It's fitting that the most recent of Brookhiser's exemplary works is John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court, for it was Marshall-a junior member of the Founding Fathers, so to speak-who made the Court a formidable bastion of the nation's founding governmental principles, shielding them from attacks by demagogically inclined presidents from Jefferson to Jackson, until his death in 1835.
How Marshall invested the Court with the energy, weight, and dignity it formerly lacked, and how he used it to protect the Federalist legacy during the 30 years of his chief justiceship when Federalism's opponents held the presidency, is the heart of Brookhiser's absorbing book.
In two key decisions, the Marshall Court unequivocally asserted the supremacy of the federal government over the states in matters affecting the whole union, particularly when issues that made the nation a single, barrier-free trading zone were at stake.
Let's start with basics, Marshall began his opinion for the Court in McCullough v. Maryland: the Constitution forged the U.S. into a single, indivisible unity.
Having stated such grand principles, Marshall then based his opinion on narrower grounds, as the Court often does.
Marshall had claimed sweeping power for the Court in McCulloch as a practical matter, how far does that power really reach? One sharp answer came in 1832.
He appealed to the High Court in 1832, and Marshall ruled that the Constitution, and the various treaties made under its authority between Indian tribes and the United States, though they didn't make the Cherokees a sovereign nation, nevertheless did give them a special status, placing them under federal jurisdiction and protection.
https://www.city-journal.org/john-marshall-supreme-court
How Marshall invested the Court with the energy, weight, and dignity it formerly lacked, and how he used it to protect the Federalist legacy during the 30 years of his chief justiceship when Federalism's opponents held the presidency, is the heart of Brookhiser's absorbing book.
In two key decisions, the Marshall Court unequivocally asserted the supremacy of the federal government over the states in matters affecting the whole union, particularly when issues that made the nation a single, barrier-free trading zone were at stake.
Let's start with basics, Marshall began his opinion for the Court in McCullough v. Maryland: the Constitution forged the U.S. into a single, indivisible unity.
Having stated such grand principles, Marshall then based his opinion on narrower grounds, as the Court often does.
Marshall had claimed sweeping power for the Court in McCulloch as a practical matter, how far does that power really reach? One sharp answer came in 1832.
He appealed to the High Court in 1832, and Marshall ruled that the Constitution, and the various treaties made under its authority between Indian tribes and the United States, though they didn't make the Cherokees a sovereign nation, nevertheless did give them a special status, placing them under federal jurisdiction and protection.
https://www.city-journal.org/john-marshall-supreme-court
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