In Francis N. Stites' book, John Marshall, Defender of the Constitution, he tells the story of John Marshall's life by breaking up his life into different roles such as a Virginian, Lawyer, Federalist, National Hero, and as Chief of Justice. John Marshall was born in Virginia in 1755. Stites describes him as a Virginian "by birth, upbringing, disposition, and property (Stites 1)." His father, Thomas Marshall, was one of the most prominent and ambitious men of his time, and had a major impact on John. At age nineteen, John Marshall made his first impression when he joined the Fauquier County Militia as a lieutenant to fight in the American Revolution. Marshall's education included three months of law study at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. Even though his education was limited, it was better than most of the political figures of his time. Marshall obtained his license to practice law on August 28, 1780 in Fauquier County. In April 1782, Marshall was elected to the House of Delegates from Fauquier County. This job led him to his future wife, Polly Ambler, whom he married on January 3, 1783 at the age of twenty-seven. In 1788, Marshall participated in the Virginia Convention to ratify the new Federal Constitution. Marshall also served on the Committee on Courts of Justice and was elected to the Council of State by the House in 1782. He later resigned from the council and was later elected again to the House of Delegates from Fauquier County. In 1785, Marshall was admitted to practice before the Court of Appeals and chosen for a seat on Richmond's governing body, the Common Hall. Later, Marshall declined several positions including the first attorney of the United States for the District of Virginia, attorney general and the job as minister to France. In June of 1797 the relationship between France and the United States worsened. Jay's Treaty of 1795 angered France, who was at war with Britain and recognized the treaty as support of an Anglo-American alliance. Almost 300 American ships bound for British were seized by France. Marshall finally accepted a national appointment from President John Adams as one of the three representatives to France to negotiate peace. He accepted because he was concerned about the controversy. However, when Marshall and the other representatives arrived in France, the French refused to negotiate unless the United States paid massive bribes.
John Adams, the previous Federalist president, lost the Election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican. Before Jefferson took office, Adams decided to appoint as many Federalists into the Supreme court as he could, including William Marbury, all of whom needed to be commissioned in order to be officially sworn in. However, Jefferson took office before the commissions could be handed out, and he ordered his Secretary of State, James Madison, to not deliver the commissions. Marbury proceeded to ask Marshall for a writ of mandamus (found in Section 13 of the Judiciary Act), forcing Madison to issue the commissions. This dispute between Marbury and Madison sparks the famous case. The dilemma here is the differences in interpretation. Some viewed Section 13 as unconstitutional, as it added power to the Judicial Branch, disrupting checks and balances. Others saw that “Marbury had been duly appointed…[and] the writ of mandamus [was] to be an appropriate legal remedy for resolving Marbury’s dilemma”(Clinton 86). Marshall wanted to issue the...
John Adams began his career as a lawyer, and he first rose to prominence as an opponent of the Stamp Act of 1765 which deprived the American colonists of two basic rights guaranteed to all Englishmen, and which all free men deserved: rights to be taxed on only by consent and to be tried only by a jury of one?s peers. Then, he successfully defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre (1770) with only two of the eight found guilty of manslaughter believing that it was important to ensure that innocents were protected. From 1770 ? 1774, Adams served in the Massachusetts legislature and was then elected a member of the Continental Congress. He nominated Washington to be Commander-in-Chief and was part of the committee that worked to draft the Declaration of Independence.
Hamilton believed that an alliance with France at the expense of a relationship with England would have been a disaster for his economic plan. Jefferson believed that America was obligated to help France. Though, both Hamilton and Jefferson eventually agreed that neutrality was best, they did not agree on how to declare it. Hamilton wanted Washington to publicly declare that the United States would stay out of the war. Jefferson believed that congress should declare neutrality.
Adams was criticized by both parties: his own, the Federalists and the Republicans. He was also called a warmonger and an indecisive leader during wartime; along with his uncontrollable temper, he would make rash decisions without consulting his cabinet members (Gevinson). Britain and America signed the Jay’s Treaty in 1794, and it caused France to be highly unsatisfied ("Thomas Jefferson 's Monticello"). As a result in 1796, the French began to snatch or capture American merchant ships by surprise (“Milestones: 1784–1800 - Office of the Historian").However, the Foreign Minister decided to not be cooperative and instead insulted the American envoys; this incident became known as the XYZ affairs, and it, “sparked a white-hot reaction within the United States” ( “John Adams: Foreign Affairs”). President Adams requested Congress to to create a navy because the protecting American commerce was the top priority (Magill 46). Adams was in an unofficial war with France: Quasi War. Yet in the meantime, peace negotiations were also being held in France. In the Convention of 1800 or Treaty of Mortefontaine, peace was restored between America and France ("Milestones: 1784–1800 - Office of the Historian”). Adams’ goal was avoiding full scale with France, however his own party: the Federalists, supported war against France. That meant that
The Louisiana Purchase stands as an iconic event today that nearly doubled the size of America, ultimately introducing the United States as a world power. In 1762, during the Seven Years’ War, France ceded its control of the Louisiana Territory to Spain (Britannica). However, when Napoleon Bonaparte assumed control of France in 1799, France rallied as a world power once more. Bonaparte’s interest in the Louisiana Territory spiked, and he pressured Spain’s king, Charles IV to relinquish his control of the land on October 1, 1800. This was known as the Treaty of San Ildefonso (Britannica). In view of the transfer between France and Spain, president Thomas Jefferson sent Robert R. Livingston to Paris in 1801. Jefferson became worried, because
At the end of the 18th century, an undeclared war was going on between the United States and France because of the recent XYZ affair; triggering a positive reaction by Federalists like Fisher Ames to convince the authorities to make the war official. Not knowing what to do, President John Adams appointed former-President George Washington as commander of the army to hopefully resolve the issue with France through diplomacy (as was Washington's stance).
Despite the downfall of the Federalist Party in the early nineteenth century, John Marshall continued to exert a strong Federalist influence on the government, which acted as a catalyst to ignite political controversy. In the McCullough vs. Maryland trial of 1819, Marshall deemed Maryland taxing the second bank of the United States as being unconstitutional, which gave even more power to the central government. (Doc D) Majority of the American population was against his ruling and refuted it because many people believed that having a strong central government was bad because if a bad decision was made, it would have affected the entire union, whereas if there was a strong state government, a bad decision would have just hurt the state. However, this was not the only time where the economy had failed in the early 1800’s. In 1816, John Randolph addressed congress and stated that it was unjust to tax the poo...
Justice Clarence Thomas was born in June 1948 and grew up in Georgia. He graduated at Yale Law School and served as the Assistant Attorney General in Missouri, practicing law in the private sector. In 1981 he was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education one year later, Justice Thomas was appointed Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by President Ronald Reagan. By 1991 Justice Thomas was nominated by Bush to fill Thurgood Marshall’s seat on the United States Supreme Court.
On June 1st, 1812, President James Madison declared war on the British for many reasons. In his war message, Madison brought three unpardonable British acts to Congress’s attention. The first, impressment. “Thousands of American citizens, under the safeguard of public law and of their national flag, have been torn from their country and from everything dear to them,” (War Message to Congress, Paragraph 4). British Navy ships would stop American ships to search for British deserters. This often resulted in natural American citizens being apprehended and forced into the British navy. During this time, Britain was at war with Napoleon and wanted to hurt France economically. To do so, Britain tried to restrict French trade with other nations, including America. “Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste our neutral trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to...
Thurgood Marshall utilized the judiciary system to advocate equality for African Americans during the Civil Right movement. He fought fearlessly to extend equality to the most disadvantaged citizen. Also, Thurgood was invited to visit Kenya and England to help draft a constitution for the soon to be republic of Kenya which included safety measures for the rights of the white minority. Furthermore, when Marshall was appointed as the 96th judge of the Supreme Court, he became the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court. While it is true that Justice Marshall was a Civil Right advocate, he did supported the Vietnam War. On August 4, 1973, the case Schlesinger v. Holtzman, Justice Marshall declined to order the military to stop bombing
Hobson, Charles F. The Great Chief Justice, John Marshall And the Rule Of Law. University Press Of Kansas: Wison Garey McWilliams & Lance Banning, 1996.
and tyranny. Henry was born on May 29th, 1736 in Studley, Virginia. His schooling was
His father wanted him to study to become a minister but John desired to find another calling. He enjoyed rhetoric and public speaking and thought about being a lawyer but he did not think he was capable. He graduated from Harvard in 1755 with a BA degree. He started working as a school teacher in Worcester, Massachusetts. He then began studying law under James Putman after Putman took Adams to court sessions. He studied law at night and during the day he would teach. He was admitted into the bar at Braintree in 1758 and later opened h...
Women’s equality has made huge advancements in the United States in the past decade. One of the most influential persons to the movement has been a woman named Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ruth faced gender discrimination many times throughout her career and worked hard to ensure that discrimination based on a person’s gender would be eliminated for future generations. Ginsburg not only worked to fight for women’s equality but fought for the rights of men, as well, in order to show that equality was a human right’s issue and not just a problem that women faced. Though she faced hardships and discrimination, Ruth never stopped working and thanks to her equality is a much closer reality than it was fifty years ago. When Ruth first started her journey in law, women were practically unheard of as lawyers; now three women sit on the bench of the highest court in the nation.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was born on March 11, 1936 in Trenton, New Jersey to a Sicilian immigrant father and an Italian-American mother and was raised in Queens. He attended Catholic schools in New York City as a child and teen. Scalia then attended Georgetown University, spending his junior year at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, and graduated at the top of his class with an A.B. (Sorry, I don’t know what that means) in 1957. He also attended Harvard, serving as the editor for Law Review. Scalia graduated from Harvard in 1960. On September 10, 1960, Scalia married Maureen McCarthy, and the two went to go live in Cleveland, Ohio. While in Cleveland, Scalia was admitted to the Ohio Bar and worked for the law firm of Jones, Day, Cockley, and Reavis until 1967. The Scalias then moved to Virginia, and he was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1970. While In Virginia, Scalia taught law at the Virginia Law School until 1974. In 1971, Scalia became General Counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy for the White House, and from 1972 to 1974, he was the chairman of the Administrative Conference of the US. Scalia was then appointed the assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel for the Department of Justice. In 1977, Scalia returned to teaching after 6 months serving as the resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in DC. Him and his family picked up and moved again to Chicago, Illinois. While In Chicago, Scalia taught at the University of Chicago’s law school (he was also a visiting professor of law at his alma mater, Georgetown University, and also at Stanford University during that time) until President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in 1982. Scalia took his oath of office on August 17 of that year. Four years after Scalia began working at the Court of Appeals, President Reagan then chose him to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed Reagan’s appointment on September 17, and Scalia took his oath of office on the 26th of that month. In the year 2000, Scalia has made decisions in two Supreme Court cases, Troxel vs. Granville and California Democratic Party vs. Jones. I will discuss the Troxel vs. Granville case. Troxel vs. Granville is in violation of "The Washington Rev.