John Marshall

John Marshall was born on September 24, 1755, near Germantown (now Midland) in Fauquier County, VirginiaVirginiaVirginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state whose capital is Richmond. It entered the Union on June 25, 1788, as the 10th state, and had a population of 8,631,393 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, the eldest of 15 children. His father, Thomas Marshall, was a sheriff, justice of the peace and land surveyor; his mother, Mary Keith Marshall, was a clergyman’s daughter.⁠[1][2]

His schooling came mainly from his parents, about a year with a visiting clergyman and a few months at an academy in Westmoreland County.⁠[1]

In 1775 Marshall served as a lieutenant with his father in Virginia’s Culpeper Minutemen, and in 1776 he joined the Continental Army’s 3rd Regiment, serving under George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington (1732–1799) was the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. Earlier he commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787.Open the full entry for three years, spending the winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge and rising to captain. He returned to Virginia in 1779 when his troops’ term expired and was discharged in 1781.⁠[1][3][4]

In the spring and summer of 1780 Marshall attended a brief course of law lectures by George Wythe at the College of William & Mary, and he was licensed to practice law in August 1780.⁠[5][1]

Marshall was first elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1782, representing Fauquier (1782 and 1784–85) and later Henrico (1787–88) and the city of Richmond (1789–91 and 1795–97). From 1782 to 1784 he also sat on Virginia’s Council of State.⁠[6][3][4]

In June 1788 Marshall attended the Virginia ratifying convention as a delegate from Henrico County and voted to ratify the Constitution; the State Department’s Office of the Historian describes him as an influential member of that convention.⁠[6][4]

From mid-October 1794 to late March 1795 he served as acting attorney general of Virginia in the absence of James Innes. He declined George Washington’s offers of the post of U.S. attorney for Virginia and, in 1795, of U.S. attorney general, and also declined a seat on the Supreme Court succeeding James Wilson.⁠[3][1]

In 1797 President John AdamsJohn AdamsJohn Adams (1735–1826) was the first vice president (1789–1797) and the second president (1797–1801) of the United States. Earlier he served in the Continental Congress, was a signer of the Treaty of Paris and became the first American minister to Great Britain.Open the full entry appointed Marshall, with Elbridge Gerry and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, as envoys to negotiate with the French foreign minister Talleyrand, and Marshall resigned his seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. The failed mission led to the XYZ Affair and the Quasi-War with France. The Office of the Historian judges that his conduct and reporting turned the failure into a personal triumph that raised his reputation at home.⁠[4][7][3]

Marshall became the Federalist leader in Virginia and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Federalist, serving from 1799 to 1800.⁠[4][1][6]

Marshall declined the post of secretary of war in May 1800. On May 12, the day John Adams dismissed Timothy Pickering, Adams nominated Marshall as Secretary of State, and the Senate confirmed him the next day; he entered on duty on June 6, his appointment ended on February 4, 1801, and he then acted as Secretary of State ad interim, while Chief Justice, until March 4, 1801. He oversaw the collection of local results of the 1800 census, which his successor, James MadisonJames MadisonJames Madison (1751–1836) was the fourth president of the United States, serving from 1809 to 1817. He helped frame the Constitution, co-wrote The Federalist and guided the Bill of Rights through Congress, and earlier served as a U.S. representative and secretary of state.Open the full entry, compiled and certified.⁠[1][4][2]

The Office of the Historian’s essay judges that Marshall was less partisan and more loyal to Adams than Pickering, defining the Secretary of State as the President’s political subordinate; that he reasserted nonalignment with the European powers, splitting with Federalists such as Alexander HamiltonAlexander HamiltonAlexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757–1804) was an American statesman, lawyer, and the first Secretary of the Treasury. He took part in founding the Bank of New York, co-wrote The Federalist Papers with James Madison and John Jay, and promoted policies on public credit, a national bank, and the development of manufacturing. In 1804, he died after being wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr.Open the full entry; and that he backed the Convention of 1800, which ended the undeclared naval war with France.⁠[4]

After the 1800 election the sitting Chief Justice resigned for health reasons and former Chief Justice John JayJohn JayJohn Jay (1745–1829) was an American Founding Father, lawyer and diplomat who presided over the Continental Congress, served as secretary of foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation, helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, became the first Chief Justice of the United States and later served as governor of New York.Open the full entry declined to return, so in January 1801 John Adams nominated his Secretary of State, Marshall, as Chief Justice; the Senate confirmed him on January 27. His commission was dated January 31, 1801, and on February 4 he took his oaths in the temporary courtroom in the unfinished U.S. Capitol.⁠[8][1][9]

On March 2, 1801, the day before his presidency ended, John Adams nominated William Marbury as a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia, and the Senate approved him the next day. Adams signed the commission and Marshall, still Secretary of State, affixed the seal, but it was not delivered before Marshall left office; his brother James returned several commissions, including Marbury’s. At Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. He had earlier been governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state and vice president.Open the full entry’s direction, the new Secretary of State, James Madison, refused delivery, and Marbury asked the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus.⁠[8][10]

On February 24, 1803, Marshall wrote for a unanimous Court that Marbury was entitled to his commission but that the provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 authorizing the Court to issue such writs in original suits exceeded its original jurisdiction under Article III and was therefore unconstitutional, so the writ could not issue. “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is,” the opinion declared. The National Archives notes that this was the first time the Court declared a federal law unconstitutional, and that it did not do so again until Dred Scott in 1857.⁠[8][10]

Other major decisions of his tenure included Fletcher v. Peck (1810), Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private institution of higher education in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded by Eleazar Wheelock, it received a royal charter on December 13, 1769. The 1819 Supreme Court ruling in Dartmouth College v. Woodward preserved its private status. Alongside undergraduate liberal arts education, Dartmouth includes the Geisel, Thayer, Tuck and Guarini schools. It enrolled 7,273 students in fall 2025 and held a $9 billion endowment at June 30, 2025. Sian Leah Beilock, in office since June 2023, remained president as of October 2026.Open the full entry v. Woodward (1819), McCulloch v. MarylandMarylandMaryland is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States, deeply indented by Chesapeake Bay and bordered by Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, the District of Columbia and West Virginia; its capital is Annapolis and its largest city is Baltimore. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on April 28, 1788, as the seventh state to do so, and had a population of 6,177,224 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry (1819), Cohens v. Virginia (1821) and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824). McCulloch v. Maryland upheld Congress’s power to create the Bank of the United States and barred the states from taxing federal instruments.⁠[7][1]

In 1829–30 Marshall served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention.⁠[6][3]

Marshall died in Philadelphia on July 6, 1835, at the age of 79, after 34 years as Chief Justice. He was buried in Richmond’s Shockoe Hill Cemetery beside his wife, near his home.⁠[1][7][11]

On January 3, 1783, Marshall married Mary Willis Ambler, known as Polly, at the home of her cousin John Ambler. Polly was born on March 18, 1766, to Jacquelin Ambler and Rebecca Burwell Ambler. The couple had ten children, six of whom survived to adulthood.⁠[7][12]

Marshall built a house at Ninth and Marshall Streets in Richmond in 1788–1790, and the family moved in in 1790; Polly lived there for more than 40 years and died on December 25, 1831.⁠[7][12]

The Richmond house remained with Marshall’s descendants until 1909, when the city of Richmond acquired it; in 1911 its care passed to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), which opened it as a museum. As of November 2026, the John Marshall House is one of Preservation Virginia’s six historic sites. Marshall was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1900.⁠[7][13][1]

National Park Service teaching materials count 519 opinions written by Marshall out of the 1,100 issued during his tenure, with eight dissents. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry calls him perhaps the Supreme Court’s most influential chief justice and the principal founder of the American system of constitutional law.⁠[7][1]

Preservation Virginia (John Marshall House): Official website: https://preservationvirginia.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]

Supreme Court of the United States: Official website: https://www.supremecourt.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]

Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: Official website: https://history.state.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[15]