(September 24, 1755–July 6, 1835), was the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, appointed by President John Adams, and held that position for 34 years. He had been a captain in the Revolutionary War and had served with General George Washington during the freezing winter at Valley Forge in 1777–78.
John Marshall was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and strongly advocated the ratification of the Constitution. He turned down President George Washington’s offer to be the U.S. Attorney General, though he later served as U.S. Minister to France, gaining recognition for his refusal to take French bribes during the “XYZ Affair.”
After having been a U.S. Representative, he was appointed Secretary of State, and finally Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1801. His influence helped form the judicial branch of the government. In the 1833 case of Barron v. Baltimore, Marshall emphasized that the Bill of Rights restricted only the national government.1468 The country mourned at his death, and it was at his funeral, 1835, that the Liberty Bell cracked.1469
The Winchester Republican newspaper published the following occurrence involving Chief Justice John Marshall at McGuire’s Hotel in Winchester, after he had encountered trouble with his carriage along the road:
The shafts of his ancient gig were broken and “held together by switches formed from the bark of a hickory sapling”; he was negligently dressed, his knee buckles loosened. In the tavern a discussion arose among some young men concerning “the merits of the Christian religion.” The debate grew warm and lasted “from six o’clock until eleven.” No one knew Marshall, who sat quietly listening.
Finally one of the youthful combatants turned to him and said: Well, my old gentleman, what think you of these things?”
Marshall responded with a “most eloquent and unanswerable appeal.” He talked for an hour, answering “every argument urged against” the teachings of Jesus. “In the whole lecture, there was so much simplicity and energy, pathos and sublimity, that not another word was uttered.”
The listeners wondered who the old man could be. Some thought him a preacher; and great was their surprise when they learned afterwards that he was the Chief Justice of the United States.1470
John Marshall, who had previously fought with Washington in the Revolutionary War and served with him at Valley Forge, described General Washington in these terms:
Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man.1471
John Marshall’s daughter makes this statement regarding her father’s religious views:
He told me that he believed in the truth of the Christian Revelation … during the last months of his life he read Keith on Prophecy, where our Saviour’s divinity is incidentally treated, and was convinced by this work, and the fuller investigation to which it led, of the supreme divinity of our Saviour. He determined to apply to the communion of our Church, objecting to communion in private, because he thought it his duty to make a public confession of the Saviour.1472
John Marshall is recorded as stating:
No person, I believe, questions the importance of religion to the happiness of man even during his existence in this world. …
The American population is entirely Christian, and with us, Christianity and religion are identified. It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and express relations with it.1473
In the case of McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton 316, 431, 1819, John Marshall stated:
The power to tax involves the power to destroy.1474