John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court (Southern Biography Series) - Hardcover

Newmyer, R. Kent

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807127019 ISBN 13: 9780807127018

Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr, 2001

Synopsis

John Marshall (1755-1835) was arguably the most important judicial figure in American history. As the fourth chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from 1801 to 1835, he helped move the court from the fringes of power to the epicenter of constitutional government. His great opinions in cases like Marbury v. Madison and McCulloch v. Maryland are still part of the working discourse of constitutional law in America. Drawing on a new and definitive edition of Marshall's papers, R. Kent Newmyer combines engaging narrative with new historiographical insights in a fresh interpretation of John Marshall's life in the law.

Newmyer vividly unfolds Marshall's early Virginia years- his Americanization in Fauquier County before the Revolution, his decision to fight for independence as "a principled soldier," and his emergence as a constitutional nationalist in the 1780s. Marshall's experience as a Federalist politician and a leading Virginia lawyer during the 1790s, Newmyer argues, defined his ideas about judicial review and the role of the Supreme Court as a curb on party-based, states'-rights radicalism.

Perhaps best known for consolidating the authority of the Supreme Court, Marshall is revealed here to have been equally skilled at crafting law that supported the emerging American market economy. He waged a lifelong struggle against champions of states'-rights constitutional theory, a struggle embodied in his personal and ideological rivalry with Thomas Jefferson.

More than the summation of Marshall's legal and institutional accomplishments, Newmyer's impressive study captures the nuanced texture of the justice's reasoning, the complexity of his mature jurisprudence, and the affinities and tensions between his system of law and the transformative age in which he lived. It substantiates Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s view of Marshall as the most representative figure in American law.

About this title

About the Author:

R. Kent Newmyer, professor of law and history at the University of Connecticut School of Law, is the author of "Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story" among other books.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this comprehensive scholarly study of the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, Newmyer (Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story) succeeds at "locat[ing] Marshall and his jurisprudence in the broader historical context." Newmyer, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, cites three principal sources for Marshall's constitutional thinking: his experience as a Revolutionary soldier, his law career steeped in the common law tradition, and his upbringing among the landowning elite in Virginia. These formative influences, Newmyer contends, created in the fourth chief justice a belief system centered on the primacy of the federal union and respect for property rights. As a judge, Marshall (1755-1835) believed in but did not always practice nonpolitical interpretation of the Constitution. Newmyer profiles a dozen of the justice's foundational opinions for the Supreme Court, demonstrating Marshall's persistent nationalist vision in which a written Constitution trumps divisive state and local interests. At the end of his career, Marshall believed his vision had been swept aside by history; and so it had, as states' rights gained ascendancy in the years leading up to the Civil War. However, his decisions are still cited as precedents today and have had a formidable impact on key legislation such as New Deal welfare programs. In this sustained and thoughtful examination, Newmyer concentrates on his subject's ideas more than his personality or his life's chronology. The author plainly approves of Marshall as a man, a thinker and a judge, and this account will persuade readers that the judge is indeed worthy of study and admiration. 27 b&w illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0807127019
• ISBN 13: 9780807127018
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 568