Now Jean Edward Smith has produced a wholly satisfying modern biography that immediately establishes itself as the authoritative life. But the last serious study of Marshall's life is out of print and 80 years old. Thomas Jefferson, Marshall's lifelong antagonist (Marshall called him ''the great Lama of the mountains''), is the subject of several hundredīiographies. He was already a legend in his own time, and even the gods seemed to regret his passing: When he died in Julyġ835 and they rang the great Liberty Bell in Independence Hall in his honor, the bell cracked, never to ring again.Ī man of such stature might be expected to attract his full complement of biographers. Almost single-handedly, he transformed the Supreme Court from the weakest and most problematic branch of the Federal Government to the Olympian presence we now take for granted. More than anyone else, Marshall made the Constitution a binding contract among the American people rather than a compact among sovereign states. His hands to full stature, as to be gradually unveiled by him till it stood revealed in the harmonious perfection of the form which its framers had designed.'' As Lord Bryce put it, ''the Constitution seemed not so much to rise under

When everything needed creating.'' An essential feature of Marshall's genius, however, was to claim that he was not creating anything. ''He hit the Constitution much as the Lord hit the chaos,'' wrote one observer, ''at a time The New York Times: Book Review Search Articleīetween 18, while five Presidents came and went, Chief Justice John Marshall came and stayed.

John Marshall by Jean Edward Smith