Brookhiser is one of my favorite history biographers. His books are concise and incisive.
By the time he died in 1835, John Marshall, our third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and arguable our greatest, was the last Federalist standing. Only James Madison outlived him, and Madison had ceased being Federalist having gone over to the Jeffersonian states rights side.
Marshall loathed his distant cousin and Thomas Jefferson loathed him in return. The more I read about Jefferson the more I loathe him also.
Marshall made the Supreme Court a coequal branch of government, not just with Marbury vs. Madison, but with the authority and dignity he brought to the court. He always sought unanimous decisions are often as possible. He worked against a divided court. Today's divisions did not much happen during his tenure.
The author makes a big deal of Marshall's allegiance to George Washington. Marshall served with GW in the war and spent the winter of Valley Forge with him. Marshall worshipped Washington all his life.
His allegiance to the Constitution was real.
It is the duty and province of the judicial branch to say what the law is.
One of his missions was to say that the Constitution instituted a country, we the people, and not a league.
I can't tell if Marshall had a definite theory of Constitutional interpretation or if the author has one. Fortunately I do not see the "originalism."
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