Wilhs : Anglo-American Law 165 
Marshall delighted in sports. This gave him health. He was 
not studious, but was full of day-dreams. He studied with 
Monroe under a clergyman and later under his father. He was 
a lieutenant in militia during most of the Revolutionary War, 
and was with Washington at Valley Forge, where because of 
his bouyancy of spirit he was of invaluable assistance in keep- 
ing up the morale of the army. He began to attend law 
lectures under Wythe at William and Mary College in 1779 
until he met and married Mary Ambler. He was admitted to 
the bar in 1780; became a member of the lower house of 
Virginia in 1782; supported the Federal Constitution in 1788 
with Madison against Henry, Mason, and Grayson; argued 
the famous British debt case before the Circuit Court of the 
United States in opposition to Henry in 1796; defended the 
Jay Treaty; argued the case of Ware v. Hylton 53 before the 
Supreme Court (his only case) ; declined the attorney-general- 
ship of the United States ; accepted a mission to France with 
C. C. Pinckney and Gerry, where he snatched the laurels from 
Talleyrand; became a member of Congress, at the solicita- 
tion of Washington; accepted the office of secretary of state; 
and then became chief justice. Until near the close of his 
term he dominated all his associates upon the supreme bench. 
Unlike Mansfield he wrote long opinions, but they were lucid 
and convincing, and in them he laid the foundations of our 
government. He was neither an extreme states-rights man 
nor an extreme federalist ; he thought that the federal govern- 
ment was a federation rather than a league of states, and the 
states more than mere administrative units, and he established 
this proposition as a part of our constitutional law by holding 
that our Constitution was a constitution rather than a com- 
pact and that the nation was sovereign within its sphere the 
same as the states were within their spheres. 54 He also 
settled the supremacy of the Supreme Court, not only over the 
other branches of the federal government, 55 but over the courts 
of the states. 56 By his hand the framework of our govern- 
ment was moulded and shaped into complete form. On Con- 
stitutional questions where there were no precedents to guide 
him he was never equaled by any other judge living or dead. 
53 3 Dallas 199. 
34 McCullough v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 ; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1. 
35 Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137. 
36 Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264. 
