John Marshall: Definer of a Nation

"The Supreme Court had already convened for its February term; Marshall had presented his commission as chief justice and had taken his oath of office. He was forty-five years old. For the next thirty-five years he would preside as the Chief Justice of the United States. 'He hit the Constitution much as the Lord hit the chaos at a time when everything needed creating,' wrote one observer. President James A. Garfield said, 'Marshall found the Constitution paper and made it power. He found a skeleton and clothed it with flesh and blood.' The prickly John Randolph of Roanoke noted that Marshall's 'real worth was never known until he was appointed Chief Justice.'

To Marshall, more than any other person, belongs the credit for establishing the foundation of the constitutional interpretation." - Jean Edward Smith