal government, whereas Marshall’s rulings dispelled that notion. Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, James Madison, and George Washington are also discussed at length. Amongst them, Jefferson receives the harshest portrayal. But Marshall is the primary character, who interacted with them all, and who set the direction of the still nascent US going forward. I am glad I read this book.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different viewpoint from most early American history I've read. To me it highlighted the challenges of state vs nation and just how the diverse collection of states would...or would not...become a country. Of course those issues resulted in a war about 30 years after the period covered in the book.
I don't know whether the author was totally balanced in his treatment of each founding father, but it seems logical that there would be a great deal of disagreement of how the new country would function.
The interaction of personal life, including health issues, with political issues gives a relatable and more complete picture.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I admit that I have a much better appreciation of Chief Justice John Marshall after reading this book, but there have to be much better books on him than this one. In explaining Marshall's motivation for expanding the power of the Federal courts to raise the Judiciary branch to an equal level with the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal government, Unger used the animosity of Marshall and Thomas Jefferson one time too many for my taste and really caused me to question the level of scholarship applied to the writing of this book. In short, Unger could have been more balanced and less unbiased about John Marshall.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're looking for a book on the Revolutionary War and Early Republic years through the War of 1812 with John Marshall mostly at the center, this is your book. Unger only dedicated about 25 pages to the years when Marshall wrote many of his major decisions- McCullough v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden, and the only case from the trilogy of Johnson v. McIntosh, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, and Worcester v. Georgia that really gets any coverage (if you can call it that) is the latter. It's a fine intro to Marshall's life, but don't expect any incisive analysis on slavery, treatment of indigenous Americans, or Marshall's legal reasoning.

[Tom Rowe · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Marshall often gets lost in this biography of John Marshall. In fact, a lot of this book sounds like "Mr. President": George Washington and the Making of the Nation's Highest Office" by Prof. Unger, which I just read a week ago. There was a lot on Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr to fill the pages while Marshall was just hanging out in Virginia trying to earn a living as a lawyer. I'm not complaining about this background info in the book, it's just that it is disproportional to how much is told about Marshall.