The Papers of John Marshall. Volume IX

The Papers of John Marshall, Volume X: Correspondence, Papers, and Selected Judicial Opinions, January 1824- April 1827. Edited by Charles F. Hobson. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Pp. xlii, 454. Illustrations. $60.00.) Volume X of the Marshall Papers begins January 1824, when Marshall is sixty-nine years old, and concludes April 1827. The volume's 177 documents comprise eight of Marshall's Supreme Court opinions, twelve circuit court opinions, 150 letters (mostly from Marshall to others), and seven papers-ranging from speeches, such as the several honoring Lafayette during his 1824-25 visits to Virginia, to the preface to A History of the Colonies-that are neither judicial papers nor correspondence. Charles F. Hobson, who assumed the editorship 1984 with Volume V, announced Volume VI that the purpose of the Marshall Papers was not to present a complete documentary record of the Marshall Court nor of the chief justice's judicial opinions. Instead, it was to present the bulk of Marshall's constitutional opinions and enough of his nonconstitutional opinions to demonstrate his jurisprudence the kinds of cases that most occupied the Court. The project also planned to publish the full record of Marshall's circuit court opinions the United States Circuit Courts for Virginia and North Carolina. When there are extant manuscript opinions, Hobson provides textual notes to allow the reader to witness Marshall as a writer with a work progress. The abundant editorial notes provide context for important parts of both Marshall's private and public life. These notes are models of clarity and precision. The 1820s were tumultuous and portentous years for both the nation and the Court. States' rights percolated through nearly every issue and policy debate and presented the Supreme Court with cases which it had to draw the line between constitutional and unconstitutional exercises of state power. These questions had already produced the landmark cases like McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) and Cohens v. Virginia (1821) that had boldly and clearly established national supremacy and precipitated congressional assaults on the Court for the remainder of the decade. By 1824, however, even the institutional integrity of the Marshall Court was disappearing as new justices began replacing veterans who had served since 1812. Smith Thompson replaced Brockholst Livingston 1824, and Robert Trimble replaced Thomas Todd 1826. These new members meant that it would be more challenging for the chief justice to muster the distinguishing unanimity of the old Marshall Court. The constitutional opinions Volume X illustrate both Marshall's nationalism and his adroit adjustment to changing context. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the most popular of Marshall's decisions, he struck down the unpopular New York steamboat monopoly while simultaneously asserting a broad national power to regulate commerce among the states. His tactic was to assert that the New York law conflicted with the federal Coasting Act of 1793; therefore, an Article VI conflict between state and national law provided the basis for the decision. It was Marshall's style to teach, to expound the Constitution at such moments even when it meant, as he wrote to Peter Du Ponceau on July 17, 1824, stretching the meaning of statutes and expressing his opinions in such general terms as to extend further than was required by the particular case to be decided (120)

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