The Life of John Marshall, Volume 3: Conflict and construction, 1800-1815

The Life of John Marshall, Volume 3: Conflict and construction, 1800-1815

Marshall's great Constitutional opinions grew out of, or were addressed to, serious public conditions, national in extent. In these volumes the effort is made to relate the circumstances that required him to give to the country those marvelous state papers: for Marshall's opinions were nothing less than state papers and of the first rank. In order to understand the full meaning of his deliverances and to estimate the just value of his labors, it is necessary to know the historical sources of his foremost expositions of the Constitution, and the historical purposes they were intended to accomplish. Without such knowledge, Marshall's finest pronouncements become mere legal utterances, important, to be sure, but colorless and unattractive. It is worthy of repetition, even in a preface, that the history of the times is a part of his greatest opinions; and that, in the treatment of them a rsum of the events that produced them must be given. For example, the decision of Marbury vs. Madison, at the time and in the manner it was rendered, was compelled by the political situation then existing, unless the principle of judicial supremacy over legislation was to be abandoned. The Judiciary Debate of 1802 in Congressone of the most brilliant as well as most important legislative engagements in parliamentary historycan no more be overlooked by the student of American Constitutional [Pg vi]development, than the opinion of Marshall in Marbury vs. Madison can be disregarded. Again, in Cohens vs. Virginia, the Chief Justice rises to heights of exaltedalmost emotionaleloquence. Yet the case itself was hardly more than a police court controversy. If the trivial fine of itinerant peddlars of lottery tickets were alone involved, Marshall's splendid passages become unnecessary and, indeed, pompous rhetoric. But when the curtains of history are raised, we see the heroic part that Marshall played and realize the meaning of his powerful language. While Marshall's opinion in M'Culloch vs. Maryland, even taken by itself, is a major treatise on constitutional government, it becomes a fascinating chapter in an engaging story, when read in connection with an account of the situation which compelled that outgiving. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 40445
Author: Beveridge, Albert J. (Albert Jeremiah)
Release Date: Aug 8, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English