John Marshall

July 28, 2014
One of the most illustrious members of the Founding generation, John Marshall attended Virginia’s ratifying convention, served in the state legislature and Congress, was a diplomat and Secretary of State, and ultimately became the nation’s most influential Chief Justice. He was also among the best-liked men of his time. But what Unger (Mr. President), a biographer of John Quincy Adams, Noah Webster, and George Washington among others, delivers is more hagiography than biography. To boot, he takes sides in the political conflicts of the early nation. Unger has it in especially for Marshall’s second cousin Thomas Jefferson. Among the “enemies of the federal government” of which he became president, Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, “abandoned the Revolution,” built an “incongruously pretentious home,” had a “mean-spirited gossip” of a daughter, may have made near “treasonous” decisions as governor, wielded “all but dictatorial powers” as president, “unleashed his political attack dogs,” and “nurtured political divisions and chaos.” While its facts are straight, the book’s interpretation is extreme and offers nothing revelatory. Moreover, it lacks the authority of recent studies of Marshall by R. Kent Newmyer and Jean Edward Smith. Maps & illus.