The Papers of John Marshall: Volume VIII

Correspondence, Papers, and Selected Judicial Opinions March 1814 — December 1819

Charles F. Hobson, Editor
Laura S. Gwilliam, Editorial Associate

Published in 1995 by the University of North Carolina Press ISBN 0-8078-2221-3

Volume VIII chronicles Marshall's life and career from 1814 through 1819. During these six years the United States successfully concluded a war with Great Britain, enjoyed an interval of commercial prosperity and political harmony, and then endured a financial panic, the beginning of an economic depression, and a breakdown of the nationalist consensus. These broad historical currents are but partly and imperfectly reflected in the documentary record of Marshall's life and career for this period. Like its two predecessors, volume VIII brings together Marshall's correspondence, assorted miscellaneous papers, and a selection of his judicial opinions. Although this volume contains more letters than were presented in Volume VII, the surviving correspondence for these years remains sparse and occupies a distinctly smaller proportion of the volume than do the judicial papers.

Among the significant prize cases decided by the Supreme Court during these years were The Venus (1814) and The Nereide (1815), both of which brought forth masterly expositions of the law of nations from Marshall. In the area of constitutional law the 1819 term of the Supreme Court stands preeminent in Marshall's chief justiceship as the occasion of three major constitutional pronouncements: Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Sturgis v. Crowninshield, and McCulloch v. Maryland.

Among the principal documents in Volume VII is a report Marshall wrote in 1812 as chairman of a state commission to survey a water and land route connecting the eastern and western regions of Virginia. This report laid the foundation for Virginia's program of internal improvements undertaken after the War of 1812. Among the opinions published in Volume VII are Fletcher v. Peck and United States v. Peters.