What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States - Hardcover

Simon, James F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684848708 ISBN 13: 9780684848709

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

Synopsis

What Kind of Nation is a riveting account of the bitter and protracted struggle between two titans of the early republic over the power of the presidency and the independence of the judiciary.

The clash between fellow Virginians (and second cousins) Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall remains the most decisive confrontation between a president and a chief justice in American history. Fought in private as well as in full public view, their struggle defined basic constitutional relationships in the early days of the republic and resonates still in debates over the role of the federal government vis-à-vis the states and the authority of the Supreme Court to interpret laws.

Jefferson was a strong advocate of states' rights who distrusted the power of the federal government. He believed that the Constitution defined federal authority narrowly and left most governmental powers to the states. He was suspicious of the Federalist-dominated Supreme Court, whose members he viewed as partisan promoters of their political views at the expense of Jefferson's Republicans. When he became president, Jefferson attempted to correct the Court's bias by appointing Republicans to the Court. He also supported an unsuccessful impeachment of Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase.

Marshall believed in a strong federal government and was convinced that an independent judiciary offered the best protection for the Constitution and the nation. After he was appointed by Federalist President John Adams to be chief justice in 1801 (only a few weeks before Jefferson succeeded Adams), he issued one far-reaching opinion after another. Beginning with the landmark decision Marbury v. Madison in 1803, and through many cases involving states' rights, impeachment, treason, and executive privilege, Marshall established the Court as the final arbiter of the Constitution and the authoritative voice for the constitutional supremacy of the federal government over the states.

As Marshall's views prevailed, Jefferson became increasingly bitter, certain that the Court was suffocating the popular will. But Marshall's carefully reasoned rulings endowed the Court with constitutional authority even as they expanded the power of the federal government, paving the way for later Court decisions sanctioning many pivotal laws of the modern era, such as those of the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In a fascinating description of the treason trial of Jefferson's former vice president, Aaron Burr, James F. Simon shows how Marshall rebuffed President Jefferson's claim of executive privilege. That decision served as precedent for a modern Supreme Court ruling rejecting President Nixon's claim that he did not have to hand over the Watergate tapes.

More than 150 years after Jefferson's and Marshall's deaths, their words and achievements still reverberate in constitutional debate and political battle. What Kind of Nation is a dramatic rendering of a bitter struggle between two shrewd politicians and powerful statesmen that helped create a United States.

About this title

About the Author

James F. Simon is the Martin Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at New York Law School. He is the author of six previous books on American history, law, and politics, including What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States, and lives with his wife in West Nyack, New York.

Reviews

Simon (a former Time editor, now a law professor at NYU) examines the decades of conflict between the states' rights views of Thomas Jefferson and the federalist beliefs of John Marshall. In 1801, at the end of Adams's presidency, Marshall accepted the Supreme Court chief justice's position and Jefferson became the nation's third president. That set the stage for years of competition between the two philosophies of government, especially the two visions of the judiciary, represented by the principal antagonists of Simon's history. Simon deftly explains how Jefferson and Marshall maintained a faeade of civility in their public pronouncements while unleashing blistering mutual vituperation privately. Ultimately, as Simon demonstrates, Marshall prevailed. His technique was subtlety itself. In his opinion in Marbury v. Madison, Marshall gave an ostensible victory to Madison (Jefferson's Secretary of State) but reached that result by asserting the authority of the Supreme Court to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. That assertion had far-reaching implications for consolidating the federal government's power. Once the Supreme Court became the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution, the court repeatedly exercised its authority to invalidate state laws and court decisions inconsistent with the federal Constitution. Simon usefully narrows his focus to a handful of key decisions by the Marshall court, showing how the justice's concept of what kind of nation the U.S. should be progressively swept aside Jefferson's belief that state and federal governments were equal sovereigns. Simon's book illuminates the origins of a national political debate that continues today.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

In an accessible narrative focused on Republican Thomas Jefferson and Federalist John Marshall, legal historian Simon traces their political antagonism in the 1790s, which carried over to the legal field after Jefferson's election to the presidency. Outgoing President John Adams had left his successor a poisoned chalice in the form of a judiciary packed with Federalists, including Marshall as chief justice. Recounting in deep, descriptive detail the genesis of the famous case Marbury v. Madison, Simon shows Marshall's shrewdness in handling Marbury's claim on a "midnight" appointment by Adams that Jefferson refused to honor. Marshall simply dismissed the claim but staked out the Court's power of judicial review. Highlighting precedents set in other Marshall-Jefferson clashes, notably Aaron Burr's treason trial, Simon's enlivening account proves that writing about constitutional law needn't be the dry preserve of academics. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

With John Adams ever so popular right now, why not take a look at what some of his contemporaries were doing to "create a United States"?
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684848708
• ISBN 13: 9780684848709
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352