Marshall, John
John (1755-1835), chief justice of the United States. He was a native of Virginia, of distinguished family. He was educated carefully by his parents and by private tutors. He took a short course in law at William and Mary in 1779. As a boy, he was remarkably fond of field sports, especially of pitching quoits. In later life he was a member of a quoit club of Richmond for forty years. At seventy years of age he could hurl his iron ring of two pounds with all the zest of a boy. Few could excel him.
During the Revolutionary War he held a captain's commission. As he himself said, he entered the army a Virginian and left it an American. At the close of the war he began the practice of law in Richmond. He served in the state legislature and raised his voice in favor of the ratification of the present Constitution of the United States. In 1789 he went as a special envoy to France. In 1798 he became a member of Congress. In 1800 he was made secretary of state, and in 1801 President Jefferson appointed him chief justice of the United States, a position which he held until his death.
Chief Justice Marshall was a tall, angular man, somewhat like Abraham Lincoln, not without dignity. It pleased him to dress in a plain manner, even when on the supreme bench. If he could have had his own way he would have preferred to sit in shirt sleeves. Amusing anecdotes are told of his experiences while practicing law in Virginia. At one time, while sitting in a courtroom eating cherries from his hat, he was called upon to take the place of an absent lawyer. This he calmly did, continuing his eating. The opposing counsel thought to have an easy time with so green a fellow, but was very much astonished, as was the court, when, at a later stage in the proceedings, Marshall set aside his cherries and proceeded to argue the case with an eloquence and breadth of learning that showed clearly he was a lawyer of towering ability. On another occasion, a lot of young men in an inn mistook him for an old farmer, and proceeded to guy him with a few impertinent questions. One of them asked him a question more with a view to show his own smartness than anything else. Marshall made reply in a talk of an hour or two the like of which had never been heard in the Virginia mountains. He was a just, kind man, with simple ways, absolutely honest and fearless in his opinions. He was a lawyer of prodigious learning and excellent judgment. His decisions on the supreme bench are quoted with the utmost respect, and were one of the most potent influences in giving a truly national character to the new Constitution and the government.