William Draper Lewis

“ Fisher the constitutional question involved was the power of Congress to give to the United States a preference over all other creditors in the distribution of the assets of a bankrupt. Such an act can be upheld on the ground that all governments have necessarily the right to give themselves priority. Not so Marshall. To him the act must be supported, if supported at all, not on any theory of the innate nature of the government, national or otherwise, but as a reasonable means of carrying out one of the express powers conferred by the Constitution on the Federal government. ”

“ Virginia, in spite of the contention of Jefferson and the then prevalent school of political thought that it was contrary to the Constitution for a person to bring one of the states of the United States, though only as an appellee, into a court of justice, he held that Congress could lawfully pass an act which permitted a person who was convicted in a state court, to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, if he alleged that the state act under which he was convicted conflicted with the Federal Constitution or with an act of Congress. ”

“ There is little or no repetition, but there is a wealth of illustration, a completeness of analysis, that convinces the reader, not only that the subject has been adequately treated, but that it has been exhausted. ”

“ Ogden, by giving the Federal government control over the means by which interstate and foreign commerce is carried on, preserved the material prosperity of the country. The decision recognizes what the framers of the Constitution recognized, namely that the United States is an economic union, and that business which is national should be under national, not state, control. ”

“ Yet in matters pertaining to constitutional construction, they seem to have had hardly any other function than to add the weight of their silent concurrence to the decision of their great chief. Thus the task of expounding the constitution during the most critical period of its history was his, and it was given to him to preside over the Supreme Court when it was called upon to decide four cases of vital importance: Marbury v. Madison, M‘Culloch v. Maryland, Cohens v. Virginia and Gibbons v. Ogden. In each of these cases it is Marshall who writes the opinion of the court ”

“ He was a member of the Virginia Assembly in 1782–1791 and again in 1795–1797; and in 1788, he took a leading part in the Virginia Convention called to act on the proposed constitution for the United States, with Madison ably urging the ratification of that instrument. In 1795 Washington offered him the attorney-generalship, and in 1796, after the retirement of James Monroe, the position of minister to France. Marshall declined both offers because his situation at the bar appeared to him “to be more independent and not less honourable than any other,” and his “preference for it was decided.” ”