John Marshall John Marshall was more than a judge; he was a judicial statesman. During his thirty-four years as Chief Justice of the United States, he transformed the Supreme Court from a peripheral judicial institution into a central pillar of government. Thanks to Marshall, Federalist principles of government survived long after the Federalist party died. His decisions consolidated and defined the authority of the national government and established the institution of judicial review as a check on the powers of the executive and legislative branches.

Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review Before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, Marshall served as secretary of state in the Adams administration. In addition to his duties with respect to foreign relations, he was responsible for having the commissions delivered to Adams’s midnight appointees. Twenty-five of the commissions went undelivered, giving rise to one of the most celebrated cases in U.S. constitutional history, Marbury v. Madison. William Marbury, whose commission had gone undelivered, sued for a writ of mandamus under Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Section 13 authorized the Supreme Court to issue the writ in cases of original jurisdiction, but Marshall realized that Jefferson would ignore the writ and thereby undermine the authority of the Court. However, if the Court declined to issue the writ, it would be perceived as weak. Marshall handled the dilemma with characteristic political acumen. He held that the president had unlawfully withheld Marbury’s commission, but that the Court lacked the jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution to issue the writ of mandamus. He ruled that Section 13 was unconstitutional because Congress could not, under Article III of the Constitution, expand the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. In so doing, Marshall overturned an act of Congress for the first time, strengthened the role of the Court in government, and established an enduring precedent for judicial review.

State Sovereignty and the Marshall Court Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 conferred appellate jurisdiction upon the Supreme Court over claims under the Constitution, federal law, or treaty that had been rejected in a state court. The section was controversial because it subjected state court decisions to federal judicial review, thereby limiting the independence of state judiciaries. In two cases that turned on the status of land confiscated during the American Revolution, Fairfax Devisee v. Hunter’s Lessee (1813) and Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816), the Supreme Court held that Section 25 was constitutional, thereby expanding the Court’s appellate jurisdiction.

Sovereign Immunity and the Marshall Court Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 came before the Court again in Cohens v. Virginia (1821), this time in an appeal against a state court criminal conviction in Virginia. Virginia argued that the appeal was barred by the Eleventh Amendment, which prohibited suits against sovereign states in the federal courts. The Court ruled that because Virginia had itself commenced the criminal proceedings in its state courts, the sovereign immunity granted by the amendment did not bar the appeal. The amendment barred only suits brought by private parties against states, not appeals against proceedings begun by states. Jefferson remarked in a letter to William Johnson that the states did not contemplate such an interpretation at the time the Constitution was framed: “The States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers. They were not lessoned yet by Cohen's case, nor aware of the slipperiness of the eels of the law.” The Court further ruled in Osborn v. Bank of United States (1824) that state officials acting under the color of an unconstitutional law cannot claim immunity for their actions under the Eleventh Amendment.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) Congress’s decision to renew the charter of the national bank sparked a backlash from southern and western states opposed to it as a threat to agrarian interests. Maryland attempted to exclude the bank by imposing a prohibitive tax on the issuance of bank notes. The cashier of the bank, James McCulloch, refused to pay, prompting Maryland to obtain a judgment against the bank in the state courts. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which found that the act chartering the bank was a valid exercise of Congress’s Article I power to pass “necessary and proper” laws. By holding that the Constitution conferred upon the federal government implied as well as express powers, Marshall effectively wrote Hamilton’s theory of loose construction of the Constitution into the supreme law of the land, setting the stage for a virtually limitless expansion of federal power and the realization of Hamilton’s vision of a unitary national state. Marshall went on to invalidate the tax as an unconstitutional levy upon an agency of the federal government.

Craig v. Missouri (1830) In Craig v. Missouri, the Chief Justice led a divided Court in ruling that loan certificates issued by the State of Missouri violated the Monetary Clause of Article I of the Constitution. Although the certificates were not legal tender, Marshall broadly interpreted the Article I prohibition that “No State shall . . . coin Money; emit Bills of Credit [and]; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

The Commerce Clause and the Marshall Court The Commerce Clause of the Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Beyond that, the scope of the commerce power was originally unclear. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Chief Justice Marshall interpreted the clause to encompass regulation by the national government of navigation and transportation, as well as the exchange of goods. He also held that all aspects of intrastate commerce relating to interstate and foreign commerce are within federal jurisdiction. The decision paved the way for sweeping claims of federal regulatory power. In Brown v. Maryland (1827), Marshall held that the Commerce Clause prohibited states from taxing imported goods before they enter the general stream of commerce. So long as imported goods remain in their original form or package, states cannot tax them. This case limited the tax power of the states while confirming the regulatory power of the federal government.

State Police Powers and the Marshall Court In Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Company (1829), the Court had to determine whether a Delaware law allowing for the damming of a navigable creek violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Marshall ruled that the state law was a constitutional exercise of the state’s police powers because Delaware had a legitimate interest in maintaining its internal waterways, and because the law did not conflict with an existing federal laws relating to the creek. Thus federal jurisdiction is paramount with respect to interstate commerce, but it is not necessarily exclusive.

The Contract Clause and the Marshall Court Fletcher v. Peck (1810) was the first case in which the Supreme Court construed the Contract Clause. The Court held that states, like private parties, are bound by the Contract Clause of the Constitution. The ruling was met with controversy, because states argued that it deprived them of a measure of their sovereignty by equating their contract powers with those of private parties. Marshall went even further in New Jersey v. Wilson (1812), ruling that the Contract Clause barred the state of New Jersey from rescinding a tax exemption on lands bought by whites from Native Americans who obtained the exemption under a treaty when the land was Indian territory. The tax exemption was held to create a contract right that ran with the land for the benefit of subsequent purchasers. In Green v. Biddle (1823), the Supreme Court expanded the Contract Clause to cover political agreements between states as well as contracts between private parties. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) was the most important Contract Clause case decided by the Marshall Court. It had lasting consequences both for contract rights and economic development in the United States. The case involved the decision of the New Hampshire legislature to abrogate the royal charter establishing Dartmouth College and to turn the college into a public institution. Marshall ruled that public charters enjoyed the same protection as private contracts. Because corporations are established by public charter, the ruling assured investors that they would be protected against similar state interference. In Providence Bank v. Billings (1830), Marshall set limits on the Dartmouth ruling, holding that it did not exempt corporations from taxes unless the terms of its charter expressly exempted them from taxation.

Bankruptcy Laws and the Contract Clause In Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819), Chief Justice Marshall struck down a state bankruptcy law with respect to debts contracted before enactment of the law. In Ogden v. Saunders (1827), a divided Court (with Marshall dissenting) held that bankruptcy laws granting prospective relief to creditors do not violate the Contract Clause.

The Marshall Court and the Bill of Rights In Barron v. Baltimore (1833),the Court ruled that the Bill of Rights is not binding upon the states, but applies only to the federal government. Citing the legislative history of the Bill of Rights, Marshall held, “Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of the state governments, they would have imitated the framers of the original constitution, and have expressed that intention.” Some previous federal case law, including Houston v. Moore (1820) and Bonaparte v. Camden & Amboy R.R. (1830), suggested that the states might be bound by particular provisions of the Bill of Rights, but Marshall was well aware that such sweeping restrictions on the police powers of the states would almost certainly bring political reprisals, damaging the Court as an institution of government. The Court then operated on a much shorter political leash than it does today.

The Marshall Court and the Slave Trade In 1807, Congress enacted a statute prohibiting the international slave trade, giving hope to abolitionists that the United States would enforce the prohibition against both American and foreign nationals who engaged in the trade. The circuit court case of La Jeune Eugenie (1822) foreshadowed issues that would come before the Supreme Court in The Antelope (1825). In the latter case, Chief Justice Marshall ruled that even though the slave trade was prohibited by the domestic law of several nations, it was still permissible under the law of nations, which he described as a body of law “derived from long usage and general acquiescence.” Because the law of nations was binding upon all states, the United States could not unilaterally impose its own domestic prohibition of the trade on the nationals of foreign states whose domestic law permitted it.