| John Marshall - The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation
(2014)
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| Front Cover |
Book Details |
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| Genre |
Non-Fiction; Biography |
| Subject |
Marshall, John, 1755-1835; United States. Supreme Court - Biography; Judges - United States - Biography |
| Publication Date |
9/30/2014 |
| Format |
Hardcover (9.4
mm)
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| Publisher |
Da Capo Press |
| Language |
English |
| Extras |
Dust Jacket; Dust Jacket Cover |
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| Description |
A hero in America's war against British tyranny, John Marshall with his heroics as Chief Justice turned the Supreme Court into a bulwark against presidential and congressional tyranny and saved American democracy.
In this startling biography, award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals how Virginia-born John Marshall emerged from the Revolutionary War's bloodiest battlefields to become one of the nation's most important Founding Fathers: America's greatest Chief Justice. Marshall served his country as an officer, Congressman, diplomat, and Secretary of State before President John Adams named him the nation's fourth Chief Justice, the longest-serving in American history. Marshall transformed the Supreme Court from an irrelevant appeals court into a powerful branch of government—and provoked the ire of thousands of Americans who, like millions today, accused him and the court of issuing decisions that were tantamount to new laws and Constitutional amendments.
And the Court's critics were right! Marshall admitted as much.
With nine decisions that shocked the nation, John Marshall and his court assumed powers to strike down laws it deemed unconstitutional. In doing so, Marshall's court acted without Constitutional authority, but its decisions saved American liberty by protecting individual rights and the rights of private business against tyranny by federal, state, and local government. |
| Personal Details |
| Store |
American Political Biography Press |
| Purchase Price |
$10.00 |
| Acquire Date |
10/8/2019 |
| Condition |
Very Good/Very Good |
| Rating |
0 |
| Links |
Library of Congress
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| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
KF8745.M3 .U54 2014 |
| Dewey |
347.73/2634 |
| ISBN |
9780306822209 |
| Cover Price |
$27.99 |
| No. of Pages |
384 |
| First Edition |
No |
| Rare |
No |
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| Notes/Review |
About 2/3 of the way through this book, I was planning on giving it only 2 stars. I have some serious issues with it. There are a few things that Unger states that are obviously not true (particularly where he discusses slaves in 1800 voting). If somebody tells me that it hails because the sky is plaid, I can't help but wonder what else they're telling me that isn't true.
But there are only a few of these, and they're generally contradicted elsewhere in the text. What isn't contradicted is the general tone. In this book, there is only one hero, only one "good guy", and that's Marshall. Almost everybody else is cast as villain. I've read thousands of pages of history and biography of the time, and this is the only work that describes Thomas Jefferson as a witless tyrant, interested only in personal power and glory and actively working to overthrow the government.
The thing is, Unger isn't incorrect in the facts he presents in support of Jefferson's villainy. The facts he brings forth are correct, but not the whole story. And he frames these facts in charged language. In this book, Jefferson never simply "says" anything. He crows, he sneers, he whispers. Unger always frames Jefferson (and, to a lesser degree, other villains) in the worst possible light. (Even the sources cited make me question Unger's viewpoint. One item sent me to the end of the book for notes. Did Jefferson really say what Unger said he said? The note for that particular quote indicates it came from "paragraphs omitted from message to Congress, December 8, 1801". Did he say this thing he didn't say?) For most of the book, this angered me. But it is certainly the historian's task to make people view history from multiple angles, see things in a different light. So there is value in this. Multiple viewpoints are necessary.
But why am I talking so much about Jefferson in a review of a Marshall biography? Sadly, because I think this is a rather weak biography of Marshall. It is a fairly good telling of US history during Marshall's adulthood, if somewhat biased against many of the key figures of the day. But that history isn't told through the telling of Marshall's life, it's told as more-or-less straight history, somewhat focused on Marshall's part in it.
The book is easy reading and does give short (perhaps too short) analyses of nine of the Marshall court's most important cases. But I don't think it did a good job of telling us about John Marshall. I probably won't read another biography of him, but I'd suggest that people interested in learning about Marshall seek a better work. |
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