Richard Brookhiser - John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court

branch of the federal government. When Marshall died in 1835, he and the Court he led had rebuked two presidents, Congress, and a dozen states and laid down principles of law and politics that still apply. Now, when the Supreme Court makes the news every day it sits, and every time a new justice must be appointed, there is no question of its prominencea prominence it owes, in the first instance, to Marshall, the man who made it.

, whose example would inspire and guide him for the rest of his life.

In September 1777, the Continental Army, led by commander in chief George Washington, met a British army led by Lord Howe at Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania, thirty miles southwest of Philadelphia, the new nations capital. Washington lost the battle of Brandywine, and the British took the city. In October, he counterattacked at Germantown, a hamlet north of Philadelphia, but once again he was defeated.

Before the year ended, Washington faced a third fight. His troops were dug in behind a line of redoubts at White Marsh, northwest of the city; in early December, Howe and his men marched out of Philadelphia toward them.

Washington was threatened by more than the enemy. Congress, dismayed by the loss of the capital, demanded that he strike the enemy and recover it.

John Marshall was in Washingtons army that winter, a lieutenant in a Virginia regiment. He was tall, strong, and slovenly, with black hair and bright black eyes. He had recently turned twenty-two and was already a two-year veteran who had fought in four engagements. Decades later, in a biography of George Washingtonthe only book he ever wrotehe recalled his commanders predicament at White Marsh.

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Washingtons talents, soldiers courage: Marshall would never forget them. The revolutionary army drew patriotic young men from every state who risked privation, injury, and death for their common country. The man who commanded them struck where he could and stood firm when he had to; he was judicious, brave, and a leader of men.

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But Washington was more than a hero to Marshall. He was a man with principles and an agenda, who had learned from the privations of his army the need for a capable national government, and who then worked as a Constitution-maker and president to design and lead one. How could Marshall support Washington while he lived and defend his handiwork after he was gone?

The most obvious way was politics, and Marshall had an abiding interest in it. In the first national two-party system that emerged in the 1790s, the party Marshall joined was the Federalists. Their policies were Washingtons: a strong federal government that could pay its debts, foster commerce, and sustain a unified nation in a turbulent world. Marshall was friendly with every prominent FederalistWashington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Timothy Pickeringeven when, as their party began to sink at the turn of the century, they turned on each other. The only man Marshall ever hated was Federalisms enemy and destroyer (and his own cousin)Thomas Jefferson.

Federalism withered and died, new parties emerged; Marshall kept tabs on them all. He was touted as a presidential candidate himself in one election season, and in another he attended Americas first national political convention, organized by Americas first third party (the Marshall campaign went nowhere, as did the third party).

Yet although politics was a lifelong interest of Marshalls, it was not his main one. He had a vocation, which was the law. His father, Thomas, had decided that his eldest child should be a lawyer; William Blackstones Commentaries on the Laws of England,