John Randolph of Roanoke was a Virginia politician and a champion of states’ rights, who rarely had a kind word for his political adversaries—or anyone else. But like many others, he was charmed by his fellow Virginian John Marshall despite their opposing views, observing: “No one admires more than I do the extraordinary powers of Marshall’s mind; no one respects more his amiable deportment in private life. He is the most unpretending and unassuming of men. His abilities and his virtues render him an ornament not only to Virginia, but to our nature.” Who was this remarkable statesman who would dominate the diplomacy and judiciary of the early American Republic, and fashion the Supreme Court as a coequal branch of government?

John Marshall was born a British subject in the colony of Virginia on September 24, 1755, and lived with his parents and fourteen siblings in a modest cabin. Like Abraham Lincoln, another great American statesman, he received only about a year of formal education but had a powerful and logical mind that would lead him to the study of law.

Napoleon once observed that to understand a man, you must understand what was happening in the world when he was twenty. When Marshall was twenty, the American Revolution began, and the creation and maintenance of the new Republic would define his life and career. Marshall joined the Continental Army and saw action on several occasions. When the Army was reduced to perhaps its lowest point, during the miserable winter at Valley Forge, Marshall was there and observed at first hand General George Washington’s heroic efforts to persuade the Continental Congress and the state governments to provide more generous support for the army. These experiences would help shape his worldview and jurisprudence.

Just as his cousin (and future political adversary) Thomas Jefferson had done, Marshall studied at the College of William and Mary and read law under the distinguished George Wythe. But unlike Jefferson, he believed that a strong central government was necessary for the success of the American experiment. Marshall built up a thriving law practice and served in various political offices in Virginia, and in 1788 served in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, which voted to adopt a new Constitution debated and drafted in Philadelphia to replace the inadequate Articles of Confederation.

Marshall declined several offers to serve under the new government but finally accepted a diplomatic post under President John Adams. France, America’s indispensable ally during the Revolutionary War, had become aggressive and was attacking American shipping. Along with two colleagues, he was sent to Paris to negotiate with the revolutionary government, but the revelation that their French counterparts had demanded bribes to continue negotiations—an incident that became known as the XYZ Affair—caused public outcry. Marshall’s conduct during the crisis impressed Adams, and after the Virginia lawyer served briefly in the United States Congress, the president nominated him to be Secretary of State.

Marshall service as Secretary of State was also brief; after successfully defusing tensions with France, Adams appointed him to be Chief Justice of the United States. Three other men had held the position in the decade since its creation, but the ambiguous role of the Supreme Court had led them to quit the post. None of them thought that the Court was likely to wield any real power in the American government. Marshall, who was confirmed a little over a month before the end of the Adams administration, would prove his predecessors wrong. And President Adams would later reflect, “my gift of John Marshall to the people of the United States was the proudest act of my life. There is no act of my life on which I reflect with more pleasure.”

Marshall increased the cohesiveness and power of the Supreme Court. Under his leadership, the Court pronounced its rulings in a single document, to which the majority would affix their signatures. Previously, justices had written individual opinions. The Court would have no building of its own until 1935; until then, its chambers were in the United States Capitol. But Marshall encouraged his colleagues to room together to create a stronger bond among them. And he led them gently to his point of view through the power of his personality and his unfailing sense of humor. His fellow justices revered him. Associate Justice Joseph Story observed, “I love his laugh…it is too hearty for an intriguer.”

The Marshall court would issue more than 1,000 opinions, many of them creating important precedents that quietly asserted the role of the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of Constitutional questions. Perhaps the most famous of them was Marbury vs. Madison in 1803, after which courts were empowered to strike down laws or other government actions determined to be in violation of the Constitution. As Marshall wrote in the decision, “The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.”

Marshall died on July 6, 1835, aged 79, after thirty-four years as Chief Justice, the longest such tenure in Supreme Court history. He was buried at Shockoe Cemetery in Richmond, next to his beloved wife, Mary Ambler (known as Polly) with whom he had ten children.

Today, visitors to the Supreme Court encounter a large bronze statue of a seated Marshall, sculpted by the son of Justice Story, and first unveiled in 1884. Its size and quiet dignity reflect the continuing legacy of John Marshall in the diplomatic, Constitutional, and judicial history of the United States.

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Michael F. Bishop, a writer and historian, is the former executive director of the International Churchill Society and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.