The Diplomatic And Judicial Career Of John Marshall

John Marshall (John Marshall, on September 24, 1755 - 1835 July 6th), served asSecretary of State of the Adams administration and America’s fourth chief justice. Hisideas of legal issues and the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution was a profoundimpact to the development of the judicial system of the United States, and hisconstitutional philosophy and political principles are still equally praised by the futuregenerations. However, the political activities he made before he served as the ChiefJustice, which were to be considered as a special envoy, especially he was assigned asthe ambassador to France, had been mostly ignored. During the Adams presidency ofthe United States, the relationship between the US and France had been developed into deterioration. As the diplomatic envoy ambassador to France, Marshall’sperformance lived up to expectations. The short-term diplomatic mission sufficientlyreflected the political principles and ideas he had uphold, which provides us to anexcellent perspective to deeply explore this figurant. Later, Marshall worked as asecretary of state during President Adams but also helped to deal with a lot of foreignaffairs. Even thought his serving time was too short for us to glimpse the wholepicture, we can still believe that Marshall was of enough capacity to deal with foreignaffairs. After leaving office, Marshall became Chief Justice of the fourth United States.The U.S. judicial system laid down in his term is greatly praised, but alsocontroversial. However, most of the cases made in the thirty-four years of justicecareer have a profound impact on the U.S. justice system.Two principles dominate Marshall’s political and judicial philosophy, that is, federalsupremacy and the supremacy of the Constitution. As a diplomatic envoy ambassadorto France he did not forget to maintain the sovereign rights of the United States as anindependent nation, and made full use of his own legal ideas of a strong competitive advantage to expand the interpretation of the treaty to commence via the negotiations,serious writing memorandum with France. Even though the diplomatic activitiesended in failure, it does not prevent Marshall winning the reputation in the country.Marshall continued to tap the constitutional connotation at the same time when heserved as Chief Justice, and be aware of the meaning of the Constitution itself waslimited, which should be the corresponding extension with the changing society. It isthis idea that guides him to make judgments on a variety of cases, However,Marshall’s immutable goal is to use the Supreme Court based on the constitutionalfoundation of an efficient state. It is by the continuous efforts of the Marshall, theUnited States Supreme Court developed from an obscure branch of the initial to anunshakable powerful force of the judiciary.The thesis contains four parts. The introduction is about the sources and meaning ofthis topic, as well as the summary of former academic research, the elaboration ofacademic points and definition of related conception. The text can be divided into foursections: the first section briefly introduce the family history of John Marshall anddissert this figure by a specific angle. The second section analyses the attitude ofConstitution of John Marshall which he firmly insist this new Constitution andconclude John Marshall’s views about Constitution by his appearance in VirginiaConstitution Ratification Convention. The author also analyses the excellent ability ofaddressing issues by juristic logical thoughts. The third section discourse theperformance of John Marshall’s diplomatic mission to French. President Adams sendsa diplomatic delegation to French in order to moderating the intense diplomaticrelationship between America and French. Marshall could be able to flexibly meetthese diplomatic affairs in the complicate diplomatic environment and be attributableto right judgment and profound acquaintance about the current international situation.In addition, he always holds the principle of supremacy of state sovereignty. Marshallhas enough confidence to confront the pressure from French government at all levelsand irrational requirements. In the process of this mission, Marshall writes amount ofmemorandum by his careful thinking and strong language to recording this important and meaningful diplomatic affairs. Though Marshall belongs to Federalists, he neverbe limited by the narrow awareness of partisan, instead of maintaining the wholecountry’s interests from macro perspective and completes this task in above basis. Thelast section explains four representative cases in his chief justice career. The fourcases represent judicial review, federal supremacy, contractual terms and terms oftrade. As chief justice, Marshall could see the increasing new issues with ongoingsocial changes, which needs judges could be able to make rational explanation aboutConstitution against current matters by elastic ideology rather than stiff thoughts.Only in this way can judges apply it into practical cases. This thesis generalizes theparticular merits about his diplomatic and judicial career, in order to revealing totaland solid individual image.